Causality In Philosophy Research Articles

How Evidential Pluralism Can Help Clarify the Nature of the Relationship Between Unemployment and Entrepreneurship

In line with Shan and Williamson (2023 , Evidential pluralism in the social sciences, Routledge), this article argues that evidential pluralism used in the philosophical enquiry of causation can be employed to examine causal relationships in the business and economics disciplines. We focus on the relationship between unemployment and entrepreneurship, which has created heated and inconclusive debate in the economics of entrepreneurship field. Specifically, we suggest that discrepancies in the literature are due to: (a) the failure to fully capture the mechanism of the relationship; and (b) differences in the methodological and data analysis approaches used in existing studies. We therefore argue that if we want to explore the unemployment and entrepreneurship relationship, we need to capture the underlying pathways that bring together different forms of entrepreneurship and unemployment by considering, for example, structural and labour market factors that may alter the strength and/or direction of the relationship. The case study analysis provides strong support for the use of the evidential pluralism in establishing causal links. We argue that methodological diversity and mixed method approaches can be helpful for exploring mechanisms, but they can be somewhat problematic when examining correlation empirically. Here, the use of panel data may allow us to capture the statistical association more accurately than the use of other types of data and econometric modelling. Finally, we argue that exploring the mechanism ahead of the correlation can allow us to learn more about the underlying relationship among the variables, which can then be modelled and captured statistically. In contrast, examining correlation first can lead to misleading results. Overall, the article concludes that evidential pluralism used in the philosophy of causation can help us to understand causal links and establish causal claims for important economic relationships, allowing effective policy to be crafted. To this end, and as discussed in the evidential pluralism literature (see Russo, F., & Williamson, J. 2007 , International Studies in the Philosophy of Science,21[2], 157–170; Shan, Y., & Williamson, J. 2023 , Evidential pluralism in the social sciences, Routledge), evidence of both mechanisms and correlations should be used to support causal hypotheses made in economics and business research. However, we propose that before analysing the correlations, we should conceptually examine the mechanisms.

Mental Causation for Standard Dualists

ABSTRACT The standard objection to dualist theories of mind is that they seemingly cannot account for the obvious fact that mental phenomena cause our behaviour. On the plausible assumption that all our behaviour is physically necessitated by entirely physical phenomena, there appears to be no room for dualist mental causation. Some argue that dualists can address this problem by making minimal adjustments in their ontology. I argue that no such adjustments are required. Given recent developments in philosophy of causation, it is plausible that mental phenomena cause behaviour in standard dualist ontologies.

Review of Mariusz Maziarz’s The Philosophy of Causality in Economics: Causal Inferences and Policy Proposals. New York: Routledge, 2020, xiv + 208 pp.

Review of Mariusz Maziarz’s The Philosophy of Causality in Economics: Causal Inferences and Policy Proposals. New York: Routledge, 2020, xiv + 208 pp.

The missing links of research impact

Abstract In this article, we present a conceptual framework for studying research impact focusing on the foundations that need to be in place to accelerate an observable change of policy, practice or behaviour. The article investigates the relationship between micro-impacts and societal change, and how smaller impacts scale into larger cascades of end effects and value creation. We define micro-impacts as interactions and connections where information is exchanged between a researcher or research group and external audiences, stakeholders or co-producers. Micro-impacts are elements in highly complex causal relations between research activities and larger societal macroshifts. We argue that even though these causal relations are complex, micro-impacts are tangible and observable and should be integrated in research evaluations as constitutive elements of causal impact relations leading to larger macroshifts. We suggest a working model for studying micro-impacts and for reflecting on the causality of impacts by drawing on contributions from philosophy of causation. A proper understanding of causation is a prerequisite for eventually understanding and capturing research impact, which itself is a prerequisite for responsible research assessment and planning.

Causality, time, and force

Orthodox physics makes extensive use of number relation mathematics such as mapping, probability, and infinite series. This mathematics is devoid of causative relations. A method to implement D. Hume’s philosophy of causation and time is suggested. The method is applied to Newton’s laws, the Faraday equation, and the Scalar Theory of Everything (STOE) Universal Equation. Including causation in physics modeling can result in increased understanding of physicality and new insights, which have been observed. The obfuscation of mathematics may be removed from physics by finding the cause–effect of observations.

Getting a grip: On causation, agency, and the meaning of “manipulation”

AbstractIn the philosophy of causation, manipulationist literature is broadly divided into agency and interventionist accounts. The division between these accounts is partially due to a dispute regarding the meaning of “manipulation”, which specifically questions, “Must one analyse manipulation by appealing to human agency?” This paper attempts to clarify the notion of manipulation and defends the thesis that agency theorists and interventionists analyse manipulation by appealing to human agency. However, following Collingwood's work, I argue that there are two ways to interpret “human agency”. With an extended notion of agency in place, I reveal a pathway towards a consensus between the agency and interventionist accounts. Further, I highlight the alleged discrepancies between agency and interventionist accounts, including the issues of scope and objectivity, and suggest additional pathways towards a consensus.

