The possibility of apparently negative causation has been discussed in a number of recent works on causation, but the discussion has suffered from beingscattered. In this paper, the problem of apparently negative causation and its attemptedsolutions are examined in more detail. I discuss and discard three attempts that have beensuggested in the literature. My conclusion is negative: Negative causation shows that thetraditional cause & effect view is inadequate. A more unified causal perspective is needed.

From the perspective of successive events, chemical reactions are expressed or thought about, in terms of the cause-effect category. In this work, I will firstly discuss some aspects of causation and interaction in chemistry, argue for the interaction, and propose an alternative or complementary representation scheme called “interaction diagram”, that allows representing chemical reactions through a geometric diagram. The understanding of this diagram facilitates the analysis of reactions in terms of the interaction, or reciprocal action, among the participating (...) entities. Secondly, I will describe the model and provide examples and finally, I will discuss the scope and limitations of the current development status of the model. (shrink)

Abstract Christopher Gauker has argued that a cause?effect analysis of the acquisition of communication skills in chimpanzees is adequate to describe the data reported in our work at the Language Research Center. I agree that the cause?effect approach to language function is the only viable method of analyzing language. Language must be studied as a process that functions to organize behavior between two or more individuals. However, the problem of language understanding is not addressed satisfactorily by (...) the perspective offered by Gauker. Some more recent work, particularly with the pygmy chimpanzee ?Kanzi?, is now beginning to explicate a cause?effect analysis of language comprehension. It is argued that in the young chimpanzee, as with children, language comprehension is the driving force underlying the language acquisition process. It is further argued that the transition from comprehension to production is made possible by the capacity for goal?directed observational imitation. (shrink)

The environmentally responsive molecular chaperone Hsp90 assists the maturation of many key regulatory proteins. An unexpected consequence of this essential biochemical function is that genetic variation can accumulate in genomes and can remain phenotypically silent until Hsp90 function is challenged. Notably, this variation can be revealed by modest environmental change, establishing an environmentally responsive exposure mechanism. The existence of diverse cryptic polymorphisms with a plausible exposure mechanism in evolutionarily distant lineages has implications for the pace and nature of evolutionary change. (...) Chaperone‐mediated storage and release of genetic variation is undoubtedly rooted in protein‐folding phenomena. As we discuss, proper protein folding crucially affects the trajectory from genotype to phenotype. Indeed, the impact of protein quality‐control mechanisms and other fundamental cellular processes on evolution has heretofore been overlooked. A true understanding of evolutionary processes will require an integration of current evolutionary paradigms with the many new insights accruing in protein science. BioEssays 26:348–362, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Negative causation occurs when an absence serves as cause, effect, or causal intermediary. Negative causation is genuine causation, or so I shall argue. It involves no physical connection between cause and effect. Thus causes need not be physically connected to their effects.

The main task of man at the turn of the epoch is the transformation of himself into a new one, "which is renewed in knowledge in the image that created it". A person should fall in love, discover his spiritual self, learn to see, hear and feel the Spiritual World - that is, quite differently than now, to see the Reality. It is very important for a person to know the hidden meaning of things, and to introduce vague feelings and (...) ideas of his inner world into images and words. Our eyes in the Spiritual are knowledge: a person transformed by knowledge can enter into the vibrations of the Spiritual World where, acting by consciousness, according to the words of the apostle Paul, becomes a co-worker of God. (shrink)

The Effectiveness of Causes presents a strong view of causation seen as an operation between participants in events, and not as a relation holding between events themselves. In it, Emmet proposes that other philosophical views of cause and effect provide only a world of events, each of which is presented as an unchanging unit. Such a world, she contends, is a “Zeno universe,” since transitions and movement are lost. Emmet offers a more complex interpretation of the various forms (...) of causal dependence. She sees “immanent” causation in the mere persistence of things, where effects are not temporarily separable from causes, and she considers the operation of “efficacious grace.” This is a new approach to the traditional problem and provides stimulating implications for the other metaphysical questions and for the philosophy of science. (shrink)

