Causal Necessity Research Articles

Mary Shepherd on Causal Necessity

AbstractLady Mary Shepherd’s critique of Hume’s account of causation, his worries about knowledge of matters of fact, and the contention that it is possible for the course of nature to spontaneously change relies primarily on three premises, two of which – that objects are merely bundles of qualities and that the qualities of an object are individuated by the causal powers contributed by those qualities – anticipate contemporary metaphysical views in ways that she should be getting credit for. The remaining premise – that it is impossible for an object to begin to exist uncaused – seems more old fashioned. I argue that Shepherd can do without her old-fashioned premise and that she provides the materials for arguing that her remaining premises demonstrate a stronger anti-Humeanism than is maintained even by the contemporary representatives of those views, even though she may have to concede more to Humeanism than she would like.

THEISM AND ATHEISM:JUSTIFIED BELIEF-DECISIONS FOR OR AGAINST THE CONCEPT OF GOD

In earnest, the debate between theism and atheism is related to the essence of God--the de renecessity of God,and not the mere in re existence of God. The de re necessity of God is an abstraction conjectured from the de dicto necessity for Godinferredfrom the contingency of the universe. As long as the universe exists, the de re necessity or essence of God will be debated. Causal necessity of the universe establishes the de dicto necessity for God, however, the attempt to stop the infinite regression or the chain of causation, postulates the de re necessity or noncontingent existence of God. Beliefs related to God are belief-decisions – decisions for or against the essence of God. Questions and concerns related to conscious life necessitate such beliefs. So the meaning of religious beliefs is not tied up with establishing the veracity of their truth, but with the relevance of the questions that make such beliefs necessary. While a good question can make millions think, a good answer can make millions debate its truth. When theists argue for the existence of God, theyargue for the existence of an existing being, and not for the existence of a non-existing being. However, if atheists argue the non-existence of God, then they cannot argue for the non-existence of an existing being, nor argue for the non-existence of a non-existing being. So what theists and atheists accept or reject is related to the existence or non-existence of a non-contingent being. However, an atheist is an atheist not because of the presence of theists, nor is a theist a theist because of the presence of atheists. Both theists and atheists address the same questions that necessitate decisions for or against the concept of God.&nbsp

Principal Causal Effect Identification and Surrogate end point Evaluation by Multiple Trials

Summary Principal stratification is a causal framework to analyse randomized experiments with a post-treatment variable between the treatment and end point variables. Because the principal strata defined by the potential outcomes of the post-treatment variable are not observable, we generally cannot identify the causal effects within principal strata. Motivated by a real data set of phase III adjuvant colon cancer clinical trials, we propose approaches to identifying and estimating the principal causal effects via multiple trials. For the identifiability, we remove the commonly used exclusion restriction assumption by stipulating that the principal causal effects are homogeneous across these trials. To remove another commonly used monotonicity assumption, we give a necessary condition for the local identifiability, which requires at least three trials. Applying our approaches to the data from adjuvant colon cancer clinical trials, we find that the commonly used monotonicity assumption is untenable, and disease-free survival with 3-year follow-up is a valid surrogate end point for overall survival with 5-year follow-up, which satisfies both causal necessity and causal sufficiency. We also propose a sensitivity analysis approach based on Bayesian hierarchical models to investigate the effect of the deviation from the homogeneity assumption.

The Demands of Reason: An Essay on Pyrrhonian Scepticism, by Casey Perin

The origins of Pyrrhonian Scepticism are traced back to Pyrrho of Elis, a near contemporary of Alexander the Great, but its systematic development is due to Aenesidemus (first century BC) and has been transmitted to us by Sextus Empiricus, a second century AD physician and sceptic, in two works, the Outlines of Pyrrhonism ( PH ) and Against the Professors ( M ). According to the former, which sketches the salient features of the Sceptics’ method and mode of life, Scepticism consists in ‘an ability to oppose appearances to judgements in any way whatsoever, with the result that, because of the equipollence of the things and arguments thus opposed, we are brought first to suspension of judgement and then to tranquillity’ ( PH I. 8). In fact, the hope to attain tranquillity ( ataraxia ) is the originating cause of Scepticism: certain talented people who were disturbed by the contradictions in things and perplexed as to which alternatives they ought to assent to begun to enquire what, in the nature of things, is true and what is false in order to reach a rational decision and thus remove the cause of their disturbance (I. 12, 25–6). As it turned out, however, they found themselves amidst a controversy between impressions or positions of equal strength and, being unable to judge their truth or falsehood, they suspended assent or judgement ( epochê ). And when they did so, the tranquillity that they had deliberately pursued by trying to resolve disagreements concerning the objects of belief came to them much ‘as a shadow follows the body’ (I. 29). There appears to be a necessary link between the Sceptics’ epochê , suspension, and the tranquillity that ensues, which has been traditionally interpreted as causal necessity.

Surrogate Endpoint Evaluation: Principal Stratification Criteria and the Prentice Definition.

A common problem of interest within a randomized clinical trial is the evaluation of an inexpensive response endpoint as a valid surrogate endpoint for a clinical endpoint, where a chief purpose of a valid surrogate is to provide a way to make correct inferences on clinical treatment effects in future studies without needing to collect the clinical endpoint data. Within the principal stratification framework for addressing this problem based on data from a single randomized clinical efficacy trial, a variety of definitions and criteria for a good surrogate endpoint have been proposed, all based on or closely related to the "principal effects" or "causal effect predictiveness (CEP)" surface. We discuss CEP-based criteria for a useful surrogate endpoint, including (1) the meaning and relative importance of proposed criteria including average causal necessity (ACN), average causal sufficiency (ACS), and large clinical effect modification; (2) the relationship between these criteria and the Prentice definition of a valid surrogate endpoint; and (3) the relationship between these criteria and the consistency criterion (i.e., assurance against the "surrogate paradox"). This includes the result that ACN plus a strong version of ACS generally do not imply the Prentice definition nor the consistency criterion, but they do have these implications in special cases. Moreover, the converse does not hold except in a special case with a binary candidate surrogate. The results highlight that assumptions about the treatment effect on the clinical endpoint before the candidate surrogate is measured are influential for the ability to draw conclusions about the Prentice definition or consistency. In addition, we emphasize that in some scenarios that occur commonly in practice, the principal strata sub-populations for inference are identifiable from the observable data, in which cases the principal stratification framework has relatively high utility for the purpose of effect modification analysis, and is closely connected to the treatment marker selection problem. The results are illustrated with application to a vaccine efficacy trial, where ACN and ACS for an antibody marker are found to be consistent with the data and hence support the Prentice definition and consistency.

Hume on the Projection of Causal Necessity

AbstractA characteristically Humean pattern of explanation starts by claiming that we have a certain kind of feeling in response to some objects and then takes our having such feelings to provide an explanation of how we come to think of those objects as having some feature that we would not otherwise be able to think of them as having. This core pattern of explanation is what leads Simon Blackburn to dub Hume ‘the first great projectivist.’ This paper critically examines the philosophical and textual basis for interpreting Hume as a causal projectivist. I argue that projectivist interpretations of Hume's account of causation are motivated by two convictions: that beliefs about causation, according to Hume, are not just beliefs about regularity relations and that believing that two events are necessarily connected, according to Hume, is not merely having a belief about something that occurs in one's mind. I suggest that the latter conviction is worth revisiting, both for textual and philosophical reasons.

Freedom and necessity: the transition to the logic of the concept in Hegel's Science of Logic

Whether freedom and causal necessity can coexist in the same world remains a contested question. In this article, I seek to show that Hegel's analysis of the category of causality, which concludes in the transition from the logic of essence to the logic of the concept, can help to elucidate this question itself. Starting with a short characterization of the positions in Kant's account of the ‘antinomy of freedom’ in his Critique of Pure Reason, I reconstruct the main sections of Hegel's account of causality in his Science of Logic. Holding the two accounts together shows that both proponent and opponent in the ‘antinomy of freedom’ are misled in that there are not two different kinds of causality at issue but rather two intrinsically connected moments of causality as such.

Laws of Nature and Causal Necessity

Abstract:This paper consider the necessity of causal laws of nature in relation to Kant’s works explicitly addressed to natural science (such as the Prolegomena and the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science), and also to the second edition of the Transcendental Deduction and the Critique of the Power of Judgement.

The influence of model status on the tendency of young children to over-imitate

The current study aimed to integrate the trust and over-imitation literatures by allowing groups of 5-year-old children to view one of four adult models, differing in their level of status (high or low), retrieve a reward from inside a transparent puzzle box. Each of the models performed a sequence of tool actions on the box before retrieving the reward. These actions varied according to their causal necessity, with some of the actions being causally necessary for reward retrieval and others being causally irrelevant. The results suggest that young children are selective copiers, reproducing the irrelevant tool actions most frequently after having viewed the high-status models. It is suggested that this bias toward rank-ordered copying is likely to be a strategy favored by natural selection because the behaviors displayed by high-status individuals are often the behaviors that are locally adaptive and may, by extension, provide copiers with a selective advantage within their environment.

Towards a Theory of Freedom

Human freedom resides primarily in exercise of that capacity that humans employ more abundantly than any other species on earth: the capacity for judgement. And in particular: that special judgement in relation to Self that we call aspiration. Freedom is not the absence of a field of (other) powers; instead, freedom shows up only against the reticulations of power impinging from without. For freedom worthy of the name must be construed as an exercise of power within an already-present field of power. Thus, liberty and causal necessity are not obverses.

Causal Necessity in Aristotle

Like many realists about causation and causal powers, Aristotle uses the language of necessity when discussing causation, and he appears to think that by invoking necessity, he is clarifying the manner in which causes bring about or determine their effects. In so doing, he would appear to run afoul of Humean criticisms of the notion of a necessary connection between cause and effect. The claim that causes necessitate their effects may be understood— or attacked— in several ways, however, and so whether the view or its criticism is tenable depends on how we understand the necessitation claim. In fact, Aristotelian efficient causation may be said to involve two distinct necessary connections: one is a relation between causes considered as potential, while the other relates them considered as active. That is, the claims that (1) what has the power to heat necessarily heats what has the power to be heated, and that (2) a particular flame which is actually under a pot necessarily heats it, both of which appear to be true for Aristotle, involve distinct notions of necessity. The latter kind of necessity is based on the facts, as Aristotle sees them, about change, whereas the former is based in the nature of properties. Though different, both kinds of necessity are instances of what contemporary philosophers would call metaphysical necessity, and together they also amount to a theory of causal determination.

The Contingency of the Laws of Nature

My starting point is Hume's sceptical doubt as to the necessity of causal connection. This doubt consists in challenging the metaphysician to found rationally the necessity of the causal relation—that is to say, to prove that it is necessary that the same effects should always follow from the same causes. According to Hume, this challenge cannot be met, because the only instances that could possibly rationally found causal necessity are experience and logical necessity. Now, I can certainly affirm on the basis of experience that causality has never failed in the past; but that does not allow me to prove that the same will apply in the future. As for logic, it prescribes only noncontradiction; and there is nothing contradictory in conceiving that objects might behave differently tomorrow than they did today, under exactly the same conditions. Hume's conclusion is that our adhesion to causality proceeds from a vital habit, an accustomedness that persuades us that the causal sequences we have observed in the past will be repeated identically in the future. This conclusion is sceptical in the sense that it disqualifies the metaphysical claim that one can discover through a priori reasoning the necessities that govern nature. However, it is possible to draw a very different conclusion from the same premises. For, rather than conceding that reason cannot prove causal necessity a priori, why not affirm that reason reveals that all causal relations are contingent, that it opens up the possibility that, in the future, completely different effects could follow from exactly the same causes? In that case, reason would have discovered, beneath the apparent fixity of empirical constants, a chaos indifferent to all causality. This is the hypothesis to be examined, and we shall try to show that there exist precise reasons to take it seriously.

