Download or read book Causation Physics and the Constitution of Reality written by Huw Price and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The difference between cause and effect seems obvious and crucial in ordinary life, yet missing modern physics. Almost a century ago, Bertrand Russell called the law of causality 'a relic of a bygone age'. Scholars revisit Russell's conclusion, discussing one of the most significant and puzzling issues in contemporary thought.
Download or read book Causal Reasoning in Physics written by Mathias Frisch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-09 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues, partly through detailed case studies, for the importance of causal reasoning in physics.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Causation written by Helen Beebee and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-01-12 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Causation is a central topic in many areas of philosophy. In metaphysics, philosophers want to know what causation is, and how it is related to laws of nature, probability, action, and freedom of the will. In epistemology, philosophers investigate how causal claims can be inferred from statistical data, and how causation is related to perception, knowledge and explanation. In the philosophy of mind, philosophers want to know whether and how the mind can be said to have causal efficacy, and in ethics, whether there is a moral distinction between acts and omissions and whether the moral value of an act can be judged according to its consequences. And causation is a contested concept in other fields of enquiry, such as biology, physics, and the law. This book provides an in-depth and comprehensive overview of these and other topics, as well as the history of the causation debate from the ancient Greeks to the logical empiricists. The chapters provide surveys of contemporary debates, while often also advancing novel and controversial claims; and each includes a comprehensive bibliography and suggestions for further reading. The book is thus the most comprehensive source of information about causation currently available, and will be invaluable for upper-level undergraduates through to professional philosophers.
Download or read book Causation in Science written by Yemima Ben-Menahem and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the role of causal constraints in science, shifting our attention from causal relations between individual events--the focus of most philosophical treatments of causation—to a broad family of concepts and principles generating constraints on possible change. Yemima Ben-Menahem looks at determinism, locality, stability, symmetry principles, conservation laws, and the principle of least action—causal constraints that serve to distinguish events and processes that our best scientific theories mandate or allow from those they rule out. Ben-Menahem's approach reveals that causation is just as relevant to explaining why certain events fail to occur as it is to explaining events that do occur. She investigates the conceptual differences between, and interrelations of, members of the causal family, thereby clarifying problems at the heart of the philosophy of science. Ben-Menahem argues that the distinction between determinism and stability is pertinent to the philosophy of history and the foundations of statistical mechanics, and that the interplay of determinism and locality is crucial for understanding quantum mechanics. Providing historical perspective, she traces the causal constraints of contemporary science to traditional intuitions about causation, and demonstrates how the teleological appearance of some constraints is explained away in current scientific theories such as quantum mechanics. Causation in Science represents a bold challenge to both causal eliminativism and causal reductionism—the notions that causation has no place in science and that higher-level causal claims are reducible to the causal claims of fundamental physics.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Causation written by Helen Beebee and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-12 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Causation is a central topic in many areas of philosophy. In metaphysics, philosophers want to know what causation is, and how it is related to laws of nature, probability, action, and freedom of the will. In epistemology, philosophers investigate how causal claims can be inferred from statistical data, and how causation is related to perception, knowledge and explanation. In the philosophy of mind, philosophers want to know whether and how the mind can be said to have causal efficacy, and in ethics, whether there is a moral distinction between acts and omissions and whether the moral value of an act can be judged according to its consequences. And causation is a contested concept in other fields of enquiry, such as biology, physics, and the law. This book provides an in-depth and comprehensive overview of these and other topics, as well as the history of the causation debate from the ancient Greeks to the logical empiricists. The chapters provide surveys of contemporary debates, while often also advancing novel and controversial claims; and each includes a comprehensive bibliography and suggestions for further reading. The book is thus the most comprehensive source of information about causation currently available, and will be invaluable for upper-level undergraduates through to professional philosophers.