Leibniz’s argument against Descartes’s conservation principle in the Brevis demonstratio (1686) has traditionally been read as passing from the premise that motive force must be conserved to the conclusion that motive force is not identical to quantity of motion and, finally, that quantity of motion is not conserved. In a lesser-known draft of the same year, Christiaan Huygens claimed that Descartes had in fact never held the view that Leibniz was attacking. Huygens is right as far as the traditional reading (...) is concerned. However, if the Brevis demonstratio is seen, as it should be, in the context of Leibniz’s attempt to ground mechanics in the foundational metaphysical axiom of the equivalence of full cause and entire effect, then Huygens’s objections can be answered. Leibniz may have committed Descartes to the foundational axiom because of the Traité de la méchanique, which was available to Leibniz at that time. Leibniz had used the equivalence of full cause and entire effect both in discovering the conservation of vis viva earlier and in various arguments for it later. Thus, the Brevis demonstratio should be viewed with Leibniz’s broader foundational mission in mind. (shrink)

Scientific concepts are defined by metaphors. These metaphors determine what atten- tion is and what count as adequate explanations of the phenomenon. The authors analyze these metaphors within 3 types of attention theories: (a) --cause-- theories, in which attention is presumed to modulate information processing (e.g., attention as a spotlight; attention as a limited resource); (b) --effect-- theories, in which attention is considered to be a by-product of information processing (e.g., the competition meta- phor); and (c) hybrid theories (...) that combine cause and effect aspects (e.g., biased- competition models). The present analysis reveals the crucial role of metaphors in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and the efforts of scientists to find a resolution to the classic problem of cause versus effect interpretations. (shrink)

Scientific concepts are defined by metaphors. These metaphors determine what attention is and what count as adequate explanations of the phenomenon. The authors analyze these metaphors within 3 types of attention theories: (a) “cause” theories, in which attention is presumed to modulate information processing (e.g., attention as a spotlight; attention as a limited resource); (b) “effect” theories, in which attention is considered to be a by-product of information processing (e.g., the competition metaphor); and (c) hybrid theories that combine (...) cause and effect aspects (e.g., biasedcompetition models). The present analysis reveals the crucial role of metaphors in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and the efforts of scientists to find a resolution to the classic problem of cause versus effect interpretations. (shrink)

It is now—at least loosely—acknowledged that most health and clinical outcomes are influenced by different interacting causes. Surprisingly, medical research studies are nearly universally designed to study—usually in a binary way—the effect of a single cause. Recent experiences during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic brought to the forefront that most of our challenges in medicine and healthcare deal with systemic, that is, interdependent and interconnected problems. Understanding these problems defy simplistic dichotomous research methodologies. These insights demand a shift (...) in our thinking from ‘cause and effect’ to ‘causes and effects’ since this transcends the classical way of Cartesian reductionist thinking. We require a shift to a ‘causes and effects’ frame so we can choose the research methodology that reflects the relationships between variables of interest—one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one or many-to-many. One-to-one (or cause and effect) relationships are amenable to the traditional randomized control trial design, while all others require systemic designs to understand ‘causes and effects’. Researchers urgently need to re-evaluate their science models and embrace research designs that allow an exploration of the clinically obvious multiple ‘causes and effects’ on health and disease. Clinical examples highlight the application of various systemic research methodologies and demonstrate how ‘causes and effects’ explain the heterogeneity of clinical outcomes. This shift in scientific thinking will allow us to find the necessary personalized or precise clinical interventions that address the underlying reasons for the variability of clinical outcomes and will contribute to greater health equity. (shrink)

Even though the COVID-19 pandemic has represented an intense period of stress and anxiety for individuals, it has also been an opportunity for firms to engage in cause-related marketing initiatives as a means of providing support and helping them cope with this global pandemic. This study analyzes the influence of cause–brand fit and cause–brand alliance on customer-based legitimacy and reputation. This study also examines the mediating and moderating roles of trust and betrayal, respectively. Data were collected from (...) 455 participants during the first wave of the pandemic, especially during the first lockdown. The results contribute to unveiling the economic and societal outcomes of cause-related marketing. The findings also enrich the antecedents of the legitimacy and reputation conferred by customers. (shrink)