Naturalism Reconsidered

Naturalism has many differing senses, some positive and some negative. While it is used in positive senses by tradition of analytical philosophy, with Ludwig Wittgenstein its best example, and by me tradition of phenomenology, with Maurice Merleau-Ponty its best exemplar, it also has an extremely negative sense on both of these fronts. In fact, botii Merleau-Ponty and Wittgenstein in their basic thrusts adamantly reject reductionistic Although Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology rejects that Husserl rejects, early on found a place for truth of naturalism. In a parallel way, Wittgenstein accepts a certain positive sense of naturalism, while rejecting Quine's kind of naturalism, which has great affinities with that rejected by phenomenology. It is aim of this essay to investigate common ground in views of Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty regarding that they each espouse and that which they each adamantly reject. We will first consider view of Wittgenstein before turning to that of MerleauPonty in an attempt to bring out common ground between them. Wittgenstein's Naturalism Despite their protestations to contrary, skeptics consistently act as though external world, other minds, etc., exist. They simply cannot help believing, regardless of doubts they may air. believed where skepticism and instinct clash, instinct wins out: To bring us to so salutary a determination, nothing can be more serviceable, than to be once thoroughly convinced of force of Pyrrhonian doubt, and of impossibility, that anything, but strong power of natural instinct, could free us from it.1 David Pears has noted that as soon as Hume traces idea of causal necessity back to its origin .. . halts his inquiry.2 But if [Hume] had known how brain works, Pears confidently adds, he would have taken his investigation . . . into neurology.3 Equating with some kind of scientific reductionism is not uncommon. In a survey of philosophy of language and mind from 1950-1990, Tyler Burge simply assumed that naturalism was, in fact, interchangeable with physicalism.4 Indeed, for several decades this view has been widely accepted mostly due to overwhelming influence of W. V. O. Quine. In Epistemology Naturalized, Quine suggests that epistemology should rely on techniques and assumptions of natural sciences. Epistemology, or something like it, simply falls into place as a chapter of . . . natural science. It studies a natural phenomenon, viz., a physical human subject. This human subject is accorded a certain experimentally controlled input . . . and in fullness of time subject delivers as a description of three dimensional external world and its history. The relation between meager input and torrential is a relation that we are prompted to study.3 Accordingly, a naturalized epistemology is supposed to offer a scientific explanation of how the meager input and torrential output are related. It will also provide a scientific explanation of how it is that some of our beliefs come to be knowledge and others do not. Wittgenstein advocates something quite different in kind. Wittgenstein would probably place Quine's reductive, scientific in a language-game, where reasons and explanations can be offered. Wittgenstein's own suggestion, however, occurs at a lower level, a non-ratiocinated animal or primitive level.6 At this level, we do not depend on explication or justification. Rather, at this level, our convictions about world, other minds, etc., are borne out in what we unreflectively do, not in what we say, nor in reasons why we say what we say. Although Wittgenstein's is quite different from Quine's, philosophers, like Pears, nonetheless believe it should have ranged more freely across border between philosophy . …

Reality and Probability: Contra Williams

An account is given of Roy Bhaskar's conception of causal necessity in order to provide an objective measure for Williams' criticisms of critical realism. In light of this account, Williams' criticisms are found to fail. The reply finishes with an alternative, critical realist account of the ontological basis of probability.

Problematology and Contingency in the Social Sciences

Wherever we look in the social sciences today we find references to contin gency.1 It goes by many names—postmodernity, liquid modernity, indetermi nacy, problematization, destabilization, flux, radical undecidability, and so on. But whichever term is used social scientists have identified how modernity has been called into question and causality and certainty have been replaced by a more problematic social reality, such that contingency is the defining attribute of contemporary society.2 Social relationships are characterized by contingency rather than necessity, as are the social sciences themselves which have reflex ively recast their own theories in light of the realization that social scientific knowledge can only be a partial perspective. This has produced a wealth of new approaches but also many difficulties. How are we to make sense of the world in all its plurality and questioning of established traditions yet develop a theory of consistent, logical relationships to describe it? That is, how can we theoretically express the contingency of the world without annulling it in a system which represents it as a series of determinate states linked via causal necessity? Luhmann points to the extent of the contingency problem for the social sciences in noting that contingency is a weak generalization compared with necessity and impossibility: 'is there a theory that can make use of the concept of contingency?'3 Given that contingency has been produced by the problematization of society and the social sciences, one answer to this question is to conceptualize contingency in terms of problematization itself. Many variants of poststructuralism have attempted this, yet arguably have not made significant advances because they often see problematization as disruptive rather than as constitutive of knowledge. Instead, at least as far as social scientific inquiry is concerned, we could conceive of this generalized problematization in positive terms. Michel Meyer's philosophy, problematology, can do this because it is

