In this entry, the central issues are these: 1. Is the concept of causation basic and unanalyzable, or, on the contrary, does it stand in need of analysis? 2. If it does need to be analyzed, how can this be done? Many different answers have been offered to these questions. But the various approaches can be divided up into four general types, which I shall refer to as direct realism, Humean reductionism, non-Humean reductionism, and indirect, or theoretical-term, realism. (...) This fourfold division, in turn, rests upon the following three distinctions: first, that between reductionism and realism; second, that between Humean and non-Humean states of affairs; and, third, that between states that are immediately observable and those that are not. Given those distinctions, I shall discuss what can be said for and against the four general approaches to causation mentioned above. (shrink)

Reductionism remains the dominant philosophical framework of modern science. Within reductionism, the universe is conceived as a probabilistic and deterministic system guided solely by the laws of physics and mathematics. Under the guidance of reductionist thought, the development of the modern atomic theory and quantum mechanics has drastically changed science, medicine, and philosophy. In particular, the standard model of particle physics remains the crowning achievement of over three hundred years of reductionist thought in both physics and chemistry. Yet (...) developments within chemistry suggest a new paradigm is required to overcome the limitations of reductionism and provide chemists a more fruitful model. This article will argue that a version of relational ontology provides an avenue for elucidating and predicting chemical and atomic phenomena. In relational ontology, the ontological status of an enduring entity in any moment is viewed as a composite of its own inherited properties and the influences of other entities, especially those closely related to it within a system. This view encompasses the causal aspects of the world without denying its dynamic and creative nature while providing a richer understanding of chemistry and other scientific fields. (shrink)

This chapter will argue that the criminal law is most compatible with a specific theory regarding the mind/body relationship: non-eliminative reductionism. Criminal responsibility rests upon mental causation: a defendant is found criminally responsible for an act where she possesses certain culpable mental states (mens rea under the law) that are causally related to criminal harm. If we assume the widely accepted position of ontological physicalism, which holds that only one sort of thing exists in the world – physical stuff (...) – non-eliminative reductive physicalism about the mind offers the most plausible account of the full-bodied mental causation criminal responsibility requires. Other theories of the mind/body relationship, including elminativism and non-reductive physicalism, threaten criminal responsibility because they do not offer satisfactory accounts of mental causation. Eliminativism, as the name implies, eliminates the mental or is skeptical that it can do the causal work necessary to responsibility; and non-reductive theories disconnect the mental from the physical/casual world such that the mental can no longer have reliable causal effects. (shrink)

Many philosophers now regard causal approaches to explanation as highly promising, even in physics. This is due in large part to James Woodward's influential argument that a wide variety of scientific explanations are causal, based on his interventionist approach to causation. This article argues that some derivations describing causal relations and satisfying Woodward's criteria for causal explanation fail to be explanatory. Further, causal relations are unnecessary for a range of explanations, widespread in (...) physics, involving highly idealized models. These constitute significant limitations on the scope of causal explanation. We have good reason to doubt that causal explanation is as widespread or important in physics as Woodward and other proponents maintain. (shrink)

Extending the ideas from (Hofer-Szabó and Rédei [2006]), we introduce the notion of causal up-to-n-closedness of probability spaces. A probability space is said to be causally up-to-n-closed with respect to a relation of independence R_ind iff for any pair of correlated events belonging to R_ind the space provides a common cause or a common cause system of size at most n. We prove that a finite classical probability space is causally up-to-3-closed w.r.t. the relation of logical independence iff its (...) probability measure is constant on the set of atoms of non-0 probability. (The latter condition is a weakening of the notion of measure uniformity.) Other independence relations are also considered. (shrink)

We are used to regarding actions and other events, such as Brutus’ stabbing of Caesar or the sinking of the Titanic, as occupying intervals of some underlying linearly ordered temporal dimension. This attitude is so natural and compelling that one is tempted to disregard the obvious difference between time periods and actual happenings in favor of the former: events become mere “intervals cum description”.1 On the other hand, in ordinary circumstances the point of talking about time is to talk about (...) what actually happens or might happen at some time or another. We talk about ‘now’ and ‘then’ in an effort to put some order in our description of what goes on. And since different events seem to overlap in so many different ways, a full account of their temporal relations seems to run afoul of a reductionist strategy. This raises two philosophical questions. The first is whether we can actually go beyond time, as it were, i.e., whether we can take events as bona fide entities and deal with them directly, just as we can deal with spatial entities such as physical bodies or masses without confining ourselves to their spatial representations. This is a controversial issue (though probably not as controversial as it used to be), and ties in with a number of unsettled problems concerning, e.g., the structure of causality or the definition of adequate identity and individuation criteria for events. 2 The second question is whether we can perhaps do without time, i.e., whether we can dispense with time points or intervals as an independent ontological category and focus only on actual or potential happenings, in opposition to the form of reductionism mentioned above—in short, whether we can account for the temporal dimension in terms of suitable relations among events. This is also a highly controversial issue, and relates to the classical dispute concerning relational vs. absolutist conceptions of (space and) time.3 It is this second question that we intend to focus on here.. (shrink)

Different approaches to causation often diverge very significantly on ontological issues, in the case of both causal laws, and causal relations between states of affairs. This article sets out the main alternatives with regard to each. Causal concepts have surely been present from the time that language began, since the vast majority of action verbs involve the idea of causally affecting something. Thus, in the case of transitive verbs describing physical actions, there is the idea (...) of causally affecting something external to one — one finds food, builds a shelter, sows seed, catches fish, and so on — while in the case of intransitive verbs describing physical actions, it is very plausible that they involve the idea of causally affecting one's own body — as one walks, runs, jumps, hunts, and so on. (shrink)

Abraham’s Dilemma is the conjunction of three jointly inconsistent propositions: God’s commands are never morally wrong, God has commanded Abraham to kill his innocent son, and killing innocent people is morally wrong. Drawing on an overlooked point from the Qur’an regarding the content of the command as well as a conceptual analysis of intentional action, this paper proposes a novel solution to the dilemma by discarding proposition in a new way. Current approaches to rejecting proposition tend to appeal to epistemic (...) failure on the side of Abraham. In my approach, which draws on the so-called accordion effect in intentional action, God’s command is interpreted in such a way that God has not commanded Abraham to kill his son nor has Abraham tried to do so, although the challenging and difficult nature of the test and thus Abraham’s status as the ‘father of faith’ are retained. (shrink)

The authors survey some debates about the nature and structure of physical theories and about the connections between our physical theories and naturalized metaphysics. The discussion is organized around an “ideal view” of physical theories and criticisms that can be raised against it. This view includes controversial commitments regarding the best analysis of physical modalities and intertheory relations. The authors consider the case in favor of taking laws as the primary modal notion, discussing objections related to alleged violations of (...) the laws, the apparent need to appeal to causality, and the status of probability. The “ideal view” includes a commitment that fundamental physical theories are explanatorily sufficient. The authors discuss several challenges to recovering the manifest image from fundamental physics, along with a distinct challenge to reductionism based on acknowledging the contributions of less fundamental theories in physical explanations. (shrink)

Armstrong holds that a law of nature is a certain sort of structural universal which, in turn, fixes causal relations between particular states of affairs. His claim that these nomic structural universals explain causal relations commits him to saying that such universals are irreducible, not supervenient upon the particular causal relations they fix. However, Armstrong also wants to avoid Plato’s view that a universal can exist without being instantiated, a view which he regards as (...) incompatible with naturalism. This construal of naturalism forces Armstrong to say that universals are abstractions from a certain class of particulars; they are abstractions from first-order states of affairs, to be more precise. It is here argued that these two tendencies in Armstrong cannot be reconciled: To say that universals are abstractions from first-order states of affairs is not compatible with saying that universals fix causal relations between particulars. Causal relations are themselves states of affairs of a sort, and Armstrong’s claim that a law is a kind of structural universal is best understood as the view that any given law logically supervenes on its corresponding causal relations. The result is an inconsistency, Armstrong having to say that laws do not supervene on particular causal relations while also being committed to the view that they do so supervene. The inconsistency is perhaps best resolved by denying that universals are abstractions from states of affairs. (shrink)