Despite recent efforts to improve on counterfactual theories of causation, failures to explain how effects depend on their causes are still manifest in a variety of cases. In particular, theories that do a decent job explaining cases of causal preemption have problems accounting for cases of causal intransitivity. Moreover, the increasing complexity of the counterfactual accounts makes it difficult to see why the concept of causation would be such a central part of our cognition. In this paper, I propose an (...) account of our causal thinking that not only explains the hitherto puzzling variety of causal judgments, but also makes it intelligible why we would employ such an elusive concept. (shrink)

It is the objective of this paper to point out that discussions about cause and effect, and particularly those which bear upon their temporal relationship, are often blurred by failure to make use of the time-honored distinction between transeunt and immanent causes. Transeunt causes are in evidence whenever we discern two systems, S1 and S2, spatially separated, but locked in interaction. In this perspective, cotemporaneous changes can be asserted both of S1 and S2. S1 has an effect (...) on S2, and vice versa. Both effects take place simultaneously but are, as a rule, of different nature. Whether we read the causal relationship from S1, as the cause, to the changes of S2, as the effect, or the other way, from S2 to S1, depends on nothing more objective than the momentary direction of our interest. Immanent causes get into focus whenever we compare the internal conditions C1 and C2 which characterize a system S0 at two different moments t1 and t2. If t1 is earlier than t2, there is a sense in which we can say that C1 is a cause, and C2 its effect. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

Halpern and Hitchcock have used normality considerations in order to provide an analysis of actual causation. Their methodology is that of taking a set of causal scenarios and showing how their account of actual causation accords with typical judgments about those scenarios. Consequently, Halpern and Hitchcock have recently demonstrated that their theory deals with an impressive number of problem cases discussed in the literature. However, in this paper I first show that the way in which they rule out certain cases (...) of bogus prevention leaves their account susceptible to counterexamples. I then sketch an alternative approach to prevention scenarios which draws on the observation that, in addition to abnormal causes, people usually tend to focus on abnormal effects. (shrink)

‘The Union of Cause and Effect in Aristotle : Physics III 3’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 32, pp. 205-232, May 2007.: I argue that Aristotle introduced a unique realist account of causation, which has not hitherto been appreciated in the history of philosophy: causal realism without a causal relation. In his account, cause and effect are unified by the ectopic actualization of the agent’s potentiality in the patient. His solution consists in the introduction of a (...) property that belongs to one subject but is realized in another subject on whose state this realization depends. I identify and analyze the multiple ontological dependencies between the causal state of the agent and that of the patient during their causal activity. (shrink)

There have been several recent attempts to model ordinary intuitions about actual causation by combining a counterfactual definition of the causal relation with an abnormality-based account of causal judgments. In these models, the underlying psychological theory is that people automatically focus on abnormal events when judging the actual causes of an effect. This approach has enabled authors such as Halpern and Hitchcock to capture an impressive array of ordinary causal intuitions. However, in this paper I demonstrate how these abnormality-based (...) accounts still systematically fail to predict ordinary causal judgments in specific types of scenarios: those in which the effect is normal. I will argue that the reason for this is that the underlying psychological theory is wrong: the idea that intuitive actual causes are abnormal events is only partially correct. To model ordinary judgments more realistically, researchers working in this area must adopt a more plausible underlying psychological theory: the correspondence hypothesis about judgments of actual causation. One of the consequences of this correspondence hypothesis is that normal effects are judged to have normal causes. (shrink)

