Causal Context Research Articles

Reasoning about certainty and uncertainty in concrete, causal, and propositional contexts.

Reasoning about certainty and uncertainty in concrete, causal, and propositional contexts.

Hare on Supervenience

In a recent paper R. M. Hare has suggested that what is 'involved in' a claim that ascribes a supervenient property to a is that 'Necessarily, if then there is a valid inference of the all x, ifGx then Fx, Ga so Fa form, the two premisses of which hold'. 1 Although Hare does not explicitly claim that the quoted sentence expresses a necessary and sufficient condition for a property to be supervenient it is clear from the rest of his paper that he does view his suggestion as being such a condition. I shall regard it as such throughout this note. My aim in this note is to show that without further amplification Hare's condition is open to the objection that if there is one property which satisfies the above condition for supervenience then all contingent properties satisfy it. In the course of the paper Hare adds two codicils to the condition as given above. The first is that the universalfor all x, if Gx then Fx should not be analytically true since this would lead to the immediate conclusion that all properties are supervenient. The second is that the universal should be nomological in character, at least in moral and causal contexts. As it stands, the condition would seem to allow certain pathological properties to pass as supervenient-though without being supervenient on any properties in particular. For if F is any property which it is logically impossible for an object to possess-being a round square, for example -then necessarily, ifFa then p holds for any proposition p, and thus for the consequent of Hare's condition in particular. This objection could be countered by explicitly adding a further restriction to the condition excluding such properties. However, the existence of the universalfor all x, ifGx then Fx should surely not depend on F holding for some a, as is implied by the quoted condition. Hare seems to be aware of this for he further claims it is necessary that there be some universal proposition which holds in the case of a supervenient property whether or not an object actually possesses it.2 I shall suppose Hare intends that if F is a supervenient property then it is necessary that there is some non-analytic universal for all x, if Gx then Fx which holds. This additional necessary condition will itself exclude those logically impossible (as well as logically necessary) properties from the category of the supervenient. Suppose, then, that there is some supervenient property F and thus that necessarily there exists a universal for all x, if Gx then Fx which holds nomologically. Suppose, further, that an adequate representation of this universal is

Teasing in Young Chimpanzees

Juveniles and infants in the large chimpanzee colony in Arnhem Zoo (The Netherlands) regularly direct seemingly annoying behaviour towards senior group-members. It is not clear whether this annoying behaviour is best regarded as a form of play or as a form of or whether it falls into an intermediate category. An inventarisation of these annoying behaviour patterns, provisionally called initiatives, is presented. Systematical observations were carried out, recording the performance by youngsters of quasi-aggressive initiatives directed towards senior individuals. The data indicate that such initiatives were directly responsible for an important part of the aggressive actions of seniors, although many of the initiatives did not result in aggressive responses. Aggressive and submissive reactions by seniors had a reinforcing effect : juniors continued their actions relatively often. However, when the target animals ignored the junior (the most common reaction) or made friendly contact the opposite occurred : juniors stopped their actions. Quasi-aggressive initiatives were predominantly directed towards individuals outside a junior's own mother-aunt subgroup. The actions were performed irrespective of the rank of the target animals: almost 40 % of all initiatives were directed towards individuals ranking higher than mother or aunt (whichever ranked higher). The possibility that quasi-aggressive initiatives were instigated by one or more of several causal contexts is considered. The initiatives for the most part appeared to be performed spontaneously: no possible reason for their performance could be deduced from the situation preceding the initiative. Moreover, quasi-aggressive initiatives occurred almost always unexpectedly: no warning was given. While performing an initiative a junior's body posture was tense rather than relaxed: he or she seemed ready to dash away at the first sign of a countermove, indicating that the risk of a punishing retaliation was taken into account. Several alternative hypotheses are discussed, each with their causal and functional aspects. The explanation of quasi-aggressive behaviour in terms of aggression is the one which best fits the data. According to this hypothesis the behaviour is caused by exploratory impulses and functions as a mechanism for youngsters to learn and expand their social limits. Additional observations and analyses are suggested to specify and test this hypothesis on quasi-aggressive behaviour and the role quasi-aggressive behaviour plays in development.

The effects of causality, response alternatives, and context continuity on hypothesis testing reasoning

AbstractTwo selection hypothesis testing tasks and nine evaluation hypothesis testing tasks which varied systematically with respect to causality, response alternatives, and context continuity were administered to two samples of adults to determine the effects of those variables and to determine the degree to which subjects (Ss) reasoned with material conditional, material biconditional, partial, or partial plus biconditional connectives. On the causal selection task the majority of Ss responded “yes” to all four instances, while on the evaluation tasks all three variables were found to affect performance. Ss responded consistently with the material biconditional connective especially when the tasks called for them to state their expectations or were written with context continuity. Results were interpreted to support the hypothesis that hypothesis testing reasoning in causal contexts begins with the material biconditional connective and involves schemata of controlling variables, probability, and correlations. A strictly “logical” falsification strategy is not viewed as operative. Implications for teaching students how to effectively test hypotheses in science classes are discussed.

The Extensionality of Causal Contexts

The Extensionality of Causal Contexts

The Extensionality of Causal Contexts

The Extensionality of Causal Contexts

On the Alleged Extensionality of “Causal Explanatory Contexts”

In a recent paper, Michael Levin argues that both statements reporting causal relations and causal explanatory statements are extensional. We show that his argument for the extensionality of causal explanatory statements fails to establish that conclusion. His claim that certain ‘because’ statements are elliptical for statements of what he terms the ‘causal explanatory’ form is unsubstantiated. The argument for the referential transparency of the allegedly explanatory form, regardless of whether it is a distinct explanatory form, fails because of scope problems. Finally, we argue that the apparent referential opacity of explanations, the attribution of certain kinds of properties to explanations, and our satisfaction with explanations in what appear to be disparate forms are best accounted for, not by the assumption of ellipticality of statements in various forms for statements in some inherently explanatory form, but rather by an account of explanation as a speech act, the success or failure of which may be affected by which of several co-referring expressions is employed.