The main aim of this thesis is to defend moral realism. In chapter 1, I argue that moral realism is best understood as the view that moral sentences have truth-value, there are moral properties that make some moral sentences true, and moral properties are not reducible to non- moral properties. Realism is contrasted with non-cognitivism, error-theory and reductionism, which, in brief, deny, and, respectively. In the introductory chapter, it is also argued that there are some prima facie reasons to (...) assume that non-cognitivism and error-theory are erroneous. In chapters 2 and 3, I suggest that the two main forms of reductionism, analytic and synthetic reductionism, are mistaken. In chapter 4, I argue that the considerations in the previous chapters in relation to non-cognitivism, error-theory and reductionism provide support to moral realism. It is also suggested that these considerations make it plausible to hypothesise that moral properties depend on non- moral properties in a way I refer to as ‘the realist formula’. The realist formula confirms moral realism since it implies that moral properties are not reducible to non- moral properties. In chapters 5, 6 and 7, I argue that moral realism, much owing to the realist formula, is able to explain significant meta-ethical issues regarding moral disagreement, moral reason and moral motivation. Among other things, externalism concerning moral motivation is defended. The explanatory value of moral realism in relation to these meta-ethical issues is taken to suggest that this view is preferable to non-cognitivism, error-theory and reductionism. Some of the meta-ethical issues discussed in these chapters, particularly moral disagreement and motivation, have been thought to provide support to non-cognitivism and error-theory. I maintain that since realism, unlike reductionism, is able to counter these arguments, it justifies us in upholding the view that moral sentences have truth-value and the view that there are moral properties. In chapter 8, various objections against realism with regard to the dependence of moral properties on non- moral properties are responded to. In chapter 9, I consider an influential argument to the effect that moral properties are not involved in causal explanations. I maintain that this argument fails and that it therefore is reasonable to assume that moral properties are natural properties. However, the discussions in chapters 8 and 9 also suggest that moral realism might face problems that cannot be thoroughly discussed in this thesis. (shrink)

The Power Structuralist View (PSV) is an account of causation in which causal relations are reduced to the powers that are activated in the subject by another subject’s power, instantly and simultaneously. PSV is based on two main assumptions: (a) holism; (b) reductionism. After justifying the choice to place PSV within the so-called ‘process accounts’ of causation (PA), I will show how, generally, every PA must solve the so-called “transference paradox” (TP) and why PSV is an innovative (...) account. However, PSV creates two main problems: (1) how to explain the instantaneous activation between correlatives; (2) how to explain which kind of “nexus” takes place between powers. I will argue that, in order to solve (1), PSV needs to adopt an intervalist position, but this leads to a form of monism that contradicts (a). Regarding (2), the reductionist approach implies the assumption that “all relations between powers are internal” and, therefore, a form of monism, again against premise (a). PSV reduces causation to a ‘primitive concept’ (the ontological dependence) but, in this way, point (2) remains unexplained. The problem of physical transference (or reciprocal influence) remains unanswered, and PSV seems to be a covert form of occasionalism. -/- [NOTE: the version on the Journal's site has problems in the footnotes. DOWNLOAD the correct version here in PhilPapers]. (shrink)

The paper examines the ramifications of naturalism with regard to the question of individuality in economics and biology. Economic theory has to deal with whether households, firms, and states are individuals or are mere entities such as clubs, networks, and coalitions. Biological theory has to deal with the same question with regard to cells, organisms, family packs, and colonies. To wit, the question of individuality in both disciplines involves three separate problems: the metaphysical, phenomenist, and ontological. The metaphysical (...) problem is concerned with purposeful action: Is the firm or organism exclusively the product of efficient causality (optimization) or is it motivated by final causality (purposefulness)? The phenomenist problem is interested in the substantiality of essences: Is the firm''s or organism''s scheme of institutions/traits deep or is it extraneous to identity? The ontological problem is related to the issue of reductionism: Is the behavior of lower-level organization governed by a pre-constituted entities or is it context-sensitive? The paper finds that theoretical differences run along the naturalist/anti-naturalist divide rather than along disciplinary specialization. Also, the paper finds that it is not inconsistent for the same theorist to be naturalist with regard to one problem and anti-naturalist with respect to the other two problems. (shrink)