Qualia epiphenomenalism is the view that qualitative properties of events, such as the raw feel of tastes or painfulness, lack causal efficacy. One common objection to qualia epiphenomenalism is the epistemic argument, which states that this loss of causal efficacy undermines our capacity to know about these epiphenomenal qualitative properties. A number of rejoinders have been offered up to insulate qualia epiphenomenalism from the epistemic argument. In this paper I consider and ultimately reject two such replies, namely, the common underlying (...) cause reply and the appeal to physical-effect epiphenomenalism. View HTML Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.Physical-Effect Epiphenomenalism and Common Underlying CausesVolume 51, Issue 3DWAYNE MOORE DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217312000674Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. Physical-Effect Epiphenomenalism and Common Underlying CausesVolume 51, Issue 3DWAYNE MOORE DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217312000674Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. Physical-Effect Epiphenomenalism and Common Underlying CausesVolume 51, Issue 3DWAYNE MOORE DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217312000674Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

As I have read the scholium, it divides into three main parts, not including the introductory paragraph. The first consists of paragraphs one to four in which Newton sets out his characterizations of absolute and relative time, space, place, and motion. Although some justificatory material is included here, notably in paragraph three, the second part is reserved for the business of justifying the characterizations he has presented. The main object is to adduce grounds for believing that the absolute quantities are (...) indeed distinct from their relative measures and are not reducible to them. Paragraph five takes this up for the case of time. Paragraphs eight to twelve endeavor to do this for rest and motion by appealing to their properties, causes and effects. In arguing that absolute motion is not reducible to any particular form of the relative motion of bodies with respect to one another, and thus, as is directly argued in the third argument, must be understood in terms of motionless places, Newton thereby constructs an indirect case that absolute space is indeed something distinct from any relative space. Paragraph thirteen functions as conclusion to this line of inquiry and comments on how, in the light of this, the names of these quantities are to be interpreted in the scriptures. The third and final part consists of paragraph fourteen alone, and addresses the question: given that true motion is motion with respect to absolute space, but the parts of the latter are not perceivable, is it possible for us to know the true motions of individual bodies? Newton illustrates how this may be done from the evidence provided by their apparent motions and the forces which are the causes and effects of true motion. This forms a bridge to the body of the work insofar as the purpose of the Principia, according to Newton, is to show how this, and the converse problem, of inferring true and apparent motions from the forces, can be dealt with.Part II of this paper will appear in the next issue of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The underlying cause of the financial meltdown was much more mundane than a “crisis of capitalism”: The real origins lay in mostly obscure housing, tax, and regulatory policies of the U.S. government. The Community Reinvestment Act, the affordable‐housing “mission” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, penalty‐free refinancing of home loans, penalty‐free defaults on home loans, tax preferences for home‐equity borrowing, and reduced capital requirements for banks that held mortgages and mortgage‐backed securities combined with each other to create the (...) incentives for both subprime lending and the housing bubble that eventually led to the financial collapse. (shrink)

According to informal logic, the possibilities of deductive logic as a tool for analysing and evaluating ordinary arguments are very limited. While I agree with this claim in general, I question it in the case of the argument from cause to effect. In this paper I first show, on the basis of carefully chosen examples, that we usually react differently to falsification of the conclusion of the argument from cause to effect than we do to the (...) falsification of the conclusion of other defeasible arguments. I then identify general conditions and assumptions under which the causal argument from cause to effect can be reconstructed as deductive. Finally, I compare the causal argument with the expert argument, which is a typical example of a defeasible argument in the narrower sense. (shrink)