Why difference-making mental causation does not save free will

ABSTRACT Many philosophers take mental causation to be required for free will. But it has also been argued that the most popular view of the nature of mental states, i.e. non-reductive physicalism, excludes the existence of mental causation, due to what is known as the ‘exclusion argument’. In this paper, I discuss the difference-making account of mental causation proposed by [List, C., and Menzies, P. 2017. “My Brain Made Me Do It: The Exclusion Argument Against Free Will, and What’s Wrong with It.” In H. Beebee, C. Hitchcock, & H. Price (eds.), Making a Difference: Essays on the Philosophy of Causation. Oxford Scholarship Online: Oxford University Press], who argue that their account not only solves the problem of causal exclusion but also saves free will. More precisely, they argue that it rebuts what they call ‘the Neurosceptical Argument’, the argument that if actions are caused by neural states and processes unavailable to us, there is no free will. I argue that their argument fails for two independent reasons. The first reason is that they fail to show that difference-makers are independent causes. The second reason is that physical realizers of mental states can be individuated in a way that makes both mental states and their realizers difference-makers.

Divine Action and Emergence: An Alternative to Panentheism by Mariusz Tabaczek

Reviewed by: Divine Action and Emergence: An Alternative to Panentheism by Mariusz Tabaczek Michael J. Dodds O.P. TABACZEK, Mariusz. Divine Action and Emergence: An Alternative to Panentheism. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2021. xviii + 346 pp. Cloth, $75.00 This book is written against the background of a paradigm shift currently taking place in science, away from reductionism and toward the theory of emergence (EM) and downward causation (DC). The theory asserts that an emergent whole, whether a biological organism or a dynamic system, cannot be explained by its parts. The book evaluates a number of theologians who have embraced this theory in their accounts of divine action and concludes with an alternative account based on the theology of Aquinas. Tabaczek initially investigated the theory of emergence in his earlier work, Emergence: Towards a New Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science (2019). There, he explained how a neo-Aristotelian dispositional [End Page 603] metaphysics may serve as an ontological ground for emergentism. He begins the present work by summarizing and developing those arguments. Recognizing the inadequacy of the "classical" version of the theory of emergence that employs efficient causality to account for downward causation, Tabaczek turns to the "dynamical depth" account of emergence, developed by Terrence Deacon, that employs the notion of "constitutive absences" or constraints to explain the emergence of complexity and specialization. He finds, however, that Deacon's theory also fails to provide an ontology of the emergent whole. Many contemporary thinkers employ Aristotle's philosophy of causation in their discussions of emergence, but often without adequate understanding. Tabaczek therefore offers a masterful review of Aristotle's actual teaching and shows its relation to the dispositionalism of the New Aristotelianism. The main concern of the present work is theological. Tabaczek notes that theologians who employ emergence in their account of divine action frequently anchor their theology in panentheism, the theory that the world is somehow in God and that God is both in the world and somehow more than the world. God influences the world, but the world also affects God. The theory requires that, to avoid interfering with the world, God's power and knowledge must be somehow limited. Tabaczek finds that such theology "calls into question the classical understanding of God as immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, infinite, eternal, and impassible." He argues that "the concept of God's self-limitation of the divine attributes … leads to an image of God as a superintelligent and a superpowerful agent, yet not a truly divine one." Tabaczek's aim is "to critically evaluate emergentist panentheism within the circles of the theology–science dialogue and to propose an alternative theological interpretation of emergence in terms of the classical and the new Aristotelianism and the Thomistic concept of the concurrent action of God in the universe." He develops an interpretation of divine action that preserves the traditional, transcendent divine attributes while affirming God's immanence in the world. His model of divine action is "built in reference to both the classical DC-based and Deacon's dynamic depth views of EM (reinterpreted in terms of the classical and new Aristotelianism) and the classical Aristotelian-Thomistic view of the God-world relationship." It provides "an important alternative to the emergentist panentheism developed by Peacocke and supported by Clayton and Niels Henrik Gregersen." Tabaczek presents an insightful review and critique of theologians who employ panentheism and emergentism in their account of divine action. In so doing, he unearths some serious theological problems with panentheism in general and emergentist panentheism in particular. He finds a troublesome ambiguity with the notion of "in" (en) not only in the claims of panentheism regarding the God-world relationship but also in the very term "pan en theism" itself. He also spots an unresolved tension between the notions of divine transcendence and immanence. The issue [End Page 604] of theodicy arises with the claim that the world, with all its natural and moral evils, is somehow "in" God. Finally, there is a tendency to view God as a univocal cause, belonging to the same order as natural causes. Inpresenting his theory of emergence and divine action, Tabaczek first offers a magisterial review of Aquinas's account...