This article provides a conceptual account of causal understanding by connecting current psychological research on time and causality with philosophical debates on the causal asymmetry. I argue that causal relations are viewed as asymmetric because they are understood in temporal terms. I investigate evidence from causal learning and reasoning in both children and adults: causal perception, the temporal priority principle, and the use of temporal cues for causal inference. While this account does not (...) suffice for correct inferences of causal structure, I show it to serve as a preliminary understanding of causal concepts as asymmetric, that later incorporates other types of evidence. This approach supplies causal models with an asymmetric concept of causation that underlies hypotheses about causal structure, as I will illustrate from the framework of the knowledge-based causal induction model. I further argue for an integrating perspective, showing how the understanding of causes as preceding their effects underlies both psychological models and philosophical debates over time and the causal asymmetry, particularly regarding problem cases such as simultaneous causation or backwards causation, and the conceptual connection between causation and action. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The individual-community relationship has always been one of the most fundamental topics of social sciences. In sociology, this is known as the micro-macro relationship while in economics it refers to the processes, through which, individual actions lead to macroeconomic phenomena. Based on philosophical discourse and systems theory, many sociologists even use the term "emergence" in their understanding of micro-macro relationship, which refers to collective phenomena that are created by the cooperation of individuals, but cannot be reduced to individual actions. (...) "Emergence" theories attempt to explain the nature of society as a complex system by examining how individuals and their relationships lead to the creation of integrated and macro-social phenomena such as markets, educational systems, cultural beliefs, and shared social practices. As a prelude to activity, every researcher has to answer the question from the methodological point of view, how is it possible to study the behavior of social groups and how can we gain knowledge about the laws related to social groups? Anyone who deals with humanities and social sciences or any reality and phenomenon that affects human beings, inevitably deals with the reality that is emerging. In fact, emergence occurs when one level of reality emerges radically from another level. Examples of emergent levels of reality include how the mind emerges from the body; or the way society emerges from human beings. Therefore, when there is an emerging factor, different scientific disciplines should be used, because it is inevitable to talk about social affairs, psychology and neurobiology, as well as physical and even chemical. -/- INTRODUCTION Since its beginning in the 19th century, sociology has faced the fundamental question of what a social phenomena stands for? At a glance, sociologists deal with the study of social groups, collective behavior, institutions, social structures, social networks, and social dynamics, and ultimately all such phenomena are composed of individuals. Therefore, social phenomena seem to have no independent ontological status, and in this case, sociology is ultimately about reducible individuals. Different approaches about the micro-macro relationship, using the concept of "emergence", argue that although collective phenomena are created by individuals, they cannot be reduced to individual action. The term "emergence" is used to distinguish "emergent results" from " Procedural results". Results are called Procedural that can only be calculated by adding or subtracting the causes that act together. On the contrary, they are emergent outcomes that are qualitatively novel compared to the causes from which they originate. An example of such emergent results is mental characteristics that emerge from neural processes, but are not considered among the characteristics of neural processes of components - which are their origin. Philosophical debates about emergentism and reductionism focus on the mind-brain relationship, but as many philosophers have noted, they can be generalized to apply to any hierarchical set of features. The cognitive revolution reactivated a 19th century controversy between theorists of Identity and dualism. The theorists of Identity believe in reductionist materialism and elimination of metaphysics, according to which the mind is nothing more than the biological, while the dualists believe that the mind and the brain are distinct from each other. Emergence has been considered as a third way between the theories of Identity and dualism. -/- METHODOLOGY Interdisciplinarity Is fundamentally indicated by the dominance of open systems as well as social and emerging systems at different levels. Therefore, as long as we are facing a new emergentism, there will necessarily be different fields and an interdisciplinary method. The commonality of social sciences and cognitive sciences on the issue of emergence provides the possibility of interaction and exchange of concepts between these two for deeper research. Therefore, in this research, apart from the concepts of Subvenience and downward causation, we have used multiple realization and wildly disjunctive, which are used to explain the emerging concept in cognitive sciences, including neurobiology, psychology, and philosophy. For analytical and interdisciplinary approaches, after examining the concepts of subvenience, and wildly disjunctive, Individualistic and collectivist emergentism have been reviewed. And then their adequacy is criticized and evaluated in meeting strong emergence conditions. -/- FINDINGS Philosophers of the mind have been able to define the conditions of irreducibility and downward causation, which are essential for strong emergence, by using the principle of subvenience with the help of multiple realization and wildly disjunctive principles. Therefore, by definition, emergentist individualism suffers from the problem of how to explain downward causality and irreducibility, and emergentist collectivism faces the challenge of reification. The analysis of the challenges facing the two methodological approaches of individualism and collectivism leads us to three unresolved issues about the emerging phenomenon, which are realism, downward causality, and mechanism. Despite the differences in the stances of these two approaches regarding the aforementioned triple problems, individualists and collectivists both agree that some social characteristics are reducible; and some others are irreducible due to their complexity, the determination of which, depends on the case study of the mechanism of emergence of each social characteristic. -/- CONCLUSION An emergence that is consistent with reductionism is called a weak emergence. And strong emergence includes the principle of irreducibility and downward causality. According to strong emergence, the characteristics of social phenomena have downward causal power, which cannot be reduced to the causal forces. The principle of subvenience, together with multiple realization and wildly disjunctive, can provide the conditions of irreducibility and downward causality, which are essential conditions of strong emergence. Based on the philosophical analysis of two methodological approaches, individualist and collectivist, it can be concluded that emergentist individualism suffers from the problem of how to explain downward causality and irreducibility, and reification collectivism faces the challenge of reification. The analysis of the problems faced by these two approaches leads us to three unresolved issues, which are realism, downward causality, and mechanism. individualist emergentists acknowledge the existence of emergent social characteristics, but despite this, they believe that these characteristics are not real but merely analytical constructs that require explanation based on individuals and their mutual actions. But collectivists argue that emergentism yields a categorical ontology and supports social realism. They accept the dependence of social characteristics on individuals, but claim that social entities and structures are ontologically independent. Individualists and collectivists both agree that some social characteristics are reducible; and others are irreducible due to their complexity; and the only way to recognize this is to engage in empirical studies of the mechanisms and temporal processes of "emergence" that create social characteristics. -/- NOVELTY The newness of this compact article is as follows: a) Presenting an interdisciplinary approach using the analysis of philosophy of cognitive sciences, including the philosophy of mind, neurobiology and psychology to formulate the issue of social emergence; b) Criticizing individualist and collectivist methodological approaches to the issue of social emergence and explaining the sufficiency and shortcomings of both in providing weak and strong emerging conditions; c) Explaining and categorizing the challenges facing methodological approaches in explaining the phenomenon of social emergence, in three categories: realism, downward causality, and mechanism. BIBLIOGRAPHY Beckermann, A., Flohr, H., & Kim, J. (eds.) (1992). Emergence or reduction? Essays on the prospects of nonreductive physicalism. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Bhaskar, R. (1979). The possibility of Naturalism. New York: Routledge. Bhaskar, R., Danermark, B. & Price, L. (2018). Interdisciplinarity and wellbeing: A critical realist general theory of interdisciplinarity. London and New York: Routledge. Blau, P.M. (1981). Introduction: diverse views of social structure and their common denominator. In Blau, P.M. & Merton, R.K. (eds.), Continuity in Structural Inquiry (pp. 1–23). Beverly Hills: Sage. Blau, P.M. (1987). Microprocess and macrostructure. In K.S. Cook (ed.), Social Exchange Theory (pp. 83–100). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Brooks, R.A., & Maes, P. (eds). (1994). Artificial life IV; proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Clark, A. (1997). Being there: Putting brain, body, and world together again. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Coleman, J. S. (1987). Microfoundations and macrosocial behavior. In: J. C. Alexander, B. Giesen, R. Munch, & Neil J. Smelser (Eds.). The Micro-Macro Link (pp. 153–73). Berkeley: University of California. Coleman, J. S. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Elster, J. (1985). Making sense of Marx. New York: Cambridge University Press. Fodor, J.A. (1974). Special sciences (Or: The disunity of science as a working hypothesis). Synthese, 28(2), 97–115. Fodor, J.A. (1989). Making mind matter more. Philosophical Topics, 17, 59-79. Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hempel, C.G. (1965). Aspects of scientific explanation and other essays in the philosophy of science. New York: The Free Press. Horgan, T. (1993). From supervenience to superdupervenience: meeting the demands of a material world. Mind, 102, 555-586. Humphreys, P. (1997). How properties emerge”. Philosophy of Science, 64, 1-17. Kim, J. (1999). Making sense of emergence. Philosophical Studies, 95, 3–36. Kincaid, H. (1997). Individualism and the unity of science. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Lewis, D.K. (1986). The plurality of worlds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nigel, G., & Conte, R. (eds.) (1995). Artificial societies; The computer simulation of social life. London: UCL Press. O’Connor, T. (1994). Emergent properties. American Philosophical Quarterly, 31, 91-104. Popper, K.R. (1968). Conjectures and refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. New York: Harper & Row. Sawyer, R. K. (2001). Emergence in sociology: contemporary philosophy of mind and some implications for sociological theory. American Journal of Sociology, 107, 551-585. Sawyer, R. K. (2004). The mechanisms of emergence. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 34, 260–282. Sawyer, R. K. (2005). Social emergence: societies as complex systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sawyer, R.K. (2003). Nonreductive individualism: Part 2, Social causation. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 33, 203–224. Winch, P. (1993). The idea of a social science and its relation to philosophy‭ (SAMT, Trans.). Tehran, Iran: SAMT. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mind and Purpose in Nature: A Reply to Donald A. CrosbyMikael Leidenhag (bio)One might say that there is a blurred line between panpsychism and emergentism. They are both committed to anti-reductionism and have often been construed as viable options to crude physicalism and Cartesian dualism. Yet, the panpsychist will find the bruteness of emergent properties concerning, in that they seem to emerge unpredictably and in defiance of any (...) logical explanation. In my book and article, I highlighted potential weaknesses in various forms of emergentism, including Donald Crosby’s way of using emergence theory to lay a metaphysical foundation for a Religion of Nature.1 In his most recent book Evolutionary Emergence of Purposive Goals and Values: A Naturalistic Teleology, Crosby responds to some of my criticisms.2 This short essay offers a reply to what I take to be the key issues in this important dialogue between panpsychism and emergentism.Before I proceed to respond to Crosby’s informative criticism, let me summarize some important commonalities between my own panpsychist view of consciousness and Crosby’s teleological emergentism.First, we both share a commitment to mental and teleological realism, in that our accounts take it as a fact that there is something to be explained. Mentality and teleological features of nature are not appearances to be explained (away) by some underlying, purely physical, level. In that regard, both Crosby and I take Daniel Dennett’s illusionist and eliminativist view of consciousness to be an insufficient metaphysical starting point. I agree with Crosby’s assessment in Evolutionary Emergence of Purposive Goals and Values that such an eliminative stance “provides no satisfying explanation for teleology or convincing interpretation of its critical role” in humans and non-human animals.3 [End Page 84]A second, important, common denominator is that our accounts reject what Crosby terms “mechanistic materialism” according to which, contra Dennett, there is something to be explained, but that consciousness/teleology (C/T) can be wholly accounted for in terms of physico-mechanical interactions, opening the door for wholescale causal determinism and denial of freedom in nature.4Third, albeit in significantly different ways, our accounts of C/T rely on something more fundamental to explain higher-level phenomena. I take mind/mindedness to be a fundamental and universal feature of existence, whereas Crosby suggests that novelty is a “pervasive trait of the temporal universe,” enabling the emergence of C/T through longer evolutionary trajectories.5Fourth, C/T can act as a pointer towards a Sacred dimension of reality. On Crosby’s Religion of Nature, the reality of C/T signifies the valuative dimensions of nature and a “sacredness that is not derivative from something else or from some other realm.”6 While I concede that there is no necessary connection between panpsychism and theism, I have previously made the argument that the former makes the latter significantly more reasonable.Given these commonalities, Crosby and I would occupy a rather similar spot on a hypothetical map of all the available positions in philosophy of mind.I outline these common denominators to make sure that the differences between our accounts are not exaggerated and that it hopefully makes it easier to follow my response to Crosby’s criticism below.I will, in particular, focus on three areas of contention: (1) That emergence theory does not entail a stronger notion of unpredictability/incomprehensibility, (2) that consciousness (and teleological norms) can arise naturally through the evolutionary process if given sufficient time; and (3) that emergence theory does not entail dualism.It should be emphasized that my arguments, and concerns about Crosby’s emergentism, are mostly based on philosophers that subscribe to some form of naturalism, materialism, or physicalism.Emergence Theory and UnpredictabilityIn my book Naturalizing God? and the article “Does Naturalism Make Room for Teleology?” I make the argument that the plausibility of emergentism is undercut by one of its core commitments; namely, that emergent properties, [End Page 85] while ontologically dependent on their material base, are unpredictable in relation to the subvenient base. That is, while consciousness depends on the brain structure, the coming into being of consciousness—our very ability to have thoughts, feelings, and perceptions... (shrink)

