Causality offers the first comprehensive coverage of causal analysis in many sciences, including recent advances using graphical methods. Pearl presents a unified account of the probabilistic, manipulative, counterfactual and structural approaches to causation, and devises simple mathematical tools for analyzing the relationships between causal connections, statistical associations, actions and observations. The book will open the way for including causal analysis in the standard curriculum of statistics, artificial intelligence, business, epidemiology, social science and economics.

In this classic, David Bohm was the first to offer us his causal interpretation of the quantum theory. _Causality and Chance in Modern Physics_ continues to make possible further insight into the meaning of the quantum theory and to suggest ways of extending the theory into new directions.

Scientific and philosophical literature on causality has become highly specialised. It is hard to find suitable access points for students, young researchers, or professionals outside this domain. This book provides a guide to the complex literature, explains the scientific problems of causality and the philosophical tools needed to address them.

We argue that the health sciences make causal claims on the basis of evidence both of physical mechanisms, and of probabilistic dependencies. Consequently, an analysis of causality solely in terms of physical mechanisms or solely in terms of probabilistic relationships, does not do justice to the causal claims of these sciences. Yet there seems to be a single relation of cause in these sciences - pluralism about causality will not do either. Instead, we maintain, the health sciences require (...) a theory of causality that unifies its mechanistic and probabilistic aspects. We argue that the epistemic theory of causality provides the required unification. (shrink)

Process theories of causality seek to explicate causality as a property of individual causal processes. This paper examines the capacity of such theories to account for the asymmetry of causation. Three types of theories of asymmetry are discussed; the subjective, the temporal, and the physical, the third of these being the preferred approach. Asymmetric features of the world, namely the entropic and Kaon arrows, are considered as possible sources of causal asymmetry and a physical theory of asymmetry is (...) subsequently developed with special reference to the questions of objectivity and backwards causation. (shrink)

Philosophers of mind have long been interested in the relation between two ideas: that causality plays an essential role in our understanding of the mental; and that we can gain an understanding of belief and desire by considering the ascription of attitudes to people on the basis of what they say and do. Many have thought that those ideas are incompatible. William Child argues that there is in fact no tension between them, and that we should accept both. He (...) shows how we can have a causal understanding of the mental without having to see attitudes and experiences as internal, causally interacting entities and he defends this view against influential objections. The book offers detailed discussions of many of Donald Davidson's contributions to the philosophy of mind, and also considers the work of Dennett, Anscombe, McDowell, and Rorty, among others. Issues discussed include: the nature of intentional phenomena; causal explanation; the character of visual experience; psychological explanation; and the causal relevance of mental properties. (shrink)

This paper discusses several distinct process theories of causality offered in recent years by Phil Dowe and me. It addresses problems concerning the explication of causal process, causal interaction, and causal transmission, whether given in terms of transmission of marks, transmission of invariant or conserved quantities, or mere possession of conserved quantities. Renouncing the mark-transmission and invariant quantity criteria, I accept a conserved quantity theory similar to Dowe's--differing basically with respect to causal transmission. This paper also responds to several (...) fundamental constructive criticisms contained in Christopher Hitchcock's discussion of both the mark-transmission and the conserved quantity theories. (shrink)

According to behavioural theories deriving from pragmatism, gestalt psychology, existentialism, and ecopsychology, knowledge about the world is gained by intentional action followed by learning. In terms of the neurodynamics described here, if the intending of an act comes to awareness through reafference, it is perceived as a cause. If the consequences of an act come to awareness through proprioception and exteroception, they are perceived as an effect. A sequence of such states of awareness comprises consciousness, which can grow in complexity (...) to include self-awareness. Intentional acts do not require awareness, whereas voluntary acts require self-awareness. Awareness of the action/perception cycle provides the cognitive metaphor of linear causality as an agency. Humans apply this metaphor to objects and events in the world to predict and control them, and to assign social responsibility. Thus, linear causality is the bedrock of technology and social contracts. Complex material systems with distributed non-linear feedback, such as brains and their neural and behavioural activities, cannot be explained by linear causality. They can be said to operate by circular causality without agency. The nature of self-control is described by breaking the circle into a forward limb, the intentional self, and a feedback limb, awareness of the self and its actions. The two limbs are realized through hierarchically stratified kinds of neural activity. Intentional acts are produced by the self-organized microscopic neural activity of cortical and subcortical components in the brain. Awareness supervenes as a macroscopic ordering state, that defers action until the self-organizing microscopic process has reached closure in reflective prediction. Agency, which is removed from the causal hierarchy by the appeal to circularity, re-appears as a metaphor by which events in the world are anthropomorphized, making them appear subject to human control. (shrink)

This article contains a survey of recent debates in the philosophy of photography, focusing on aesthetic and epistemic issues in particular. Starting from widespread notions about automatism, causality and realism in the theory of photography, the authors ask whether the prima facie tension between the epistemic and aesthetic embodied in oppositions such as automaticism and agency, causality and intentionality, realism and fictional competence is more than apparent. In this context, the article discusses recent work by Roger Scruton, Dominic (...) Lopes, Kendall Walton, Gregory Currie, Jonathan Cohen and Aaron Meskin, Noël Carroll, and Patrick Maynard in some detail. Specific topics addressed include: aesthetic scepticism, transparency, imagination, perception, information, representation and depiction. (shrink)

I IT is often declared or evidently assumed that causality is some kind of necessary connexion, or alternatively, that being caused is — non-trivially ...

Why is understanding causation so important in philosophy and the sciences? Should causation be defined in terms of probability? Whilst causation plays a major role in theories and concepts of medicine, little attempt has been made to connect causation and probability with medicine itself. Causality, Probability, and Medicine is one of the first books to apply philosophical reasoning about causality to important topics and debates in medicine. Donald Gillies provides a thorough introduction to and assessment of competing theories (...) of causality in philosophy, including action-related theories, causality and mechanisms, and causality and probability. Throughout the book he applies them to important discoveries and theories within medicine, such as germ theory; tuberculosis and cholera; smoking and heart disease; the first ever randomized controlled trial designed to test the treatment of tuberculosis; the growing area of philosophy of evidence-based medicine; and philosophy of epidemiology. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers in philosophy of science and philosophy of medicine, as well as those working in medicine, nursing and related health disciplines where a working knowledge of causality and probability is required. (shrink)

"I regard it as a truly seminal work in this field." — Professor William A. Wallace, author of Causality and Scientific Explanation. Non-technical and clearly written, this book focuses on the place of the casual principle in modern science. The author defines the terminology, describes various formulations, examines the two primary critiques of causality, and more.

Applied Evolutionary Epistemology is a scientific-philosophical theory that defines evolution as the set of phenomena whereby units evolve at levels of ontological hierarchies by mechanisms and processes. This theory also provides a methodology to study evolution, namely, studying evolution involves identifying the units that evolve, the levels at which they evolve, and the mechanisms and processes whereby they evolve. Identifying units and levels of evolution in turn requires the development of ontological hierarchy theories, and examining mechanisms and processes necessitates theorizing (...) about causality. Together, hierarchy and causality theories explain how biorealities form and diversify with time. This paper analyzes how Applied EE redefines both hierarchy and causality theories in the light of the recent explosion of network approaches to causal reasoning associated with studies on reticulate and macroevolution. Causality theories have often been framed from within a rigid, ladder-like hierarchy theory where the rungs of the ladder represent the different levels, and the elements on the rungs represent the evolving units. Causality then is either defined reductionistically as an upward movement along the strands of a singular hierarchy, or holistically as a downward movement along that same hierarchy. Upward causation theories thereby analyze causal processes in time, i.e. over the course of natural history or phylogenetically, as Darwin and the founders of the Modern Synthesis intended. Downward causation theories analyze causal processes in space, ontogenetically or ecologically, as the current eco-evo-devo schools are evidencing. This work demonstrates how macroevolution and reticulate evolution theories add to the complexity by examining reticulate causal processes in space–time, and the interactional hierarchies that such studies bring forth introduce a new form of causation that is here called reticulate causation. Reticulate causation occurs between units and levels belonging to different as well as to the same ontological hierarchies. This article concludes that beyond recognizing the existence of multiple units, levels, and mechanisms or processes of evolution, also the existence of multiple kinds of evolutionary causation as well as the existence of multiple evolutionary hierarchies needs to be acknowledged. This furthermore implies that evolution is a pluralistic process divisible into different kinds. (shrink)

John Dupré (1984) has recently criticized the theory of probabilistic causality developed by, among others, Good (1961-62), Suppes (1970), Cartwright (1979), and Skyrms (1980). He argues that there is a tension or incompatibility between one of its central requirements for the presence of a causal connection, on the one hand, and a feature of the theory pointed out by Elliott Sober and me (1983), on the other. He also argues that the requirement just alluded to should be given up. (...) I defend the theory against Dupré's criticisms and conclude with comments on Dupré's appraisal of the bearing of his arguments on the nature of probabilistic causal laws. (shrink)