The Geometrical Method in Spinoza'sEthics

While the goal of Spinoza's Ethics has strong affinities with the Aristotelian goal of eudaimonia, structurally the text itself is modeled on Euclid's Elements. Does Spinoza think that the precision and certainty of mathematics can be extended to moral philosophy? To answer this question, I discuss the relation between the geometrical method of the Ethics and its content and goal. Arguing that the deductive structure of the Ethics mirrors the causal necessity by which all of nature follows from God, I conclude that Spinoza applies the geometrical method to ethics because nothing, including human life and well-being, is exempt from this causal necessity. Furthermore, I discuss the role the geometrical method plays in an aspect of the argument of the Ethics which can best be described as dialectical, in the Aristotelian sense of the word: Spinoza hoped to persuade the members of his circle of theologically radical yet devout friends, and others intellectually similar to them, of the truth of his philosophy by beginning with Cartesian principles they would accept. Finally, I argue that certain nongeometrical portions of the Ethics are directed at the emotions of these readers.

Causal Realism: Events and Processes

Minimally, causal realism (as understood here) is the view that accounts of causation in terms of mere, regular or probabilistic conjunction are unsatisfactory, and that causal phenomena are correctly associated with some form of de re necessity. Classic arguments, however, some of which date back to Sextus Empiricus and have appeared many times since, including famously in Russell, suggest that the very notion of causal realism is incoherent. In this paper I argue that if such objections seem compelling, it is only because everyday expressions concerning causal phenomena are misleading with respect to certain metaphysical details. These expressions generally make reference to the relations of events or states of affairs, but ignore or obscure the role played by causal properties. I argue that on a proposed alternative, an analysis in terms of causal processes, more refined descriptions of causal phenomena escape the charge of incoherence. Causal necessity is here located in the relations of causal properties. I distinguish this view from the recent process theories of Salmon and Dowe, which are disinterested in causal realism.

The Role of Character in Hume’s Account of Moral Responsibility

In A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume introduces what may be called the character thesis in response to an anticipated objection to his claim that human actions are causally determined in the same sense and to the same extent as events in the natural world. The objection is that if human actions are subject to the doctrine of necessity, then no human beings are responsible for their actions, since it is never true to say that they might have done otherwise. Hume’s response is that causal necessity is not only compatible with moral responsibility, but actually necessary for it. He starts by observing that criminal punishment rests on the assumption that such punishment will “have an influence on the mind” of the person punished, to persuade the person to behave well. 1 But “the constant and universal object of hatred or anger is a person or creature endow’d with thought and consciousness,” he says, “and when any criminal or injurious actions excite that passion, ‘tis only by their relation to the person or connexion with him.” 2 People can only be punished for actions that in some sense belong to them. But if actions were the proper objects of such hatred and anger, without reference to character traits they instantiate, then no one could ever be held responsible for their actions. This is because actions are by their very nature temporary and perishing; and where they proceed not from some cause in the characters and dispositions of the person, who perform’d them, they infix not themselves upon him, and can neither redound to his honour, if good, nor infamy, if evil. 3

Volitional Necessity and Volitional Shift: A Key to Sobriety?