Mechanistic approaches are very common in the causal interpretation of biological and neuroscientific experimental work in today’s philosophy of science. In the mechanistic literature a strict distinction is often made between causal relations and constitutive relations, where the latter cannot be causal. One of the typical reasons for this strict distinction is that constitutive relations are supposedly synchronic whereas most if not all causal relations are diachronic. This strict distinction gives rise to (...) a number of problems, however. Our end goal in this paper is to argue that it should be given up, at least in the context of the biological and the psychological sciences. To that effect, we argue that constitutive relations in this context are diachronic, thus undermining the aforementioned reason. We offer two cases from scientific practice in which constitutive relations are regarded as both diachronic and causally efficacious, review three existing ways of dealing with the apparent diachronic nature of interlevel relations in mechanisms and propose a new account of diachronic, causal constitutive relevance. (shrink)

This paper replies to the first 36 commentaries on my target article on “Is human information processing conscious?” (Behavioral and Brain Sciences,1991, pp.651-669). The target article focused largely on experimental studies of how consciousness relates to human information processing, tracing their relation from input through to output, while discussion of the implications of the findings both for cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind was relatively brief. The commentaries reversed this emphasis, and so, correspondingly, did the reply. The sequence of topics (...) in the reply roughly follows that of the target article. The discussion begins with a reconsideration of the details of the empirical findings, whether they can be extrapolated to non-laboratory settings, and the extent to which one can rely on their use of subjective reports. This is followed by an in-depth discussion of what is meant by “conscious processing” and of how phenomenal consciousness relates to attentional processing. We then turn to broader philosophical and theoretical issues. I point out some of the reasons why I do not support epiphenomenalism, dualist-interactionism, or reductionism, and elaborate on how first- and third-person views of the mind can be regarded as complementary and mutually irreducible. I suggest how the relation of conscious experiences to their neural correlates can be understood in terms of a dual-aspect theory of information,and how this might be used to resolve some of the paradoxes surrounding the causal interactions of consciousness and brain. I also suggest that, viewed from a first-person perspective, consciousness gives purpose to existence, which allows a different way of viewing its role in evolution. (shrink)

Kin selection and multilevel selection are alternative approaches for studying the evolution of social behaviour, the relation between which has long been a source of controversy. Many recent theorists regard the two approaches as ultimately equivalent, on the grounds that gene frequency change can be correctly expressed using either. However, this shows only that the two are formally equivalent, not that they offer equally good causal representations of the evolutionary process. This article articulates the notion of an ‘adequate (...) causal representation’ using causal graphs, and then seeks to identify circumstances under which kin and multilevel selection do and do not satisfy the test of causal adequacy. 1 Introduction2 The KS and MLS Approaches2.1 The MLS decomposition2.2 The KS decomposition3 Equivalence and Causality4 Two Problem Cases4.1 The non-social trait case4.2 Genotypic selection with meiotic drive5 Casual Adequacy: A Graphical Approach5.1 The basic idea5.2 Graphs with individual and group variables5.3 Cases where KS is causally adequate5.4 Cases where MLS is causally adequate6 Discussion6.1 Relation to previous work. (shrink)

Some are attracted to the view that repeatable artworks, such as films, novels, plays, symphonies, photographs, and the like, are a particular kind of abstracta—namely, types. This view, however, is not unproblematic. One of the most serious problems it faces is the so-called "creation problem." The core idea behind this problem is that, on the one hand, it seems reasonable to accept the claims that (1) repeatable artworks are types, (2) types cannot be created, and (3) repeatable artworks are created, (...) but, on the other hand, these claims form an inconsistent triad. A popular solution to the creation problem is that (2) can be rejected because the justification for (2) is based on a false assumption—that no type can stand in causal relations. Although this solution looks promising, it can be accepted only if its proponent can refute what might be called the "paraphrasability argument." On this argument, types are not to be regarded as capable of standing in causal relations because any discourse implying the causality of types should be paraphrased into discourse that does not imply this. My aim in this essay is to show that there is good reason to consider the paraphrasability argument sound and, hence, that the foregoing solution to the creation problem fails. (shrink)

This paper characterizes a form of materialism which is strongly anti?reductionist with regard to mental predicates. It argues against the functionalist views of writers such as Brian Loar on the basis that the counterfactual interdependencies of intentional states are governed by constraints of rationality embodied in semantic links which cannot be captured in non?intentional, functionalist terms. However, contrary to what is commonly supposed, such anti?reductionism requires neither instrumentalism about the mental nor opposition to a causal explanatory view (...) of intentional explanation. The paper therefore aims to show that a realist causal explanatory view of psychological states is compatible with a non?reductive materialism (a position excluded by Brian Loar in his recent book Mind and Meaning). (shrink)

This book aims to answer two main questions about Aristotle’s theory of causality and causal explanation, especially in relation to natural science: (1) How does he answer the main philosophical questions about causes to which he thinks his predecessors’ answers are flawed? (2) How do his answers bear on the main questions we confront in thinking about causality in general? The texts that deal with causality directly are analyzed against the background of his criticisms of his predecessors and his (...) broader views about explanation, highlighting their theoretically important commitments. This allows us to reveal the conceptual architecture of his theory. The basic theory is then applied to two questions about causality, one metaphysical and one epistemological. The metaphysical question is how to account for the relation between causes and what they cause, in light of a fundamental tension between different desiderata for causal explanations. Aristotle’s answer is pluralistic: he does not think that there is one metaphysical relationship between causes and what they cause even within a given mode of causality. The epistemological question asks how we grasp causes, and grasp them in a way that yields scientific understanding. Aristotle’s answer is again a pluralist one: metaphysically different phenomena demand different cognitive resources, and some are more accessible than others. Nevertheless, there is a discernible path from simpler to more sophisticated types of cognitive grasp on causality, in such a way that Aristotle can plausibly satisfy the epistemological constraints he thinks his predecessors cannot. Aristotle thus aims to provide a non-reductionist account of causality that still leaves room for a substantive conception of understanding in natural science. (shrink)

With the advent of quantum theory, the philosophical distinction between “what appears to be” and “what is reasoned to be” has once again, after several centuries of easy dismissal by classical mechanistic materialism, become an important feature of physics. In recent well-regarded interpretations of quantum physics, including those proposed by Robert Griffiths, Roland Omn s, and Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann, we have seen careful investigations into the physical (i.e., not “merely philosophical”) distinction between the order of contingent causal relation (...) and the order of necessary logical implication . I argue that a careful philosophical exploration of the function of the logical order in modern interpretations of quantum physics compels the abandonment of derivative classical, dualistic understandings of “determinism versus indeterminism,” “logical necessity versus causal contingency,” “subject versus object,” “epistemic versus ontological,” among other fundamental dualisms. The incoherence underlying this classical understanding of these principle-pairs as mutually exclusive features of reality can be relieved if they are instead understood as mutually implicative features of fundamental units of relation or “quantum praxes.”. (shrink)

Kim’s causal exclusion argument purports to demonstrate that the non-reductive physicalist must treat mental properties (and macro-level properties in general) as causally inert. A number of authors have attempted to resist Kim’s conclusion by utilizing the conceptual resources of Woodward’s interventionist conception of causation. The viability of these responses has been challenged by Gebharter, who argues that the causal exclusion argument is vindicated by the theory of causal Bayesian networks (CBNs). Since the interventionist conception of causation relies (...) crucially on CBNs for its foundations, Gebharter’s argument appears to cast significant doubt on interventionism’s anti-reductionist credentials. In the present article, we both (1) demonstrate that Gebharter’s CBN-theoretic formulation of the exclusion argument relies on some unmotivated and philosophically significant assumptions (especially regarding the relationship between CBNs and the metaphysics of causal relevance), and (2) use Bayesian networks to develop a general theory of causal inference for multi-level systems that can serve as the foundation for an anti-reductionist interventionist account of causation.1. (shrink)

It is often argued that relational egalitarianism has a fundamental problem with intergenerational justice when compared to other theories of justice such as utilitarianism, prioritarianism, and luck egalitarianism. Recently, Timothy Sommers argued that there is no such comparative disadvantage for relational egalitarianism. His argument is quite modest: it merely aims to reject the claim that there could be no way to extend relational egalitarianism to intergenerational justice. This may be called the ‘No Comparative Disadvantage Thesis’. The present article challenges Sommers’s (...) argument in two ways. First, I show that Sommers fails to provide a reasonable constraint on causal efficacy, which is crucial to his argument for our relation (not relationship) to future generations. Second, I show that the chain-relatedness problem casts a shadow over Sommers’s argument for the No Comparative Disadvantage Thesis. More specifically, compared to the other theories of justice, relational egalitarianism (as it stands) can less easily justify that present persons have duties to future others. This is because relational egalitarianism cannot appeal to a specific principle in regard to the duties in question, because its principle is sensitive to current context and practice. I conclude that the No Comparative Disadvantage Thesis does not hold much promise. (shrink)