David Hume and other philosophers doubt that causality can be perceived directly. Instead, observers become aware of it through inference based on the perception of the two events constituting cause and effect of the causal relation. However, Hume and the other philosophers primarily consider causal relations in which one object triggers a motion or change in another. In this paper, I will argue against Hume’s assumption by distinguishing a kind of causal relations in which an agent is controlling the (...) motion or change of an object. I will call this kind of causal relations ‘causation-as-control’. In instances of causation-as-control, the observer does not become aware of the causality through inference based on the perception of two events (cause and effect). Rather, she perceives the two events directly and without further inference as cause and effect of a causal relation, and, therefore, the causality at work. (shrink)

The relationship between traumatic experiences and subsequent distress is not well understood, and little research focuses on the lived experience of psychological trauma. I draw on Louis Sass’s phenomenological taxonomy to address this lacuna. I present his differentiation between relations of phenomenological causality and implication and demonstrate that his taxonomy can be applied to experiences of trauma. Relations of phenomenological causality and implication can be identified in the genesis and constitution of post-traumatic distress. My adaptation of Sass’s taxonomy (...) will furthermore offer an extension and development of his account, applying it to the study of post-traumatic experiences and elaborating it in the process. I shall demonstrate that whether experiences occur synchronically or diachronically is not essential to their categorization in terms of phenomenological implication and causality, respectively. I will show that an alteration in perception or behavior post trauma might temporally succeed the traumatizing event while, at the same time, being implied in the experience of the event. Thereby, I demonstrate how phenomenology may contribute to a detailed understanding of experiences of trauma. Scrutiny of traumatic experiences furthermore promises to contribute to the philosophical discourse on causality, implication, and temporal experience. (shrink)

Many analytic philosophers of mind take for granted a certain conception of causality. Assumptions deriving from that conception are in place when they problematize what they call mental causation or argue for physicalism in respect of the mental. I claim that a different conception of causality is needed for understanding many ordinary causal truths about things which act, including truths about human, minded beings — sc. rational beings who lead lives.

In this thesis, I give a metascientific account of causality in medicine. I begin with two historical cases of causal discovery. These are the discovery of the causation of Burkitt’s lymphoma by the Epstein-Barr virus, and of the various viral causes suggested for cervical cancer. These historical cases then support a philosophical discussion of causality in medicine. This begins with an introduction to the Russo- Williamson thesis (RWT), and discussion of a range of counter-arguments against it. Despite these, (...) I argue that the RWT is historically workable, given a small number of modifications. I then expand Russo and Williamson’s account. I first develop their suggestion that causal relationships in medicine require some kind of evidence of mechanism. I begin with a number of accounts of mechanisms and produce a range of consensus features of them. I then develop this consensus position by reference to the two historical case studies with an eye to their operational competence. In particular, I suggest that it is mechanistic models and their representations which we are concerned with in medicine, rather than the mechanism as it exists in the world. -/- I then employ these mechanistic models to give an account of the sorts of evidence used in formulating and evaluating causal claims. Again, I use the two human viral oncogenesis cases to give this account. I characterise and distinguish evidence of mechanism from evidence of difference-making, and relate this to mechanistic models. I then suggest the relationship between types of evidence presents us with a means of tackling the reference-class problem. This sets the scene for the final chapter. Here, I suggest the manner in which these two different classes of evidence become integrated is also reflected in the way that developing research programmes change as their associated causal claims develop. (shrink)

In the philosophical tradition, the notions of determinism and causality are strongly linked: it is assumed that in a world of deterministic laws, causality may be said to reign supreme; and in any world where the causality is strong enough, determinism must hold. I will show that these alleged linkages are based on mistakes, and in fact get things almost completely wrong. In a deterministic world that is anything like ours, there is no room for genuine causation. (...) Though there may be stable enough macro-level regularities to serve the purposes of human agents, the sense of “causality” that can be maintained is one that will at best satisfy Humeans and pragmatists, not causal fundamentalists. (shrink)

