Interventionism is a theory of causation with a pragmatic goal: to define causal concepts that are useful for reasoning about how things could, in principle, be purposely manipulated. In its original presentation, Woodward’s interventionist definition of causation is relativized to an analyzed variable set. In Woodward, Woodward changes the definition of the most general interventionist notion of cause, contributing cause, so that it is no longer relativized to a variable set. This derelativization of interventionism has not gathered much attention, presumably (...) because it is seen as an unproblematic way to save the intuition that causal relations are objective features of the world. This paper first argues that this move has problematic consequences. Derelativization entails two concepts of unmediated causal relation that are not coextensional, but which nonetheless do not entail different conclusions about manipulability relations within any given variable set. This is in conflict with the pragmatic orientation at the core of interventionism. The paper then considers various approaches for resolving this tension but finds them all wanting. It is concluded that interventionist causation should not be derelativized in the first place. Various considerations are offered rendering that conclusion acceptable. (shrink)

Many investigations into the world, including philosophical ones, aim to discover causal knowledge, and many experimental methods have been developed to assist in causal discovery. More recently, algorithms have emerged that can also learn causal structure from purely or mostly observational data, as well as experimental data. These methods have started to be applied in various philosophical contexts, such as debates about our concepts of free will and determinism. This paper provides a “user's guide” to these methods, though not in (...) the sense of specifying exact button presses in a software package. Instead, we explain the larger “pipeline” within which these methods are used and discuss key steps in moving from initial research idea to validated causal structure. (shrink)

Through the introduction of his ‘common cause principle’ [The Direction of Time, 1956], Hans Reichenbach was the first to formulate a precise link relating causal claims to statements of probability. Despite some criticism, the principle has been hugely influential and successful—a pillar of scientific practice, as well as guiding our reasoning in everyday life. However, Bell’s theorem, taken in conjunction with quantum theory, challenges this principle in a fundamental sense at the microscopic level. For the same reason, the celebrated causal (...) model framework pioneered by Pearl, as well as by Spirtes, Glymour and Scheines, defies satisfactory causal explanations of quantum correlations—the role of the ‘causal Markov condition’ in this framework amounts to a generalisation of Reichenbach’s principle. Much effort has been devoted to the development of quantum causal models to overcome this challenge and to study whether a principled way of causal reasoning, albeit adjusted in its terms, can be maintained when it comes to quantum physics. A clarification of what quantum causal relations are supposed to be is also a much needed step in light of the hotly debated topic of causality in foundations of quantum theory, e.g. in the study of ‘indefinite causal structures’. This paper reports and discusses a framework of quantum causal models and argues that it is promising and interesting for two main reasons. First, it can be seen as a prime example of a recent research programme that took direct and fruitful inspiration from ideas first formulated by Reichenbach—it began by asking, and giving an answer to, how the common cause principle could be generalised appropriately to quantum theoretical terms. Second, the framework did not only facilitate generalisations of the core theorems of the classical framework of causal models, but, above all, it has a theorem at its center that justifies the ‘quantum causal Markov condition’ on the basis of what arguably is a natural definition of causal relations in quantum theory. This provides a conceptually clear grounding of the framework, as well as a proposal for the needed clarification of quantum causal relations in the foundations of quantum theory more generally. (shrink)

Mechanist philosophers have examined several strategies scientists use for discovering causal mechanisms in neuroscience. Findings about the anatomical organization of the brain play a central role in several such strategies. Little attention has been paid, however, to the use of network analysis and causal modeling techniques for mechanism discovery. In particular, mechanist philosophers have not explored whether and how these strategies incorporate information about the anatomical organization of the brain. This paper clarifies these issues in the light of the distinction (...) between structural, functional and effective connectivity. Specifically, we examine two quantitative strategies currently used for causal discovery from functional neuroimaging data: dynamic causal modeling and probabilistic graphical modeling. We show that dynamic causal modeling uses findings about the brain’s anatomical organization to improve the statistical estimation of parameters in an already specified causal model of the target brain mechanism. Probabilistic graphical modeling, in contrast, makes no appeal to the brain’s anatomical organization, but lays bare the conditions under which correlational data suffice to license reliable inferences about the causal organization of a target brain mechanism. The question of whether findings about the anatomical organization of the brain can and should constrain the inference of causal networks remains open, but we show how the tools supplied by graphical modeling methods help to address it. (shrink)

"Correlation is not causation" is one of the mantras of the sciences—a cautionary warning especially to fields like epidemiology and pharmacology where the seduction of compelling correlations naturally leads to causal hypotheses. The standard view from the epistemology of causation is that to tell whether one correlated variable is causing the other, one needs to intervene on the system—the best sort of intervention being a trial that is both randomized and controlled. In this paper, we argue that some purely correlational (...) data contains information that allows us to draw causal inferences: statistical noise. Methods for extracting causal knowledge from noise provide us with an alternative to randomized controlled trials that allows us to reach causal conclusions from purely correlational data. (shrink)

Social scientists report difficulties in drawing out testable predictions from the literature on intersectionality theory. We alleviate that difficulty by showing that some characteristic claims of the intersectionality literature can be interpreted causally. The formalism of graphical causal modeling allows claims about the causal effects of occupying intersecting identity categories to be clearly represented and submitted to empirical testing. After outlining this causal interpretation of intersectional theory, we address some concerns that have been expressed in the literature claiming that membership (...) in demographic categories can have causal effects. (shrink)

This essay enriches causal models capturing the propagation of prejudice, bias, and other aggregative social mechanisms, negative or positive. These explananda include the reinforcement of economic inequality, “mob-like” behavior, peer pressure, and the establishment of social norms. The stage is set by introducing various forms of redundant causation and discussing some difficulties with mainstream preemption. Next the main proposal extends current representations of aggregative social mechanisms in two respects. First, it is more nuanced, as it identifies three distinct kinds of (...) inferences: relevance of causes to effects, degree of redundancy of an effect, and the influence that causes exert on other causes. Second, it offers a quantitative—as opposed to merely qualitative—distinction between the causal contribution of preempting and preempted causes. (shrink)