Download or read book A Companion to the Philosophy of Time written by Adrian Bardon and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-01-22 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to the Philosophy of Time presents the broadest treatment of this subject yet; 32 specially commissioned articles - written by an international line-up of experts – provide an unparalleled reference work for students and specialists alike in this exciting field. The most comprehensive reference work on the philosophy of time currently available The first collection to tackle the historical development of the philosophy of time in addition to covering contemporary work Provides a tripartite approach in its organization, covering history of the philosophy of time, time as a feature of the physical world, and time as a feature of experience Includes contributions from both distinguished, well-established scholars and rising stars in the field
Download or read book Quantum Causality written by Peter J. Riggs and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-06-05 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is no sharp dividing line between the foundations of physics and philosophy of physics. This is especially true for quantum mechanics. The debate on the interpretation of quantum mechanics has raged in both the scientific and philosophical communities since the 1920s and continues to this day. (We shall understand the unqualified term ‘quantum mechanics’ to mean the mathematical formalism, i. e. laws and rules by which empirical predictions and theoretical advances are made. ) There is a popular rendering of quantum mechanics which has been publicly endorsed by some well known physicists which says that quantum mechanics is not only 1 more weird than we imagine but is weirder than we can imagine. Although it is readily granted that quantum mechanics has produced some strange and counter-intuitive results, the case will be presented in this book that quantum mechanics is not as weird as we might have been led to believe! The prevailing theory of quantum mechanics is called Orthodox Quantum Theory (also known as the Copenhagen Interpretation). Orthodox Quantum Theory endows a special status on measurement processes by requiring an intervention of an observer or an observer’s proxy (e. g. a measuring apparatus). The placement of the observer (or proxy) is somewhat arbitrary which introduces a degree of subjectivity. Orthodox Quantum Theory only predicts probabilities for measured values of physical quantities. It is essentially an instrumental theory, i. e.
Download or read book A Theory of Causation in the Social and Biological Sciences written by A. Reutlinger and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-03-18 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first full length treatment of interventionist theories of causation in the social sciences, the biological sciences and other higher-level sciences the presents original counter arguments to recent trends in the debate and serves as useful introduction to the subject.
Download or read book Causality and Causal Explanation in Aristotle written by Nathanael Stein and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aristotle's writings about causality and its relation to natural science are at the heart of his philosophical project, and at the origin of a 2,000-year history of inquiry into these topics. Yet for all the work done on various aspects of his thought, there has been no full-length philosophical study of his theory of causality, and some basic questions about it remain under-examined. For example, it is unclear, from what he and his commentators have said, (a) how Aristotle answers the main philosophical questions about causality to which he thinks his predecessors' answers are flawed, and (b) how his answers bear on the main questions we confront in thinking about causality in general, such that those answers could be usefully critiqued, developed, and compared with others. Nathanael Stein's book addresses these two questions. It is not a survey of Aristotle's claims, but rather focuses on a set of key conceptual, metaphysical, and epistemological questions that are important both for understanding Aristotle's responses to his predecessors and for understanding causality in general. The book thus provides the kind of philosophical engagement with Aristotle that has proven so fruitful in other domains, such as ethics and metaphysics. It also aims to contribute to a more accurate understanding of the differences between ancient and modern approaches to the natural world. This book is meant for anyone interested in philosophical theories of causation and explanation and their history, as well as those who have read Aristotle's thoughts on the topic of causality and come away wondering what it all really adds up to, and how we might engage with it.
Download or read book A Variety of Causes written by Paul Noordhof and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book length defence of a counterfactual theory of causation. The analysis defended is new. It expresses the idea that, independent of its competitors, a cause raises the chance of an effect over its mean background chance by a complete causal chain. The analysis depends upon a novel development of David Lewis's Theory of Counterfactuals. One consequence of the analysis is that causation is not transitive. Causation is also nonsymmetric. The counterfactual basis of causal nonsymmetry is the result of a number of different, and sometimes interacting, nonsymmetries. The analysis allows for the development of a novel theory of events whose nature is independent of their role in causation and the identification of one other important causal relationship: property causation. Although compatible with Hume's denial of necessary connections between distinct existences, a key feature of the theory is that it benefits from being independent of the Humean framework. There are two ways in which something may be metaphysically fundamental: vertically and horizontally. Many metaphysicians emphasise vertical fundamentality and focus on truth making. The book rejects this emphasis and the truth making approach in particular. Horizontally fundamental metaphysical entities are those that are necessary components in different possible universes. Causation has a claim to be horizontally fundamental: the cement of any universe. Laws are patterns of causation realised in different metaphysical frameworks such as those articulated by Lewis, Armstrong and the powers ontologists. The book recognises varieties of causation both in, for example, counting cases of double prevention and causation by genuine processes as types of causation, and allowing that the analysis identifies causes across these different metaphysical frameworks.
Download or read book Scientific Realism in Particle Physics written by Matthias Egg and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Particle physics studies highly complex processes which cannot be directly observed. Scientific realism claims that we are nevertheless warranted in believing that these processes really occur and that the objects involved in them really exist. This book defends a version of scientific realism, called causal realism, in the context of particle physics. The first part of the book introduces the central theses and arguments in the recent philosophical debate on scientific realism and discusses entity realism, which is the most important precursor of causal realism. It also argues against the view that the very debate on scientific realism is not worth pursuing at all. In the second part, causal realism is developed and the key distinction between two kinds of warrant for scientific claims is clarified. This distinction proves its usefulness in a case study analyzing the discovery of the neutrino. It is also shown to be effective against an influential kind of pessimism, according to which even our best present theories are likely to be replaced some day by radically distinct alternatives. The final part discusses some specific challenges posed to realism by quantum physics, such as non-locality, delayed choice and the absence of particles in relativistic quantum theories.
Download or read book Fundamental Causation written by Christopher Gregory Weaver and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fundamental Causation addresses issues in the metaphysics of deterministic singular causation, the metaphysics of events, property instances, facts, preventions, and omissions, as well as the debate between causal reductionists and causal anti-reductionists. The book also pays special attention to causation and causal structure in physics. Weaver argues that causation is a multigrade obtaining relation that is transitive, irreflexive, and asymmetric. When causation is singular, deterministic and such that it relates purely contingent events, the relation is also universal, intrinsic, and well-founded. He shows that proper causal relata are events understood as states of substances at ontological indices. He then proves that causation cannot be reduced to some non-causal base, and that the best account of that relation should be unashamedly primitivist about the dependence relation that underwrites its very nature. The book demonstrates a distinctive realist and anti-reductionist account of causation by detailing precisely how the account outperforms reductionist and competing anti-reductionist accounts in that it handles all of the difficult cases while overcoming all of the general objections to anti-reductionism upon which other anti-reductionist accounts falter. This book offers an original and interesting view of causation and will appeal to scholars and advanced students in the areas of metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of physics.
Download or read book Power and Influence written by Richard Corry and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world is a complex place, and this complexity is an obstacle to our attempts to explain, predict, and control it. In Power and Influence, Richard Corry investigates the assumptions that are built into the reductive method of explanation—the method whereby we study the components of a complex system in relative isolation and use the information so gained to explain or predict the behaviour of the complex whole. He investigates the metaphysical presuppositions built into the reductive method, seeking to ascertain what the world must be like in order that the method could work. Corry argues that the method assumes the existence of causal powers that manifest causal influence—a relatively unrecognised ontological category, of which forces are a paradigm example. The success of the reductive method, therefore, is an argument for the existence of such causal influences. The book goes on to show that adding causal influence to our ontology gives us the resources to solve some traditional problems in the metaphysics of causal powers, laws of nature, causation, emergence, and possibly even normative ethics. What results, then, is not just an understanding of the reductive method, but an integrated metaphysical worldview that is grounded in an ontology of power and influence.
Download or read book Causation and Its Basis in Fundamental Physics written by Douglas Kutach and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first comprehensive attempt to solve what Hartry Field has called "the central problem in the metaphysics of causation": the problem of reconciling the need for causal notions in the special sciences with the limited role of causation in physics. If the world evolves fundamentally according to laws of physics, what place can be found for the causal regularities and principles identified by the special sciences? Douglas Kutach answers this question by invoking a novel distinction between fundamental and derivative reality and a complementary conception of reduction. He then constructs a framework that allows all causal regularities from the sciences to be rendered in terms of fundamental relations. By drawing on a methodology that focuses on explaining the results of specially crafted experiments, Kutach avoids the endless task of catering to pre-theoretical judgments about causal scenarios. This volume is a detailed case study that uses fundamental physics to elucidate causation, but technicalities are eschewed so that a wide range of philosophers can profit. The book is packed with innovations: new models of events, probability, counterfactual dependence, influence, and determinism. These lead to surprising implications for topics like Newcomb's paradox, action at a distance, Simpson's paradox, and more. Kutach explores the special connection between causation and time, ultimately providing a never-before-presented explanation for the direction of causation. Along the way, readers will discover that events cause themselves, that low barometer readings do cause thunderstorms after all, and that we humans routinely affect the past more than we affect the future.
Download or read book Physical Theory written by Lawrence Sklar and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In nine new essays, distinguished philosophers of science take on outstanding philosophical issues that arise in the exploration of the foundations of contemporary, especially physical scientific theories. In the first part of the book issues of scientific method are explored. What are we asking when we pose scientific "why?" questions? How does probability play a role in answering such questions? What are scientific laws of nature? How can we understand what abstract theories are telling us about the world? What is the structure of the theories we use to explain the observable phenomena? Finally, how do theories evolve over time and what consequence do such changes have for our intuition that science is seeking the truth? In the second part of the volume, foundational issues are explored in a number of crucial physical theories. What do our best available theories tell us about space and time? When we apply quantum theory to fields or other systems with infinite degrees of freedom, what new foundational puzzles appear and how might a theory of interpretation deal with them? Finally, what are the crucial foundational issues in statistical mechanics, where probabilities are applied to explain macroscopic thermal phenomena?
Download or read book What Tends to Be written by Rani Lill Anjum and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-28 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People tend to enjoy listening to music or watching television, sleeping at night and celebrating birthdays. Plants tend to grow and thrive in sunlight and mild temperatures. We also know that tendencies are not perfectly regular and that there are patterns in the natural world, which are reliable to a degree, but not absolute. What should we make of a world where things tend to be one way but could be another? Is there a position between necessity and possibility? If there is, what are the implications for science, knowledge and ethics? This book explores these questions and is the first full-length treatment of the philosophy of tendencies. Anjum and Mumford argue that although the philosophical language of tendencies has been around since Aristotle, there has not been any serious commitment to the irreducible modality that they involve. They also argue that the acceptance of an irreducible and sui generis tendential modality ought to be the fundamental commitment of any genuine realism about dispositions or powers. It is the dispositional modality that makes dispositions authentically disposition-like. Armed with this theory the authors apply it to a variety of key philosophical topics such as chance, causation, epistemology and free will.
Download or read book The Experimental Side of Modeling written by Isabelle F. Peschard and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative, multifaceted approach to scientific experiments as designed by and shaped through interaction with the modeling process The role of scientific modeling in mediation between theories and phenomena is a critical topic within the philosophy of science, touching on issues from climate modeling to synthetic models in biology, high energy particle physics, and cognitive sciences. Offering a radically new conception of the role of data in the scientific modeling process as well as a new awareness of the problematic aspects of data, this cutting-edge volume offers a multifaceted view on experiments as designed and shaped in interaction with the modeling process. Contributors address such issues as the construction of models in conjunction with scientific experimentation; the status of measurement and the function of experiment in the identification of relevant parameters; how the phenomena under study are reconceived when accounted for by a model; and the interplay between experimenting, modeling, and simulation when results do not mesh. Highlighting the mediating role of models and the model-dependence (as well as theory-dependence) of data measurement, this volume proposes a normative and conceptual innovation in scientific modeling—that the phenomena to be investigated and modeled must not be precisely identified at the start but specified during the course of the interactions arising between experimental and modeling activities. Contributors: Nancy D. Cartwright, U of California, San Diego; Anthony Chemero, U of Cincinnati; Ronald N. Giere, U of Minnesota; Jenann Ismael, U of Arizona; Tarja Knuuttila, U of South Carolina; Andrea Loettgers, U of Bern, Switzerland; Deborah Mayo, Virginia Tech; Joseph Rouse, Wesleyan U; Paul Teller, U of California, Davis; Michael Weisberg, U of Pennsylvania; Eric Winsberg, U of South Florida.