Zahlenverhältnisse von Häufigkeiten

AbstractIn evaluating data, one acknowledges as a scientist the superiority of the K‐procedure on account of the versatility of its application, e.g. in answering the question not only as to its causal context, in proving two features to be contemporaneous and equally strong effects of a material third factor, or in accordance with a “criterion of parallel problems”, but also in demonstrating the mutual matching of two frequency‐ratios and the matching of one frequency‐ratio with a given proportion, e.g. 3: 1, and the matching of a continuing proportion collected from observed frequencies with a given continuing proportion, e.g. 9:3:3: 1.This is demonstrated in the examples in the literature, which hitherto have been treated only according to the classical procedure.

A Note on the Frege Argument

If this derivation is sound, it shows that a context meeting conditions (i) and (ii) must, (iii), sustain substitution of sentences alike only in truth-value within its scope salva veritate. The trouble is that there seem to be certain contexts, e.g. causal and temporal contexts, that satisfy (i) and (ii) yet clearly fail of truth-functionality. So, if the argument is valid, we shall be forced to think again about such contexts. W. G. Lycan' has tried to show that the argument is invalid. The burden of his case consists in the observation that the sentences filling the blank in C[. . .] at lines (i) and (z) are not in fact logically equivalent, since the latter entails the existence of the null set's singleton while the former may not. I don't wish to dispute (here) that if two sentences differ in their ontological commitments they cannot be logically equivalent. But I doubt that this observation goes to the root of the challenge posed by the Frege argument; for it seems possible to concede Lycan's point yet preserve the argument, or at least a revised version of it. Notice first that there is no need for the ontologies of (i) and (z) (and (3) and (W)) to be different, since 'p' itself could make mention of {IA }. Notice also that the argument could proceed without mention of that or any other set. An equally powerful alternative can be obtained by replacing the class abstraction operator with a (primitive) description operator and substituting a name for (say) Cicero into the position occupied by 'A'. (This shows, incidentally, that the argument in its full generality is quite free of issues about the status of sets and settheoretic discourse.)

Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Vol. II : In Honor of Philipp Frank (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 105 ble for reason's becoming practical is the existence of man who subjects himself to reason .... That there is a moral domain is due to the existence of the domain of man" (p. 127). Reason, then, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the moral domain. Thus, had Kant been consistent he would have been led, not to the primacy of Practical Reason, but to a philosophy, a metaphysics, of human existence--and it is this which would provide the unifying theme of his critical philosophy. This volume of studies is a brilliant example of what occurs when a philosopher of major proportions engages the Kantian problematics: The internal dialogue is an exciting and subtle testimony to the act of critical philosophizing. RICHARD M. ZANER Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas Boston Studies in the Philosophy o] Science. Vol. II: In Honor of Philipp Frank. Edited by Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartovsky. (New York: Humanities Press, Inc., 1965. Pp. xxxiv + 475. ---- Proceedings of the Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science, 1962-1964. $9.75.) Something for everyone or nothing for anyone? After the compliments to Philipp Frank by, among others, Carnap, Margenau, Von Mises, and Nagel, the symposiasts turn to their own preoccupations without the ghost of a connection with Frank or any other common thread. For logicians of science, Schlesinger and Hempel argue about the paradoxes of confirmation, Follesdal and Chisholm about contrary-to-fact conditionals, quantification, and modality in causal contexts. For historians of science, McMullin and Wartovsky discuss the evolution of the concept of mass out of the concept of matter (in a way that seems to miss the sense in which mass is not a quantitative equivalent of matter, but a quantitative property of matter , i.e., how it behaves in dynamic systems). Everett Mendelsohn and Ernst Meyr talk, in an instructive way, about the actual effects of physical theories (e.g., that of elastic bodies) on the development of nineteenth-century biology. For phenomenologists, Herbert Marcuse and Aron Gurwitsch discuss the possible "Galilean" misinterpretations of science consisting of the supposition that there is an absolute separation of the real (and mathematical) and perceptual everyday world. Whiteheadians are represented by Abner Shimony and J. M. Burgers speculating on how Whitehead might have adapted his philosophy of the organism to quantum physics. Michael Stock, O.P., tries to show that Freud is compatible with Aristotelian and Thomistic psychology. Mili5 Capek and Donald Williams rehearse the Parmenides-Heracleitus controversy about temporal reality in an interesting if somewhat bewildering pair of papers. Norman Rudich tells us that poetry, like science, is cognitive, thus justifying its inclusion in this volume. Hanson claims that it is impossible to conceive mathematics as a closed system, modelled on a mathematical system, in a lively paper in which scholarship has the appearance of being displayed rather than used. A long and complicated paper by Sellars criticizes the Identity approach to the mind-body problem, in the form held, apparently, by Herbert Feigl. It is not clear how anyone could possibly hold the view as Sellars states it, nor why it is so imperative, as Israel Scheffier maintains in his comments, that scientists must be reductionists. Finally, there is a long debate involving J. J. C. Smart, Sellars, Hilary Putnam, and Paul Feyerabend, entitled "Conflicting Views about Explanation." It is, in fact, a long endeavor to get clear, without paying too much attention to one another, what views each takes on the question: How do theoretical statements relate to observation statements? Finally, there is a piece by Sir George Thomson who seems rather bewildered about such goings on, but manages nonetheless to offer a humble and lucid account of the world of science that, alone among the contributions to this volume, bears the mark of actual contact with that world. k. R. LoucH Claremont Graduate School ...