Volitional Necessity and Volitional Shift:A Key to Sobriety? John Talmadge (bio) As a long-time amateur student of philosophy, I think my most effective contribution to this discussion of Dr. Rego's paper will be to discuss Harry Frankfurt's ideas from precisely the point of view of the beginner and the novice. After all, I had never experienced the pleasure of reading Frankfurt until reading Rego, so I can hardly be considered proficient and conversant in analytical philosophy. To pretend to be so would be, in Frankfurt's way of thinking, to construe what I really am (a novice) as what I would ideally like to be (an expert). He calls this "the equation of the real with the ideal," and he certainly gets us thinking. He also says that our failure to mark the distinctions among our many passions (and our attitudes toward our passions) gets us into considerable confusion and trouble. Because I am most familiar with the diagnosis and treatment of addictions, I confine my comments to that domain. I have enjoyed over the years over the puzzling question of whether addiction should actually be called a "disease." This puzzle confounds us for one reason apparent to any armchair philosopher: how can we name something a disease when the removal of the offending agent banishes the problem? I have come to believe that Locke had it right when he said, "We would have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves." (1994, 122) Addiction is not so much a disease as it is an idea. And this is where I think that Dr. Rego's insights have their most value. In his essay "The Importance of What We Care About," Frankfurt offers a particularly helpful example for those of us interested in the addictions. He observes that there are occasions when we care about something powerfully, and we care about it in such a fashion that we cannot avoid the consequences of the caring. His example from history is Martin Luther, who nailed his declaration to the door of the church with the statement, "Here I stand; I can do no other." It is clear, of course, that the impossibility to which Luther referred was a matter neither of logical nor of causal necessity. After all, he knew well enough that he was in one sense quite able to do the very thing he said he could not do; that is, he had the capacity to do it. What he was unable to muster was not the power to forbear, but the will. (Frankfurt 1988, 86) When an alcoholic finds success through Alcoholics Anonymous, he experiences what I would term a "volitional shift." No longer in the grip of alcohol itself, the alcoholic is constrained by what Frankfurt terms "volitional necessity." The alcoholic has a new constraint to which he declares he is subject, that is, "Today I will remain sober." [End Page 327] Frankfurt says that this capacity—the ability to reflect on ourselves—is precisely what separates us as uniquely human. As Frankfurt sees the world, the will of an agent is identical with the desire that motivates him (or would motivate him if he should act).1 A first-order desire, such as the alcoholic's craving for a drink, may be contradicted by a second-order desire, specifically a desire not to crave a drink. The second-order desire is born of the individual's knowledge that the use of alcohol, in his case, will lead to dire consequences in terms of health, happiness, and stability. Frankfurt believes that an addict, for example, typically experiences a desire for the destructive chemical but also a desire not to use the chemical. This second-order desire is the one with which the addict identifies, and this reflects the addict's true self (Frankfurt 1988, 14). If we take Dr. Rego's point and notice how a therapist might approach a patient and define a problem, we see obvious distinctions between different schools of thought. To take three simple examples, consider the following: (a) a...

Cognitive memory: cellular and network machineries and their top-down control.

A brain-wide distributed network orchestrates cognitive memorizing and remembering of explicit memory (i.e., memory of facts and events). The network was initially identified in humans and is being systematically investigated in molecular/genetic, single-unit, lesion, and imaging studies in animals. The types of memory identified in humans are extended into animals as episodic-like (event) memory or semantic-like (fact) memory. The unique configurational association between environmental stimuli and behavioral context, which is likely the basis of episodic-like memory, depends on neural circuits in the medial temporal lobe, whereas memory traces representing repeated associations, which is likely the basis of semantic-like memory, are consolidated in the domain-specific regions in the temporal cortex. These regions are reactivated during remembering and contribute to the contents of a memory. Two types of retrieval signal reach the cortical representations. One runs from the frontal cortex for active (or effortful) retrieval (top-down signal), and the other spreads backward from the medial temporal lobe for automatic retrieval. By sending the top-down signal to the temporal cortex, frontal regions manipulate and organize to-be-remembered information, devise strategies for retrieval, and also monitor the outcome, with dissociated frontal regions making functionally separate contributions. The challenge is to understand the hierarchical interactions between these multiple cortical areas, not only with a correlational analysis but also with an interventional study demonstrating the causal necessity and the direction of the causality.