Cause-related marketing, defined as a firm’s communication activities designed to promote a consumer good or service by including an offer to contribute a specified amount to a designated nonprofit cause, has become a preponderant practice. In tandem with the development of CrM activities, criticism of CrM has increased; critics note that some CrM claims mislead consumers regarding their purchases’ donative impact. Critics such as consumers and nonprofit advocates are using ad parodies, noncommercial messages that mimic an actual advertisement. (...) In this context, the study investigates how these ad parodies can result in a detrimental impact on consumers’ perceptual and behavioral evaluations of the sponsoring brand. By implementing a tightly controlled experiment comparing actual CrM campaigns and CrM parodies, the author shows that the detrimental effects of CrM parodies on brand attitude and word-of-mouth valence can be explained by greater skepticism toward the firm’s sincere and altruistic motivations. In addition, the author shows that a robust asymmetry emerges in which CrM ad parodies damage perceptual and behavioral evaluations of brands more than actual CrM campaigns improve them. The authors replicate the results for two kinds of critics and two types of brands. The results provide useful implications for theory and practice, documenting the backfire effect of poorly designed CrM, which may urge brands to move toward more self-regulation of CrM practices. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the attempts by science studies to identify epistemic effects of new governance instruments have largely failed. I suggest two main reasons for this failure. The first reason is that neither quantitative nor qualitative studies of effects of governance instruments meet the respective methodological standards for establishing causality. While much of this could be repaired, the second reason is more severe: given the complex causal web between governance and knowledge production and the multi-level nature of (...) causation, a strategy that starts from a particular governance instrument and tries to identify its effects cannot work. I propose to reverse this strategy by starting from the observation of epistemic change and applying a strategy of “causal reconstruction” (Mayntz), which identifies the causes of this epistemic change and among them the contribution by governance. This approach has the advantage of starting from well-identified change. Challenges posed by the new approach include the empirical identification of epistemic change and the need to integrate sociological methods in science policy studies. (shrink)

BackgroundFear of cancer recurrence is an important cause of suffering for cancer survivors, and both empirical evidence and theoretical models suggest that prognostic uncertainty plays a causal role in its development. However, the relationship between prognostic uncertainty and FCR is incompletely understood.ObjectiveTo explore the relationship between prognostic uncertainty and FCR among patients with ovarian cancer.DesignA qualitative study was conducted utilizing individual in-depth interviews with a convenience sample of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer who had completed first-line treatment with surgery (...) and/or chemotherapy. Semi-structured interviews explored participants’ understanding of their prognosis; experiences, preferences, and attitudes regarding prognostic information; and strategies for coping with prognostic uncertainty. Inductive qualitative analysis and line-by-line software-assisted coding of interview transcripts was conducted to identify key themes and generate theoretical insights on the relationship between prognostic uncertainty and FCR.ResultsThe study sample consisted of 21 participants, nearly all of whom reported experiencing significant FCR, which they traced to an awareness of the possibility of a bad outcome. Some participants valued and pursued prognostic information as a means of coping with this awareness, suggesting that prognostic uncertainty causes FCR. However, most participants acknowledged fundamental limits to both the certainty and value of prognostic information, and engaged in various strategies aimed not at reducing but constructing and maintaining prognostic uncertainty as a means of sustaining hope in the possibility of a good outcome. Participants’ comments suggested that prognostic uncertainty, fear, and hope are connected by complex, bi-directional causal pathways mediated by processes that allow patients to cope with, construct, and maintain their uncertainty. A provisional dual-process theoretical model was developed to capture these pathways.ConclusionAmong patients with OC, prognostic uncertainty is both a cause and an effect of FCR—a fear-inducing stimulus and a hope-sustaining response constructed and maintained through various strategies. More work is needed to elucidate the relationships between prognostic uncertainty, fear, and hope, to validate and refine our theoretical model, and to develop interventions to help patients with OC and other serious illnesses to achieve an optimal balance between these states. (shrink)

The aim of this paper will be to try and show why there could not be any acceptable counter-stipulation-example to this analytic truth. The overall strategy will be to articulate the conceptual centrality of this analytic truth by showing that a change in it will cause absurdities to break out in certain neighboring concepts with which the concept of cause has logical liaisons, such as action, possibility, intention, deliberation, memory, responsibility, and punishment: and when we try to protect (...) ourselves from these absurdities by altering these latter concepts as well, we will have twisted our concept of causality, along with these other concepts, out of recognition. In other words, it will be argued that to give up this analytic truth will require such a drastic overhauling of the basic concepts of our conceptual system that they will not be a recognizable analog of their former self. Obviously, I cannot give any precise criterion for just when an altered concept ceases to be a permissible analog of its former self. While there is room for disagreement about these matters, we can reach agreement upon the logical connections between the concept of causality and these other neighboring concepts, so that we can determine what changes must be made in the latter so as to accommodate a change in the former. Whether we then wish to say that these changes are so extensive that these concepts are not permissible analogs of their former selves is of secondary importance. However, I do believe that it can be shown that the extended concept of causality which permits a cause to be later than its effect requires such a drastic change in neighboring concepts that there will be little room for disagreement as to whether it is a legitimate analog to the original concept of causality. (shrink)