Halfway proportionality

According to the so-called ‘proportionality principle’, causes should be proportional to their effects: they should be both enough and not too much for the occurrence of their effects. This principle is the subject of an ongoing debate. On the one hand, many maintain that it is required to address the problem of causal exclusion and take it to capture a crucial aspect of causation. On the other hand, many object that it renders accounts of causation implausibly restrictive and often reject the principle wholesale. I argue that there is exaggeration on both sides. While one half of the principle is overly demanding, the other half is unobjectionable. And while the unobjectionable half does not block exclusion arguments on its own, it provides a nuanced picture of higher-level causation, fits with recent developments in philosophy of causation, and motivates adjustments to standard difference-making accounts of causation. I conclude that at least half of the proportionality principle is worth taking seriously.

Interactionism, Post-interactionism, and Causal Complexity: Lessons From the Philosophy of Causation.

In biology and philosophy of biology, discussing the notion of interaction leads to an examination of interactionism, which is, broadly speaking, the view that rejects gene-centrism and gene determinism and instead emphasizes the fact that traits of organisms are always the result of genes and environments. It has long been asserted that the nature-nurture problem requires an interactionist solution of sorts, the so-called interactionist consensus. This consensus, however, has been deemed insufficient and challenged by several authors triggering an extension of the debate among contestants and defenders. Unfortunately, part of the problem is that the views on causation that would ground claims about interactionism are not always made explicit in this debate, which renders those views somewhat complicated to assess. Moreover, it seems to be assumed that causal complexity excludes the possibility of characterizing, distinguishing, or comparing among causal contributions. By turning to a detailed survey of the origin of the debate and to some developments in the philosophy of causation, we will contend that this view is unwarranted, and that much of the debate around interactionism is based on the drawing of this (wrong) conclusion. We also examine implications of this analysis for the project to develop a framework based on the notion of inter-identities.

Causal Evidence and Dispositions in Medicine and Public Health.

Since the introduction of evidence-based medicine, there have been discussions about the epistemic primacy of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) for establishing causality in medicine and public health. A growing movement within philosophy of science calls instead for evidential pluralism: that we need more than one single method to investigate health outcomes. How should such evidential pluralism look in practice? How useful are the various methods available for causal inquiry? Further, how should different types of causal evidence be evaluated? This paper proposes a constructive answer and introduces a framework aimed at supporting scientists in developing appropriate methodological approaches for exploring causality. We start from the philosophical tradition that highlights intrinsic properties (dispositions, causal powers or capacities) as essential features of causality. This abstract idea has wide methodological implications. The paper explains how different methods, such as lab experiments, case studies, N-of-1 trials, case control studies, cohort studies, RCTs and patient narratives, all have some strengths and some limitations for picking out intrinsic causal properties. We explain why considering philosophy of causality is crucial for evaluating causality in the health sciences. In our proposal, we combine the various methods in a temporal process, which could then take us from an observed phenomenon (e.g., a correlation) to a causal hypothesis and, finally, to improved theoretical knowledge.

Making a Difference: Essays on the Philosophy of Causation Edited by Helen Beebee, Christopher Hitchcock and Huw Price

Making a Difference: Essays on the Philosophy of Causation Edited by Helen Beebee, Christopher Hitchcock and Huw Price

Check Your Truth Conditions! Clarifying the Relationship between Theories of Causation and Social Science Methods for Causal Inference

Theories of causation in philosophy ask what makes causal claims true and establish the so-called truth conditions allowing one to separate causal from noncausal relationships. We argue that social scientists should be aware of truth conditions of causal claims because they imply which method of causal inference can establish whether a specific claim holds true. A survey of social scientists shows that this is worth emphasizing because many respondents have unclear concepts of causation and link methods to philosophical criteria in an incoherent way. We link five major theories of causation to major small and large- n methods of causal inference to provide clear guidelines to researchers and improve dialogue across methods. While most theories can be linked to more than one method, we argue that structural counterfactual theories are most useful for the social sciences since they require neither social and natural laws nor physical processes to assess causal claims.

Causal Mechanisms and the Philosophy of Causation

AbstractLack of clarity about underlying philosophical commitments leads to lack of clarity at other levels of analysis. Here I show that the literature on so‐called “causal mechanisms” is rife with conceptual problems, stemming from insufficient rigor with respect to the metaphysics of causation.

Causation as an Element of the Offence

This is an English translation by Franz A. Wenzel of selected pages from Karl Engisch's monograph, Die Kausalitat als Merkmal der strafrechtlichen Tatbestande (1931), which, referencing John Stuart Mill's seminal analysis of causation in philosophy, apparently was the first to apply Mill's insights to the law and to argue for replacing the strong necessity (sine qua non, 'but for') criterion for causation in the law with a Millian covering-law account.