Causal approaches to explanation often assume that a model explains by describing features that make a difference regarding the phenomenon. Chirimuuta claims that this idea can be also used to understand non-causal explanation in computational neuroscience. She argues that mathematical principles that figure in efficient coding explanations are non-causal difference-makers. Although these principles cannot be causally altered, efficient coding models can be used to show how would the phenomenon change if the principles were modified in counterpossible situations. (...) The problem is that efficient coding models also involve difference-makers that, prima facie, cannot be characterized as non-causal in this sense. Mathematical principles always involve variables which have counterfactual relations between them. However, we cannot simply assume that these difference-makers are causal. They can also be found in paradigmatic non-causal explanations and therefore they must be characterized as non-causal in some sense. I argue that, despite appearances, Chirimuuta's view can be applied to these cases. The mentioned counterfactual relations presuppose the counterpossible conditionals that describe the modification of a relevant mathematical principle. If these conditionals are the hallmark of non-causal relations, then Chirimuuta’s criterion has the desired implication that variables in mathematical principles are non-causal difference-makers. (shrink)

It is a common view that Descartes' causal principle is to be understood in light of a similarity condition that accounts for how finite causes contribute to an explanation of their effects. This paper challenges this common view and offers a sui generis reading of Descartes' views on causation that has also the advantage of solving the two exegetical issues of whether Descartes thought of the body-to-mind relation in occasionalist or causal terms and of whether Descartes regarded sensory (...) ideas innate or caused by bodies. (shrink)

In the past decades, reductionism has dominated both research directions and funding policies in clinical psychology and psychiatry. The intense search for the biological basis of mental disorders, however, has not resulted in conclusive reductionist explanations of psychopathology. Recently, network models have been proposed as an alternative framework for the analysis of mental disorders, in which mental disorders arise from the causal interplay between symptoms. In this target article, we show that this conceptualization can help explain why reductionist (...) approaches in psychiatry and clinical psychology are on the wrong track. First, symptom networks preclude the identification of a common cause of symptomatology with a neurobiological condition; in symptom networks, there is no such common cause. Second, symptom network relations depend on the content of mental states and, as such, feature intentionality. Third, the strength of network relations is highly likely to depend partially on cultural and historical contexts as well as external mechanisms in the environment. Taken together, these properties suggest that, if mental disorders are indeed networks of causally related symptoms, reductionist accounts cannot achieve the level of success associated with reductionist disease models in modern medicine. As an alternative strategy, we propose to interpret network structures in terms of D. C. Dennett's (1987) notion ofreal patterns, and suggest that, instead of being reducible to a biological basis, mental disorders feature biological and psychological factors that are deeply intertwined in feedback loops. This suggests that neither psychological nor biological levels can claim causal or explanatory priority, and that a holistic research strategy is necessary for progress in the study of mental disorders. (shrink)

Some non-reductionists claim that so-called ‘exclusion arguments’ against their position rely on a notion of causal sufficiency that is particularly problematic. I argue that such concerns about the role of causal sufficiency in exclusion arguments are relatively superficial since exclusionists can address them by reformulating exclusion arguments in terms of physical sufficiency. The resulting exclusion arguments still face familiar problems, but these are not related to the choice between causal sufficiency and physical sufficiency. The upshot is that (...) objections to the notion of causal sufficiency can be answered in a straightforward fashion and that such objections therefore do not pose a serious threat to exclusion arguments. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I develop and defend a model of causation that allows for dualist mental causation in worlds where the physical domain is physically complete. In Part I, I present the dualist ontology that will be assumed throughout the thesis and identify two challenges for models of mental causation within such an ontology: the exclusion worry and the common cause worry. I also argue that a proper response to these challenges requires a thoroughly lightweight account of causation, i.e. an (...) account that allows for causes to be metaphysically distinct from the phenomena that produce or physically necessitate their effects. In Part II, I critically evaluate contemporary responses to these challenges from the philosophical literature. In particular, I discuss List and Stoljar’s criticism of exclusion worries, Kroedel’s alternative dualist ontology, concerns about the notion of causal sufficiency, and Lowe’s models of dualist mental causation. I argue that none of these proposals provide independent motivation for a thoroughly lightweight account of causation and therefore leave room for improvement. In the first four chapters of Part III, I develop a thoroughly lightweight model of causation, which builds on interventionist approaches to causation. First, I explain how so-called ‘holding fixed’-requirements in standard interventionist accounts stand in the way of dualist mental causation. I then argue that interventionist accounts should impose a robustness condition on causal correlations and that, with this condition in place, the ‘holding fixed’-requirements can be weakened such that they do allow for dualist mental causation. I dub the interventionist model with such weakened ‘holding fixed’-requirements ‘insensitive interventionism’, argue that it can counter the exclusion worry as well as the common cause worry, and explain under which circumstances it would predict there to be dualist mental causation. Importantly, these circumstances might, for all we know, hold in the actual world. In the final three chapters of Part III, I defend insensitive interventionism against some objections. I consider the objection that causation must be productive, the objection that causes must physically necessitate their effects, and the objection that insensitive interventionism is too permissive. I respond by drawing from the literature on causation by absences and on the relation between causation and fundamental physics. Overall, insensitive interventionism performs as well as standard interventionist accounts. I conclude that insensitive interventionism is a credible model of causation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Metaphysics of Causality and NoveltyStephen BickhamI find myself in agreement with most of the points of Crosby's position that there are new things and new events in the world. Like him, I hold that determinists are mistaken, and I believe that time flows one way only. I appreciate Crosby's amendment of Whitehead's category of the ultimate from creativity to creativity/destructiveness or, translating Spinoza's term, nature naturing. And finally (...) I applaud his clever, and I think successful, argument that the production of novelty, rather than being incompatible with causal action, is, indeed, a requirement for any such process. Most of the meat of philosophy, however, lies not in agreements but in their contraries. While I do have significant disagreements with Crosby, I want to state at the beginning that these deal with issues in Philosophy that I find among the most perplexing, and so I hope I can expound them with at least a modicum of clarity.The major, underlying concern I have with Crosby's argument centers not on the concept of novelty nor on whether such occurs, but on the concept of causality. It is in relation to causality that Crosby attempts to prove his case on the existence of novelty. He maintains that not only is novelty not opposed to causality, but novelty itself is a necessary condition for causality to exist at all. Very importantly, I believe he proves his point. However, if causality is a totally confused notion, then, in my opinion, proving that novelty is necessary for causality to exist proves much less than Crosby intends. If I am correct, Crosby's argument is vitiated to a good extent because of its connection with causality at all.To see how this plays out, we can look at the simplest statement of this principle, "Everything that exists must have a cause." But note that this tries to make causality clear by invoking the frustrating and paradoxical notion of "thing." What is a thing, which is supposed to require a cause for its existence? [End Page 64] I present a piece of sandstone. Is it a thing? Here is a grain of sand on the surface of the piece. Is it a thing? The sandstone was taken from a ledge. Is the ledge a thing? The ledge is part of a deposit. Is the deposit of sandstone a thing? What happens to the causality principle if we try to eliminate (not an easy thing) this suspect category of thing (or something)?Maybe it is every event that must have a cause. But this gets us no closer to freedom from metaphysical quicksand. The first definition in my dictionary of event is, "Something that happens"(emphasis mine). And if we consider the notion of event on its own ground, so to speak, we run up against the following questions, among others: How much time is necessary for an event? Is a hiccup an event? A hiccup in the middle of a concert? Was the Chicago Fire an event? The battle of Antietam? The Civil War? The settling of the West? The Industrial Revolution?I am not concerned here with what is usually regarded as the essential puzzling issue of causality, that is, the nature of the causal relation. I am only struggling, and vainly I fear, with the preliminary issue of what the things are that are said to require causes. And I'm pessimistic that we will get very far in the task of specifying with precision just what these things—or occurrences or processes or fundamental entities or whatever—are.Perhaps another approach, a different angle, might be utilized. Must it not be that there is a fundamental truth or insight, or at least a strong, legitimate motive for holding that every thing (or event, etc.) must have a cause? This is a position held by virtually everyone at the level of common sense, and by the great majority, even, of skeptically minded philosophers. Rather than trying either to stipulate what the entities involved in causality are or wrestle with the issue of what the causal relationship itself is, let's try to understand why... (shrink)

