http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
This volume focuses on alternatives to the two main philosophical approaches to causation: mechanistic explanation, and explanation in terms of difference-making. It explores the pluralistic, the fictionalist, the inferentialist, and the informational approaches, as well as the application of various approaches to natural and social sciences.
Intro -- Halftitle page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- List of Contributors -- 1. Some Reflections on Causation -- 1. Recent Debates over Causation -- 2. Alternative Approaches: Beyond Difference-making and Mechanism -- 3. A Practice Turn (and Towards a Functional Approach?) -- 2. Causation: A Non-Reductionist, Theoretical-Term Analysis -- 1. Introduction -- 2. A Thought Experiment and the Core Idea: Principles Linking Causation to Logical Probability -- 3. The Postulates for a Theoretical-Term Analysis of the Concept of the Relation of Causation
4. Defining the Relation of Causation -- 5. Some Highly Desirable Aspects of This Account of the Relation of Causation -- 6. The Alternatives to a Non-Reductionist Analysis of Causation -- 7. Some Central Objections to Humean Reductionist Analyses -- 8. The Fundamental Objection to a Non-Humean Reductionist Analysis -- 9. A Refutation of the Simplest Non-Reductionist View -- 10. Logical Probability and the Epistemological Problem of Laws of Nature -- 11. Summing Up -- 3. Robust Causal Realism -- 1. Introduction -- 2. How Do We Come By Our Grasp of Causal Relations?
3. The Ontology of Causal Relations: Preliminaries -- 4. Knowledge of How the World Works -- 5. The Ontology of Necessary Causal Connection -- 6. Back to Epistemology: Knowledge of the World -- 7. Some Concluding Reflections -- 4. The Metaphysics of Causation: An Empiricist Critique -- 1. Overview -- 2. The Dilemma -- 3. First Horn: The Failed Quest for Factual Content -- 4. The Second Horn: Causal Metaphysics Is Not Factual -- 5. Causation Is Not Factual Discovery, but Convenient Definition -- 6. The Manipulability or Interventionist Conception of Causation
7. Solving Problems for the Interventionist Account -- 8. Downward Causation -- 9. Causal Maxims Are Reawakened -- 10. Conclusion -- 5. A Dispositional Account of Causation: Implications for the Biological Sciences -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The Two-Event Model of Causation as a Philosophical BIAS -- 3. Implications for Biology: The Problem of Low External Validity -- 4. Diagnosis of the Problem_ A Humean Methodology -- 5. Causal Dispositionalism -- 6. Methodological Implications -- 6. Causal Efficacy: A Comparison of Rival Views -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Transmission Accounts
3. Mechanistic Accounts -- 4. Powers-Based Accounts -- 5. Influence: Unidirectional or Reciprocal? -- 6. Powerful Particulars Account -- 7. Case Study I: Collisions between Billiard Balls -- 8. Case Study II: Water Dissolving Salt -- 9. Conclusion -- 7. The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Causal Production: The Prospects of Variation to Trace the Transmission of Information -- 1. Why Bother with Causal Production? -- 2. Information Transmission as a Thin General Metaphysics for Causal Production -- 3. Tracing Transmission: Why Production Needs Variation -- 4. Discussion and Conclusion
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge