Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T13:56:51.909Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Functional Account of Causation; or, A Defense of the Legitimacy of Causal Thinking by Reference to the Only Standard That Matters—Usefulness (as Opposed to Metaphysics or Agreement with Intuitive Judgment)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

James Woodward
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay advocates a “functional” approach to causation and causal reasoning: these are to be understood in terms of the goals and purposes of causal thinking. This approach is distinguished from accounts based on metaphysical considerations or on reconstruction of “intuitions.”

Type
Presidential Address
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 81 , Issue 5 , December 2014 , pp. 691 - 713
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

This article is based very largely on the text of my talk at the 2012 Philosophy of Science Meetings, with small modifications. It was written for oral presentation and intended to be provocative. Hence, many complications and qualifications that are usual in academic articles have been omitted. I’ve opted for preservation of the flavor of the original talk, rather than making any effort at precision.

References

Angrist, J., and Pischke, J.-S.. 2009. Mostly Harmless Econometrics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armstrong, D. 1983. What Is a Law of Nature? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, M. 2010. “Interventionism and Epiphenomenalism.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 40:359–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bird, A. 2005. “The Dispositionalist Conception of Laws.” Foundations of Science 10:353–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, N. 1979. “Causal Laws and Effective Strategies.” Noûs 13:419–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chubb, J., and Moe, T.. 1990. Politics, Markets and America’s Schools. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Clatterbaugh, K. 1999. The Causation Debate in Modern Philosophy, 1637–1739. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Coleman, J., and Hoffer, T.. 1987. Public and Private High Schools. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Field, H. 2003. “Causation in a Physical World.” In Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, ed. Loux, M. and Zimmerman, D.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Granger, C. 1969. “Investigating Causal Relations by Econometric Models and Cross-Spectral Methods.” Econometrica 37:424–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, N. 2004. “Two Concepts of Causation.” In Causation and Counterfactuals, ed. Collins, J., Hall, N., and Paul, L., 225–76. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Janzing, D., Mooij, J., Zhang, K., Lemeire, J., Zscheischler, J., Daniusis, D., Steudel, B., and Scholkopf, B.. 2012. “Information-Geometric Approach to Inferring Causal Directions.” Artificial Intelligence 182–83:1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, J. 1998. Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. 1973. “Causation.” Journal of Philosophy 70:556–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. 1986. Postscripts to “Causation.” In Philosophical Papers, vol. 2, 172–213. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Loewer, B. 2009. “Why Is There Anything except Physics?” Synthese 170:217–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lombrozo, T. 2010. “Causal-Explanatory Pluralism: How Intentions, Functions, and Mechanisms Influence Causal Ascriptions.” Cognitive Psychology 61:303–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pearl, J. 2000. Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Price, H., and Corry, R., eds. 2007. Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schaffer, J. 2000. “Causation by Disconnection.” Philosophy of Science 67:285–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spirtes, P., Glymour, C., and Scheines, R.. 2000. Causation, Prediction and Search. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Spohn, W. 2012. The Laws of Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tooley, M. 1977. “The Nature of Laws.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7:667–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, J. 2002. “What Is a Mechanism? A Counterfactual Account.” Philosophy of Science 69 (Proceedings): S366–S377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, J. 2003. Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, J. 2006. “Sensitive and Insenstive Causation.” Philosophical Review 115:1–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, J. 2010. “Causation in Biology: Stability, Specificity, and the Choice of Levels of Explanation.” Biology and Philosophy 25:287–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, J. 2012. “Causation: Interactions between Philosophical Theories and Psychological Research.” Philosophy of Science 79:961–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, J. 2014. “Causal Reasoning: Philosophy and Experiment.” In Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy, ed. Knobe, J., Lombrozo, T., and Nichols, S.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Knobe, J., Lombrozo, T., and Nichols, S. Forthcoming. “Interventionism and Causal Exclusion.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.Google Scholar