The literature on causation distinguishes between causal claims relating properties or types and causal claims relating individuals or tokens. Many authors maintain that corresponding to these two kinds of causal claims are two different kinds of causal relations. Whether to regard causal relations among variables as yet another variety of causation is also controversial. This essay maintains that causal relations obtain among tokens and that type causal claims are generalizations (...) concerning causal relations among these tokens. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss John Bickle’s attempt to provide a formal procedure to locate a certain reduction relation in the Hooker’s and Churchland’s New wave reductionist spectrum. Bickle’s main motivation is to react against the ‘Khunnian flavored,’ internal-to-scientific-practice pragmatist solution endorsed by Patricia Churchland when faced with the lack of a formal and external way to identify a reduction in the spectrum. Bickle tries to solve this problem by reformulating Hooker’s insights within a structuralist framework so establishing an external-toscientific- (...) practice formal solution. I show that Bickle fails on his attempt and, as a consequence, we should adopt Patricia Churchland pragmatic stance regarding reductionist and ontological decisions. (shrink)

Psychologists and neuroscientists often struggle to integrate findings in their respective domains, a problem due partly to implicitly and explicitly held philosophical positions on issues of reduction and autonomy across these domains. The present article reviews how reduction and autonomy have been used in philosophical arguments regarding how macro-scale findings relate to micro-scale findings across various scientific disciplines. The present article demonstrates how macro findings are indispensable to explanations of phenomena of interest by (a) providing information regarding higher levels of (...) organization in mechanisms, (b) including information not contained within certain micro explanations that (c) provides more general and stable causal explanations relative to micro explanations in certain situations. The purpose of presenting these analyses and recommendations is to disabuse psychologists and neuroscientists of pervasive assumptions that psychology is reducible to biology and that lower level phenomena (molecular) should be prioritized as somehow more explanatory than higher level phenomena (behavioral). The article concludes with 3 hypothetical scenarios from clinical psychology and psychiatry illustrating this critique and providing a pragmatic approach to clarify the relative roles, and importance, of biological and psychological data in service of general and stable explanations that are tailored to the kind of intervention desired. (shrink)

Over the last decade, attention has crawled from out of the shadows into the philosophical limelight with several important books and widely read articles. Carolyn Dicey Jennings has been a key player in the attention revolution, actively publishing in the area and promoting awareness. This book was much anticipated by insiders and does not disappoint. It is in no way redundant with respect to other recent monographs, covering both a different range of material and developing novel positions throughout. The book (...) might have been called The Attending Self, since Jennings defines attention as mental prioritization controlled by the self. This invocation of the self is among her central innovations, and may prove to be the main source of controversy. I will highlight points of contention here, but want to emphasize at the outset that the book is essential reading for anyone interested in attention. Jennings also contributes to a range of other debates, which will help a broader audience appreciate the importance this topic.After a brief introduction, Jennings provides “a philosophical landscape” of attention (chap. 2), tracing the concept through history. This is an invaluable achievement that will be welcomed by both newcomers and veterans. Jennings exhibits enormous breadth, covering areas that contemporary philosophers of mind tend to neglect: medieval philosophy, Buddhist thought, and phenomenology, to name a few. We also get perspectives on attention from core figures in the Western canon, such as Descartes, Locke, and Kant, as well as thinkers who gave the topic a more political inflection: Mary Wollstonecraft and W. E. B. DuBois. Jennings surveys contemporary literature as well, locating recent work in these older lineages. Some authors get more treatment later in the book (e.g., William James and Wayne Wu). Overall, Jennings provides the best overview of this history I have seen. She proves that attention is not a new topic, but one with deep roots and one that can inform current debates; Jennings draws on these roots throughout. I would love to see a companion piece surveying scientific theories, including “gain control” and “biased competition,” which get little airtime in the book. Some recent philosophical theories are under-explored as well, including Chris Mole’s concept of cognitive unison (Jennings discusses other aspects of his view), Carlos Montemayor and Harry Haladjian’s exploration of attention’s diversity (we get a touch of this), and my own proposal that attention is a gateway to working memory (not mentioned here). That said, no extant survey is more complete.Chapter 3 begins with the empirical claim that attention is regulated by slow brainwaves, and then takes up two issues. The first is mental causation. Endorsing moderate emergentism, Jennings argues that slow brain waves are causally efficacious even though they are not reducible to lower-level processes. (The metaphysics and neuroscience are presented accessibly, aided by three appendixes.) Second, Jennings argues that these slow brain waves indicate that attention is controlled by the self. As someone who was never moved by the mental causation problem—I don’t think overdetermination threatens efficacy—I would have welcomed more development of this second issue. For one thing, in linking attention to subjective control, Jennings eschews the idea that there can be purely “bottom-up” attention driven by stimulus features alone. This goes against the orthodoxy in attention science, and makes it hard for her to accommodate phenomena such as “pop-out,” or the commonsense idea that attention can be “captured” by a sudden flash or loud sound. For another thing, I wanted to hear more on why Jennings relates slow brain waves to the self. Does this include the slow waves that occur during deep sleep? Is there even such a thing as the self? Is there one self or many? How do slow brain waves reflect our interests, projects, values, self-conceptions, autobiographical narratives, or social identities? Does the social self invoked by Wollstonecraft and DuBois gain a foothold here? The whole chapter campaigns against metaphysical reductionism, but arrives at a perspective on the self that will strike some readers as highly reductive.In the fourth chapter, Jennings sheds further light on her conjecture that attention involves the self by advancing the thesis that attention endows sensory information with meaning. On the face of it, this may sound implausible. Object recognition, reading, and many other meaning-involving processes can take place outside of attention and outside of consciousness. But Jennings has a richer notion of “meaning” in mind. She develops the idea of “subject unity,” which is imposition of structure on perception that reflects the interests of the perceiving subject. This, she claims, is what brings perception into the space of reasons. Along the way, she has interesting observations about binding, feature integration, and demonstrative reference. The material is highly original, and Jennings’s postulation of interest-based perceptual organization is compelling. At the same time, one might wonder whether interests are really relegated to the ambit of attentional control. Consider the cocktail party effect, wherein one’s own name captures attention. This implies a preattentive filter that reflects our interests. Emotionally charged words, facial expressions, and dangerous objects also work this way, and social biases can operate preattentively as well. If these reflect our interests, then meaning may arise outside attention.Jennings’s fifth chapter explores the relationship between attention and consciousness. Some authors have argued that attention is necessary and sufficient for consciousness. Jennings focuses primarily on the necessity claim. She does not systematically review the empirical literature here, but she addresses some of the key findings, and effectively rebuts studies that allege to find consciousness outside attention. She does not rest her case there, however. Instead, she identifies a new class of examples that purport to establish the possibility of consciousness without attention. Her central example she calls “conscious entrainment,” which is what we experience when engaged in habitual or skilled activities. Other possible examples touched on in the chapter include hypervigilance in individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), passive movie watching, dreaming, and “attentional neglect.” These states all involve intense focus, Jennings admits, but not attention. To some readers this may sound contradictory. Isn’t focus a kind of attention? Don’t these states of absorption involve stimulus selection and enhancement of relevant features, suppression of distractors, and other hallmarks of attention? Jennings says none of this is tantamount to attention. Recall that she thinks attention is controlled by the self. In these cases, we are invited to imagine that the self takes a passive role: control is either ceded to the world (movie watching) or to previously mastered routines (skills and habits). Thus, Jennings’s claim that there is no attention in these cases hangs on her contentious thesis that attention requires a controlling self. One might also push back by arguing that, in some of Jennings’s allegedly selfless examples, the self remains involved. Skilled activities and hypervigilance, for example, can reflect personal interests.Skills and hypervigilance get more airtime in chapter 6. There, Jennings turns to questions of responsibility—a neglected topic in attention research. The chapter begins with a manslaughter trial in which the teenage plaintiff was given a light sentence because the judge evidently believed that the teen’s ADHD compromised his ability to control his actions. The example may be a bit triggering for people who have a personal relationship with this diagnosis, but, putting that aside, Jennings uses it to introduce the important concept of attention-based control. With reduced control, Jennings argues, comes reduced responsibility. I am inclined to see ADHD as involving dysregulation of attention (difficulty disengaging and dividing attention, for example) rather than diminished attention, but that can still be characterized as an issue with control of attention; therefore ADHD still illustrates Jennings’s point that there is a link between responsibility and control of attention. This, it turns out, is only half of her story. Having argued for this link, one might expect Jennings to follow Wayne Wu, who contends that attention is necessary for action, and hence for responsibility. She does not. Instead, she says argues that responsibility can also arise in cases of “strategic automaticity.” This brings us back to skills. When skills are deployed, action is governed by learned pairings between stimuli and responses. The choice to exercise a skill requires attention, so attention is needed for being a responsible agent, but once a skill kicks in, attention is no longer required, and one can be held responsible for actions performed skillfully—thus attention is not required for responsibility tout court. Jennings addresses an opposing view (defended by Wu, Ellen Fridland, and Barbara Montero), according to which skills involve “automatic attention” rather than no attention. Jennings worries that this move will collapse the distinction between attention and other kinds of selection and filtering that occur throughout the nervous system, including the retina. She says that the attentional interpretation of skilled action is at odds with the lack of top-down reweighing of sensory inputs, regulated by lateral frontal cortex. These objections to automatic attention warrant response. My own view is that attention involves broadcasting to working memory, so retinal filtering is ruled out. Jennings’s insistence on top-down reweighing will not move those who believe attention can be purely bottom-up. For all that, I side with Jennings in wanting to allow for responsibility without attentional control. I think we can be responsible for implicit biases, for example. I also think attentional control is insufficient for responsibility, as when we act under duress.Jennings offers fresh perspective on the nature of attention, and its role in meaningful perception, consciousness, action, and responsibility. Each chapter can be read separately, but they hang together well, and each reflects her thesis that attention is essentially linked to the self. Though I am skeptical of that strong claim, we would do well to follow Jennings in regarding attention as interest-laden interface between mind and world. I look forward to a sequel in which attention is related to richer conceptions of identity, and where the political consequences of this link are actively explored. Meanwhile, one can hardly fault Jennings for covering too little. She tackles a remarkable range of topics, from metaphysics to ethics. Her arguments throughout demand response, repay careful study, and propel the field forward. (shrink)