The idea that causation can be reduced to transmission of an amount of some conserved quantity between events is spelled out and defended against important objections. Transmission is understood as a symmetrical relation of copresence in two distinct events. The actual asymmetry of causality has its origin in the asymmetrical character of certain irreversible physical processes and then spreads through the causal net. This conception is compatible with the possibility of backwards causation and with a causal theory of time. (...) Genidentity, the persistence of concrete objects, can be given an explanation in causal terms. The transmission theory is shown to escape difficulties faced by two important alternative theories of causation: Salmon's (1984) Mark Transmission Theory and Dowe's (1992a) Conserved Quantities Theory. (shrink)

The Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suarez was an eminent philosopher and theologian whose _Disputationes Metaphysicae_ was first published in Spain in 1597 and was widely studied throughout Europe during the seventeenth century. The _Disputationes Metaphysicae_ had a great influence on the development of early modern philosophy and on such well-known figures as Descartes and Leibniz. This is the first time that Disputations 17, 18, and 19 have been translated into English. The _Metaphysical Disputations_ provide an excellent philosophical introduction to the medieval (...) Aristotelian discussion of efficient causality. The work constitutes a synthesis of monumental proportions: problematic issues are lucidly delineated and the various arguments are laid out in depth. Disputations 17, 18, and 19 deal explicitly with such issues as the nature of causality, the types of efficient causes, the prerequisites for causal action, causal contingency, human free choice, and chance. (shrink)

It is claimed that the `problem of the arrow of time in classical dynamics' has been solved. Since all classical particles have a self-field (gravitational and in some cases also electromagnetic), their dynamics must include self-interaction. This fact and the observation that the domain of validity of classical physics is restricted to distances not less than of the order of a Compton wavelength (thus excluding point particles), leads to the conclusion that the fundamental classical equations of motion are not invariant (...) under time reversal: retarded self-interactions lead to different equations than advanced ones. Since causality (the time order of cause and effect) requires retarded rather than advanced self-interaction, it is causality which is ultimately responsible for the arrow of time. Classical motions described by equations with advanced self-interactions differ from retarded ones and do not occur in nature. (shrink)

The article presents the question of understanding divine causality and its analogical character in the context of Thomas Aquinas’s teaching on Divine Providence. Analyzing Aquinas’s texts concerning the relation of God’s action towards nature and its activities it is necessary to emphasize the proper understanding of mutual relations between secondary causes and the primary cause which are not on the same level. Influenced by the reflection of M. Dodds and I Silva, the author of the article refers to Aquinas’s (...) biblical commentaries which have not been discussed so far from the perspective of the character of God’s action. In the final part of the article, metaphors used by Thomas in reference to the relation of God towards the world will be presented. (shrink)

Leibniz is famously committed to the following three metaphysical claims concerning causality.

Content externalism, as defended by Hilary Putnam, Tyler Burge and several others, is the thesis that the content of our thoughts at a given moment is not uniquely determined by our internal states at that moment. In its causalist version, it has often been presented as a deep revolution in philosophy of mind. Yet a number of medievalists have recently stressed the presence of significant externalist tendencies in late-medieval nominalism, especially in William of Ockham. Now this interpretation has been cleverly (...) challenged in the case of Ockham by Susan Brower-Toland in 2007, with arguments focusing upon Ockham’s theory of intuitive cognition . The present paper is a reply to this challenge. I first summarize the case for seeing Ockham’s theory of intuitive cognition as a causal and externalist approach, and then critically review Brower-Toland’s arguments against it. The whole discussion, as it turns out, sheds new light upon Ockham’s conception of causality and natural order. (shrink)

Recently, it has been argued that the use of Big Data transforms the sciences, making data-driven research possible and studying causality redundant. In this paper, I focus on the claim on causal knowledge by examining the Big Data project EXPOsOMICS, whose research is funded by the European Commission and considered capable of improving our understanding of the relation between exposure and disease. While EXPOsOMICS may seem the perfect exemplification of the data-driven view, I show how causal knowledge is necessary (...) for the project, both as a source for handling complexity and as an output for meeting the project’s goals. Consequently, I argue that data-driven claims about causality are fundamentally flawed and causal knowledge should be considered a necessary aspect of Big Data science. In addition, I present the consequences of this result on other data-driven claims, concerning the role of theoretical considerations. I argue that the importance of causal knowledge and other kinds of theoretical engagement in EXPOsOMICS undermine theory-free accounts and suggest alternative ways of framing science based on Big Data. (shrink)

Two distinguished philosophers present opposing views on the questions of howthe objects of consciousness are perceived. (Philosophy).