Scientific realists argue that a good track record of multi-agent, and multiple method, validation of empirical claims is itself evidence that those claims, at least partially and approximately, reflect ways nature actually is independent of the ways we conceptualize it. Constructivists contend that successes in validating empirical claims only suffice to establish that our ways of modelling the world, our “constructions,” are useful and adequate for beings like us. This essay presents a thought experiment in which beings like us intersubjectively (...) validate claims about properties of particular things in nature under conditions in which those beings have profoundly different personal phenomenological experiences of those properties. I submit that the thought experiment scenario parallels our actual situation, and argue that this shows that successes in intersubjectively validating empirical claims are indeed enough to claim victory for the realist. More specifically, I champion a variation of realism that marries Ronald Giere’s brand of ‘perspectival realism’ with Philip Kitcher’s ‘real realism,’ and posits that causal relations between ourselves and properties instantiated in nature ground our references to the relevant properties even though our conceptions of them are perspective relative. (shrink)

This chapter argues that Hegel is a major (albeit unrecognized) epistemologist: Hegel’s Introduction provides the key to his phenomenological method by showing that the Pyrrhonian Dilemma of the Criterion refutes traditional coherentist and foundationalist theories of justification. Hegel then solves this Dilemma by analyzing the possibility of constructive self- and mutual criticism. ‘Sense Certainty’ provides a sound internal critique of ‘knowledge by acquaintance’, thus undermining a key tenet of Concept Empiricism, a view Hegel further undermines by showing that a series (...) of non-logical a priori concepts must be used to identify any particular object of experience. Most importantly, Hegel justifies a semantics of singular cognitive reference with important anti-skeptical implications. ‘Perception’ extends Hegel’s criticism Concept Empiricism by exposing the inadequacy of Modern theories of perception (and also sense data theories) which lack a tenable concept of the identity of perceptible things. Hegel demonstrates that this concept is a priori and integrates two counterposed sub-concepts, ‘unity’ and ‘plurality’. Hegel’s examination of this concept reveals his clear awareness of what is now called the ‘binding problem’ in neurophysiology of perception, a problem only very recently noticed by epistemologists. ‘Force and Understanding’ exposes a fatal equivocation in the traditional concept of substance which thwarts our understanding of force and causal interaction. Hegel’s disambiguation of that concept enables us to comprehend how relations can be essential to physical particulars. Hegel contends that Newtonian universal gravitation shows that gravitational relations are essential to physical particulars, and he criticizes a series of attempts—including the infamous ‘inverted world’—to avoid this conclusion. Hegel’s cognitive semantics supports Newton’s Fourth Rule of philosophizing, which rejects mere logical possibilities as counter-examples to empirical hypotheses. This is an important anti-Cartesian, also anti-empiricist, insight. Finally, Hegel’s cognitive semantics reveals a previously unnoticed link between Pyrrhonian and Cartesian skepticism and empiricist anti-realism about causality within philosophy of science: all three appeal to premises, hypotheses, or counter-examples which, as mere logical possibilities, lack in principle fully determinate, cognitively legitimate meaning. ‘Consciousness’ thus establishes basic principles and features of human cognition to which Hegel returns throughout the Phenomenology. The chapter concludes by summarizing Hegel’s over-arching epistemological analysis in the Phenomenology. (shrink)

In this essay, I set out my responses to the following five questions that had been posed: -/- 1. Why were you initially drawn to metaphysics (and what keeps you interested)? 2. What do you consider to be your most important contributions to metaphysics? 3. What do you consider to be the proper method for metaphysics? 4. What do you think is the proper role of metaphysics in relation to other areas of philosophy and other academic disciplines, including the natural (...) sciences? 5. What do you consider to be the most neglected topics in contemporary metaphysics, and what direction would you like metaphysics to take in the future? (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 7, Page 1035-1053, September 2022. The article aspires to cast light on aspects of the radical character of Walter Benjamin’s work, that, sadly, have not, to date, provoked much discussion in the literature on him. The main issue it elaborates is his dialectic between fetishized, reified social form, and content-essence, which forms the core of the concept of critique in his philosophy. In Benjamin’s case, the concept of illusion, or, as the notion is (...) described in his texts, of phantasmagoria, or of the image, holds a special gravity that comes to the fore if it is connected not only to commodity fetishism but also to the fetishism of social forms as a process, and the concept of cracks in capitalism. (shrink)

The section dealing with the "phenomenology of consciousness" is finally dominated by the question, How does consciousness become self-consciousness, or how does consciousness become conscious that it is self-consciousness? This assertion, however, that consciousness is self-consciousness, is a central teaching of modern philosophy since Descartes. To this extent, Hegel’s idea of phenomenology lies in the Cartesian line. Contemporary parallels show how much this is the case, especially the quite unknown book of Sinclair, the friend of Hölderlin and Hegel, which deals (...) with the Sphragis in the Rhein hymn, and is entitled Truth and Certitude. The work attempts, beginning quite explicitly with the Cartesian concept cogito me cogitare, to lead one along the path from certitude to truth in two rather similar fashions, through Fichte, and, almost contemporaneously, in Hegel. (shrink)