This essay responds to Jeff Malpas's foregoing article, itself written in response to my various publications over the past two decades concerning Donald Davidson's ideas about truth, meaning, and interpretation. It has to do mainly with our disagreement as regards the substantive content of Davidson's truth-based semantic approach in relation to the problematic legacy of logical empiricism, including Quine's incisive but no less problematical critique of that legacy. I also raise questions with respect to Malpas's coupling of Davidson with Heidegger, (...) intended to provide a more adequate depth-ontological grounding for the formalized (logico-semantic) conception of truth that Davidson adopts from Tarski. My essay then argues the case for an outlook of objectivist causal realism joined with a theory of inference to the best, most rational explanation that would satisfy this need in more philosophically (as well as scientifically) accountable terms. (shrink)

The principle that causes always render their effects more likely is fundamental to the enterprise of reducing facts of causation to facts about (objective) chances. This reductionist enterprise faces famous difficulties in accommodating common-sense intuitions about causal processes, if it insists on cashing out causal processes in terms of streams of events in which every event that belongs to the stream is a cause of the adjoining event downstream of it. I shall propose modifications to this way of (...) cashing out causal processes, still well within the reductionist faith. These modifications will allow the reductionist to handle processes successfully, on the assumption that the reductionist proposal is itself otherwise satisfactory. I shall then argue that the reductionist enterprise lies squarely behind the Theory of Relativity, and so has all the confirmatory weight of Relativity behind it. However this is not all good news for reductionists. For throughout I shall simply assume that the reductionist proposal, to the effect that causes are just chance-raisers, is correct. And I shall sidestep problems with that proposal as such. And so I shall show that, if in the end we find the reductionist proposal unsatisfactory, it cannot be on grounds of its treatment of causal processes as such. Thus, while I shall argue that causal processes pose no extra trouble for reductionists, I shall be making a case that all the action between reductionists and their opponents should be focused upon the proposal to reduce the two-term causal relation itself to relations amongst probabilities. (shrink)

In Causation, Prediction, and Search, we undertook a three part project. First, we characterized when causal models are indistinguishable by population conditional independence relations under several different assumptions relating causality to probability. Second, we proposed a number of algorithms that take sample data and optional background knowledge as input, and output a class of causal models compatible with the data and the background knowledge; the algorithms were accompanied by proofs of their correctness given assumptions that were clearly (...) stated in CPS, and that we will restate below. Finally, we offered a theory of how to predict the effects of interventions in causal structures, given only partial knowledge of causal structure. Freedman's objections are all directed against the causal inference algorithms we proposed. We do not have room here to discuss all of his criticisms, but we have answered his major points. With regard to the points we do not have room to discuss, the reader should be warned that Freedman is an unreliable interpreter of what we have written. For convenience, we have divided Freedman's objections into the following categories. 1.) Freedman questions some of the assumptions on which our correctness theorems are based. Some of his criticisms are based on covariance matrices that he constructed. None of the examples he constructed in sections 11.2, 11.3, or 12.3 are counterexamples to any theorem that we stated, nor are they even germane to the question of how probable are the assumptions we make. His examples only illustrate points discussed in detail in our book, in which we give similar examples. 2.) The most serious charge that Freedman makes is that the algorithms do not compute what we say they do. (shrink)

A notion of delegated causality is introduced here. This subtle kind of causality is dual to interventional causality. Delegated causality elucidates the causal role of dynamical systems at the “edge of chaos”, explicates evident cases of downward causation, and relates emergent phenomena to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem. Apparently rich implications are noticed in biology and Chinese philosophy. The perspective of delegated causality supports cognitive interpretations of self-organization and evolution.

Causal claims in biomedical contexts are ubiquitous albeit they are not always made explicit. This paper addresses the question of what causal claims mean in the context of disease. It is argued that in medical contexts causality ought to be interpreted according to the epistemic theory. The epistemic theory offers an alternative to traditional accounts that cash out causation either in terms of “difference-making” relations or in terms of mechanisms. According to the epistemic approach, causal claims (...) tell us about which inferences (e.g., diagnoses and prognoses) are appropriate, rather than about the presence of some physical causal relation analogous to distance or gravitational attraction. It is shown that the epistemic theory has important consequences for medical practice, in particular with regard to evidence-based causal assessment. (shrink)

Stable neuronal assemblies are generally regarded as neural correlates of mental representations. Their temporal sequence corresponds to the experience of a direction of time, sometimes called the psychological time arrow. We show that the stability of particular, biophysically motivated models of neuronal assemblies, called coupled map lattices, is supported by causal interactions among neurons and obstructed by non-causal or anti-causal interactions among neurons. This surprising relation between causality and stability suggests that those neuronal assemblies that are stable (...) due to causal neuronal interactions, and thus correlated with mental representations, generate a psychological time arrow. Yet this impact of causal interactions among neurons on the directed sequence of mental representations does not rule out the possibility of mentally less efficacious non-causal or anti-causal interactions among neurons. (shrink)

Functional reductionism concerning mental properties has recently been advocated by Jaegwon Kim in order to solve the problem of the 'causal exclusion' of the mental. Adopting a reductionist strategy first proposed by David Lewis, he regards psychological properties as being 'higher-order' properties functionally defined over 'lower-order' properties, which are causally efficacious. Though functional reductionism is compatible with the multiple realizability of psychological properties, it is blocked if psychological properties are subdivided or crosscut by neurophysiological properties. I argue (...) that there is recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience that shows that this is the case for the psychological property of fear. Though this may suggest that some psychological properties should be revised in order to conform to those of neurophysiology, the history of science demonstrates that this is not always the outcome, particularly with properties that play an important role in our folk theories and are central to human concerns. (shrink)

Within the last decade a new crop of theories of probabilistic causality has taken root. While these theories differ from each other in small ways, the basic principles underlying them are the same. These common principles form what I call the received view of probabilistic causality. ;In the first four chapters of the dissertation I examine and criticize the work of three proponents of the received view: Nancy Cartwright, Ellery Eells, and Paul Humphreys. Due to a number of epistemic and (...) pragmatic problems that each of these theories face, I argue that they are inadequate theories of probabilistic causality. ;In chapter six I examine the minimal set of principles that underlie these three theories--the received view of probabilistic causality. I show that the received view is an inadequate basis for a theory of probabilistic causality. The central problem for the received view is due to the interpretation of probability that the received view adopts--a physical-propensity interpretation of the probability calculus. I show that there are four problems with using the propensity interpretation of probability in a theory of probabilistic causality. I also argue that a theory of probabilistic causality should use relative frequencies in place of propensities. ;In the final chapter of the dissertation, I sketch an epistemic theory of probabilistic causality that has a number of advantages over the received view. First, the epistemic theory takes seriously and responds to the epistemic and pragmatic problems raised against Cartwright, Eells, and Humphreys' theories of probabilistic causality. Second, the epistemic theory adopts a relative frequency interpretation of probability and avoids the problems associated with using a propensity interpretation of probability. Finally, the epistemic theory provides an account of how we can make justified inferences regarding causal relations. ;I support my theory with examples from contemporary medical science. In particular, I provide a detailed historical examination of the attempt by medical scientists to determine whether Helicobacter pylori is a causal factor for various forms of gastric illness. (shrink)