Causality: an empirically informed plea for pluralism

Perhaps now more than ever, the discipline of philosophy finds itself theoretically entwined with the contemporary sciences: the conceptual resources philosophical research affords are increasingly being put to work in everything from fundamental physics to evolutionary biology. That being the case, reflecting on the nature of philosophy‟s theoretical role with respect to the natural sciences is an ever-increasingly important and necessary task. In Causality: Philosophical Theory Meets Scientific Practice, Phyllis Illari and Federica Russo do so by examining one of the most central concepts at the foundation of many, if not all, philosophical frameworks employed in conceptualising phenomena in the natural sciences – namely, „causality‟. The aim of the book is to both introduce practising scientists to the various philosophical accounts of causality and introduce practising philosophers to the various scientific applications of that concept. To that end, the book covers an impressively wide range of interrelated topics in the philosophy of causation and their application to the natural sciences, and with a prose highly readable, often entertaining, and sprinkled with interesting, relevant, and illustrative historical anecdotes. For these reasons alone, it‟s easy to recommend this book to interested colleagues in either discipline: a highly accessible and candid treatment of this complex topic which sacrifices neither breadth nor depth no doubt deserves the attention of both parties. The book begins by addressing properly basic, “meta” topics, such as why philosophers ought to be interested in the scientific methodology of experimentally discerning causation, and how philosophical insight into the conceptual structure of „causation‟ might aid in scientific theorising. In keeping with this theme, throughout the book much emphasis is placed on the importance of an awareness and careful study of various evidentiary methods, and their utility in aiding insight into various key concepts in causal reasoning - „invariance‟, „modularity‟, „regularity‟, etc. The main section of the book introduces and critically discusses some of the central philosophical accounts of causality, and although each of the central chapters can be independently understood and digested, Illari and Russo neatly distinguish five important remits of the concept of „cause‟ – inference, prediction, explanation, control, and reasoning – which function as interpretive guidelines through which those principal accounts are measured. Helpfully, nearly every account of causation discussed is prominent in the contemporary literature in some form or another – causation as (1) probability alteration, (2) counterfactual dependence, (3) invariant manipulation, (4) processual tracing, (5) mechanistic mediation, and (6) information transfer. Each account is given its own chapter, and is motivated and discussed in a way which will pique crossdisciplinary interest. And while I suspect that philosophers working in causation may deem their content too thin, due to the scope and aims of the book, this is surely to some degree necessary, and so difficult to see as a significant shortcoming – for the philosophically uninitiated reader, it may even be a virtue; readers wishing for a more in-depth overview of contemporary philosophical accounts of causation might consult Paul & Hall (2013).

Forensic examination orthodox causation in the aspect of system approach

Forensic examination orthodox causation in the aspect of system approach

Causality: philosophical theory meets scientific practice

Head hits cause brain damage - but not always. Should we ban sport to protect athletes? Exposure to electromagnetic fields is strongly associated with cancer development - does that mean exposure causes cancer? Should we encourage old fashioned communication instead of mobile phones to reduce cancer rates? According to popular wisdom, the Mediterranean diet keeps you healthy. Is this belief scientifically sound? Should public health bodies encourage consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables? Severe financial constraints on research and public policy, media pressure, and public anxiety make such questions of immense current concern not just to philosophers but to scientists, governments, public bodies, and the general public. / In the last decade there has been an explosion of theorizing about causality in philosophy, and also in the sciences. This literature is both fascinating and important, but it is involved and highly technical. This makes it inaccessible to many who would like to use it, philosophers and scientists alike. / This book is an introduction to philosophy of causality - one that is highly accessible: to scientists unacquainted with philosophy, to philosophers unacquainted with science, and to anyone else lost in the labyrinth of philosophical theories of causality. It presents key philosophical accounts, concepts and methods, using examples from the sciences to show how to apply philosophical debates to scientific problems.

The Philosophy of Causation

Prof. Claudine Tiercelin’s seminar took the form of a symposium on causation, which was held on 5 and 6 December 2013. This international symposium in English, titled “Causation: New Prospects”, bore witness to the rapid growth of the philosophy of causation. Movements of the air as it encounters a sloping curved surface, chronophotograph on a fixed plate, Etienne-Jules Marey, 1901, College de France Archives Since the early 1970s, this expansion has largely been informed by the significant ...

Merleau-Ponty on Causality

“Merleau-Ponty on Causality” attempts to reveal Merleau-Ponty’s treatment of causality with respect to the physical, the vital, and the human. The philosophy of causality of both Hume and Mill will be briefly addressed and challenged. Special attention will be paid to Merleau-Ponty’s treatment of causality with respect to human behavior.