Despite the miraculous progress of science—it’s practitioners continue to run into mistakes, either discrediting research unduly or making leaps of causal inference where none are warranted. In this we isolate two of the reasons for such behavior involving the misplaced understanding of the role of mechanisms and mechanistic knowledge in the establishment of cause-effect relationships. We differentiate causal knowledge into causes, effects, mechanisms, cause-effect relationships, and causal stories. Failing to understand the role of mechanisms in this (...) picture, including their absence of knowledge or incorrect specification, leads to errors of wrongly excluding cause-effect relationships or wrongly inferring their existence. We highlight the primary of causality over mechanistic knowledge and causal stories in scientific reasoning. (shrink)

In this paper I wish to examine the claim that it would be possible for us now to do something which would be the posterior efficient cause of some past event. I am not prepared to discuss the physics of elementary particles, and I will not consider what is sometimes called time reversal. Rather my analysis will be limited to cases in which it is alleged that we, in a world of middle-sized physical objects where most causes precede or (...) are simultaneous with their effects, could conceivably do something so that something else should have happened. I will argue that some of the cases which meet this description are indeed backwards causation if one is prepared to make certain assumptions about time. I will not evaluate these assumptions; rather I will try to clarify them and to make plain their implications for causality. For the argument about backwards causation is most fundamentally, or so I will try to show, an argument about the nature of time. (shrink)

Clinical primary prevention eliminates or preempts either a susceptibility or risk (synergistically a cause) in order to avoid a specific harm. Philosophically, primary prevention gets caught in the metaphysical controversy of the “hard questions” of whether it is possible to “cause not” both through a positive action (preventive act causes no harm) or no action (avoiding something causes no harm). I examine my previously proposed four-step definition of the process of prevention, discuss its limitations in light of the (...) “hard questions,” and then offer a revised five-step process definition that eliminates the “cause not” concerns by changing the goal of prevention from avoiding harm, a negative state, to achieving optimal health, a positive state. (shrink)

ABSTRACTNumerous studies have found that shame increases individuals’ anger at others. However, according to recent theories about the social function of shame and anger at others, it is possible that shame controls individuals’ anger at others in specific conditions. We replicated previous findings that shame increased individuals’ anger at others’ unfairness, when others were not aware of the individual’s experience of shameful events. We also found for the first time that shame controlled or even decreased individuals’ anger at others’ unfairness, (...) when others were aware of the individual’s experience of shameful events. The results were consistent when shame was induced by either a recall paradigm or an imagination paradigm, and in either the ultimatum game or the dictator game. This suggests that shame strategically controls individuals’ anger at others to demonstrate that they are willing to benefit others, when facing the risk of social exclusion. Our findings highlight the interpersonal function of... (shrink)

Carl Craver proposes a mechanistic model of explanation in science motivated by a desire to intervene, as exemplified by explanations in neuroscience which in his opinion are motivated by the desire to bring the central nervous system under control. In his discussion of causal relevancy conditions of mechanistic components Craver asserts that a cause need not make its effect probable in order to explain it . Although this is supported by some interpretations, Craver’s own is highlighted by his (...) appeal to an example in neuroscience of the apparently stochastic nature of neurotransmitter release events. I propose the view that this interpretation of such a causal relevancy condition is contradictory to Craver’s own proposed first norm of explanation : that a good explanation must fully account for the explanandum phenomenon including varied manifestations of the phenomenon. By defending Craver’s explanatory motivation of intervention I demonstrate that the attributed cause of a phenomenon must necessarily make the phenomenon probable in order to effectively explain it. (shrink)