A neuroscience-based approach has recently been proposed for the relation between the mind and the brain. The proposal is that events at the sub-neuronal, neuronal, and neuronal network levels take place simultaneously to perform a computation that can be described at a high level as a mental state, with content about the world. It is argued that as the processes at the different levels of explanation take place at the same time, they are linked by a non-causal supervenient relationship: (...) causality can best be described in brains as operating within but not between levels. This mind-brain theory allows mental events to be different in kind from the mechanistic events that underlie them; but does not lead one to argue that mental events cause brain events, or vice versa: they are different levels of explanation of the operation of the computational system. Here, some implications are developed. It is proposed that causality, at least as it applies to the brain, should satisfy three conditions. First, interventionist tests for causality must be satisfied. Second, the causally related events should be at the same level of explanation. Third, a temporal order condition must be satisfied, with a suitable time scale in the order of 10 ms. Next, although it may be useful for different purposes to describe causality involving the mind and brain at the mental level, or at the brain level, it is argued that the brain level may sometimes be more accurate, for sometimes causal accounts at the mental level may arise from confabulation by the mentalee, whereas understanding exactly what computations have occurred in the brain that result in a choice or action will provide the correct causal account for why a choice or action was made. Next, it is argued that possible cases of “downward causation” can be accounted for by a within-levels-of-explanation account of causality. This computational neuroscience approach provides an opportunity to proceed beyond Cartesian dualism and physical reductionism in considering the relations between the mind and the brain. (shrink)

In recent years Jaegwon Kim has offered an argument – the ‘supervenience argument’ – to show that supervenient mental properties, construed as second- order properties distinct from their first-order realizers, do not have causal powers of their own. In response, several philosophers have argued that if Kim’s argument is sound, it generalizes in such a way as to condemn to causal impotency all properties above the level of basic physics. This paper discusses Kim’s supervenience argument in the context (...) of his reply to this so-called ‘generalization argument’. In particular, the paper focuses on the level/order distinction, to which Kim appeals in his reply to the generalization argument, and on the relation between this distinction and two varieties of functionalism, ‘realizer’ vs. ‘role’ functionalism. The author argues that a proper analysis of the notions of levels and orders undermines Kim’s response to the generalization argument, and suggests that Kim’s reductionist strategy for vindicating the causal powers of mental properties is better served if mental properties are construed as first-order properties, as realizer-functionalism recommends. (shrink)

Intuitions play an important role in the debate on the causal status of high‐level properties. For instance, Kim has claimed that his “exclusion argument” relies on “a perfectly intuitive … understanding of the causal relation.” We report the results of three experiments examining whether laypeople really have the relevant intuitions. We find little support for Kim's view and the principles on which it relies. Instead, we find that laypeople are willing to count both a multiply realized property and (...) its realizers as causes, and regard the systematic overdetermination implied by this view as unproblematic. (shrink)

Burnout is a multidimensional work-related syndrome that is characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization – or cynicism – and diminution of personal accomplishment. Burnout particularly affects physicians. In medicine as well as other professions, burnout occurrence depends on personal, developmental-psychodynamic, professional and environmental factors. Recently, it has been proposed to specifically define burnout in physicians as “pathology of care relationship”. That is, burnout would arise, among the above-mentioned factors, from the specificity of the care relationship as it develops between the physician (...) and the patient. Accordingly, experimental studies and theoretical approaches have suggested that burnout and empathy, which is one of the most important skills in physicians, are closely linked. However, the nature of the relation between burnout and empathy remains not yet understood, as reflected in the variety of theoretical and contradictory hypotheses attempting to causally relate these two phenomena. Firstly, we here question the epistemological problem concerning the modality of the burnout-empathy link. Secondly, we hypothesize that considering the multidimensional features of both burnout and empathy, on one hand, and on the other hand, the distinction between empathy and sympathy enables to overcome these contradictions and, consequently, gives a better understanding of the relationship between burnout and empathy in physicians. Thirdly, we propose that clarifying the link between burnout, empathy and sympathy would enable developing specific training in medical students and continuous professional formation in senior physicians and would potentially contribute to the prevention of burnout in medical care. (shrink)

Graphical models are a powerful tool for causal model specification. Besides allowing for a hierarchical representation of variable interactions, they do not require any a priori specification of the functional dependence between variables. The construction of such graphs hence often relies on the mere testing of whether or not model variables are marginally or conditionally independent. The identification of causal relationships then solely requires some general assumptions on the relation between stochastic and causal independence, such as the (...) Causal Markov Condition and the Faithfulness Condition (Spirtes et al. 2000; Pearl 2000). However, a procedure would require further assumptions to hold. Namely those the independence tests themselves are based on. In continuous settings, Spirtes et al. (2000) suggest causal inference based on a very restrictive formulation of independence, that is, vanishing partial correlations. Such a measure does, however, limit the applicability of causal inference to linear systems. This constitutes a serious drawback especially for the social sciences where an a priori specification of the functional form proves difficult or at odds with linearity. In short: graphical models theoretically reduce specification uncertainty regarding functional dependence, but their implementation in practice deprives them of this virtue. In this paper we investigate how causal structures in continuous settings can be identified when both functional forms and probability distributions of the variables remain unspecified. We focus on tests exploiting the fact that if X and Y are conditionally independent given a set of variables Z, the two conditional densities f (X|Y, Z) and f (X|Z) must coincide. We start by estimating the conditional densities f(X|Y, Z) and f(X|Z) via nonparametric techniques (kernel methods). We proceed by testing if some metric expressing the distance between these very conditional densities is sufficiently close to zero. Out of several metrics available in the literature to express such distance we choose two, the Euclidean, and the Hellinger distance. We investigate in a Monte Carlo study how different tests involving either measure are able to detect statistical independence, conditioned on a small set of variables. One limitation may result from nonparametric density estimation being subject to the curse of dimensionality. As the number of variables increases, the estimated empirical density converges at a slower rate to its population value. To compensate this drawback we use a local bootstrap procedure which consists of resampling the data for each test. While local bootstrap strongly increases the computational time of the test, it succeeds in counterbalancing the curse of dimensionality. (shrink)

The epistemic basing relation is the relation occurring between a belief and a reason when the reason is the reason for which the belief is held. It marks the distinction between a belief's being justifiable for a person, and the person's being justified in holding the belief. As such, it is an essential component of any complete theory of epistemic justification. ;I survey and evaluate all theories of the basing relation that I am aware of published between 1965 and 1995. (...) These include causal theories, , theories involving pseudo-overdetermination relations , theories involving what a person would appeal to in defense of her beliefs , and doxastic theories , involving an appeal to meta-beliefs. My discussion of these theories includes a detailed analysis of variations of Lehrer's case of the gypsy lawyer which, I show, can be reformulated to pose a decisive objection to causal theories, if not causal analyses, of the basing relation. ;Rejecting all published theories, I present a new kind of causal analysis of the basing relation which I call the causal-doxastic theory. This theory states that a belief is based on a reason if the reason bears an appropriate causal relation to the belief, or, it does not bear such a causal relation, but an appropriate meta-belief is present. A causal analysis of which meta-beliefs are appropriate is given, so as to count as inappropriate rationalizations, mistaken meta-beliefs, etc. In developing the causal-doxastic theory, I present a solution to the problem of deviant causal chains, a discussion of the causal sustaining of beliefs, an account of rejecting reasons, and a partial analysis of showing that one is justified. I then discuss implications of my theory regarding foundationalism, inference, basic and non-basic belief, holistic and linear coherentism, process reliabilism, internalism and externalism, and various closure principles. (shrink)

By the relational realist interpretation of wave function collapse, the quantum mechanical actualization of potentia is defined as a decoherence-driven process by which each actualization (in “orthodox” terms, each measurement outcome) is conditioned both by physical and logical relations with the actualities conventionally demarked as “environmental” or external to that particular outcome. But by the relational realist interpretation, the actualization-in-process is understood as internally related to these “enironmental” data per the formalism of quantum decoherence. The concept of “actualization via (...) wave function collapse” is accounted for solely by virtue of these presupposed logical relations—the same logical relations otherwise presupposed by the scientific method itself—and thus requires no “external” physical-dynamical trigger: e.g., the Gaussian hits of GRW, acts of conscious observation, etc. By the relational realist interpretation, it is the physical and logical relations among quantum actualities (quantum “final real things”) that drives the process of decoherence and, via the latter, the logically conditioned actualization of potentia. In this regard, the relational realist interpretation of quantum mechanics is a praxiological interpretation; that is, these physical and logical relations are ontologically active relations, contributing not just to the epistemic coordination of quantum actualizations, but to the process of actualization itself. (shrink)