I shall suggest in this paper that this "inverted world" is exactly that: an absurd position. This is not to say that it is to be ignored or condemned as "fantastic," but rather that its importance and intelligibility lay in its very absurdity, in its appearance as an unintelligible inversion of what previously was taken to constitute the intelligibility of the world of appearance. More precisely, I shall suggest that this inverted world is a misunderstanding and perversion of (...) the conclusion to which we should have been brought at this point in the Phenomenology. It is Hegel's intention, underscored by the conditional rather than indicative construction of this section, that we see this misunderstanding as a misunderstanding. When on the other hand the inversion is correctly understood, it brings to the phenomenological "we" undergoing the Bildungsprozess of the Phenomenology of Spirit the explicit realization that consciousness is not merely finite intentionality, but as such is infinite. Consciousness is self-consciousness, consciousness limited by nothing but itself. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss an interpretation of Hegel's concept of the “Inverted World”, which is present in the final part of the chapter on Force and Understanding in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Other than my own reading of the chapter, I also summarize the three most important interpretations of the verkehrte Welt from the last century: those of Jean Hyppolite, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Joseph Flay. I have chosen these three due to the typology of interpretation within them: the (...) first one adopts a Christian reading of Hegel, the second a Hellenistic phenomenological interpretation, and the last one, which is closest to the interpretation I also propose, a reading consistent with the thought of Immanuel Kant. The article ends with a possible interpretation of Hegel's verkehrte Welt through Kant's “Schematism of the Pure Concepts of Understanding” from his Critique of Pure Reason, where I argue that Kant's fundamental faculty of imagination and its object, schemata, play the same role in Kant's system that Hegel's verkehrte Welt does in the development of natural consciousness. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: 1 The Cartesian legacy -- The dominant paradigm -- Cartesian dualism -- The secret life of the body -- The Cartesian theatre -- The domain of reason -- The causal relevance of the mind -- Conclusion -- Further reading --2 Reductionism and the road to functionalism -- Causation, scientific realism, and physicalism -- Reductionism and central state materialism -- Problems with central state materialism -- Modified ontological physicalism: supervenience -- Modified explanatory physicalism: the disunity of -- (...) science picture -- Supervenient causation -- Functionalism -- Further reading --3 Computational models of mind -- Intentionality -- Rationality: the calculative account -- The computational model of mind -- Objections to the language of thought (1) -- Objections to the language of thought (2) -- Conclusion -- Further reading --4 The content of thought -- The internalist picture -- Externalism -- Singular thoughts -- Dual component theories -- Naturalistic externalism -- Teleological theories -- Conclusion -- Further reading --5 Anti-reductionist alternatives -- Interpretationalism -- Real patterns -- Direct interpretationalism -- Psychological causalism -- Modified psychological causalism -- Third-personalism and perspectivity -- The world from the point of view of the subject -- Context and culture -- Conclusion -- Further reading --6 The content of experience -- Consciousness -- The knowledge argument -- Absent qualia and inverted spectra -- Functionalist responses -- Internal monitoring -- Intentionalism -- Form and content -- The private language argument -- Further reading -- 7 Subjects of experience -- Subjectivity -- The subjective viewpoint -- Intersubjectivity -- Simulation theory -- Normativity and normality -- Expression -- Self-knowledge -- Conclusion -- Further reading --8 The embodied subject -- Mentality -- Desire -- Beyond the Cartesian body -- Metaphysical questions: multiple narratives -- Further reading -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index. (shrink)

Former discussions of biological generalizations have focused on the question of whether there are universal laws of biology. These discussions typically analyzed generalizations out of their investigative and explanatory contexts and concluded that whatever biological generalizations are, they are not universal laws. The aim of this paper is to explain what biological generalizations are by shifting attention towards the contexts in which they are drawn. I argue that within the context of any particular biological explanation or investigation, biologists employ two (...) types of generations. One type identifies causal regularities exhibited by particular kinds of biological entities. The other type identifies how these entities are distributed in the biological world. (shrink)

This book offers a discussion about how people think, talk, learn, and explain things in causal terms in terms of action and manipulation. Sloman also reviews the role of causality, causal models, and intervention in the basic human cognitive functions: decision making, reasoning, judgement, categorization, inductive inference, language, and learning.

"Perhaps not all the stories that follow are true. They could, however, be true, and the Reader is invited to ponder this." So begins _Insurmountable Simplicities_, Roberto Casati and Achille Varzi's colorful incarnation of the many philosophical conundrums that hide in the wrinkles of everyday life. Why do mirrors seem to invert left and right but not up and down? How do we know whether strawberries taste the same for everyone? Where is it written that we must observe the law, (...) and if it is not written, why should we observe it? What if we could swap brains-or the rest of our bodies? _Insurmountable Simplicities_ is filled with stories, dialogues, and epistolary exchanges that cover a range of themes-such as personal identity, causality and responsibility, fortune, the nature of things, the paradoxes of time and space, the interface between logic and language-in captivating and inventive ways. Clear, concise, and intellectually engaging, this internationally acclaimed book brilliantly demonstrates that the beauty of philosophy resides in its thorough engagement with the simplicities of the world, insurmountable as they might initially appear. (shrink)

Images and concepts of the 'posthuman' go back at least as far as the famous 'madman parable' in F. Nietzsche's The Gay Science, and their 'roots' go back much further still. In turn, the image or theme of the posthuman has played an increasingly important role in recent literature, film, and television, where the notion of humanity as a 'larval being' (G. Deleuze) that transforms itself or is being transformed into something else, for better or worse, has become increasingly common. (...) This book explores these concepts in relation to biblical texts, particularly texts from the gospel of Mark but also from the books of Daniel, Jonah and Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes), and the Acts of the Apostles. At the same time, texts from recent popular culture are examined, including novels by J. Morrow, C. Miéville and G. Ryman, the movies Local Hero and Lars and the Real Girl, and the Heroes TV series among others. Through a kind of inverted causality, recent texts in various media such as these transform earlier and otherwise unrelated ones, including biblical texts, into precursors, giving them new, postmodern meanings, just as the older texts once signified in still other ways before the advent of the familiar modern world. As a result, biblical texts signify in remarkably different ways in relation to the posthuman. Posthuman beings appear in both biblical and non-biblical texts, and the biblical phrase 'sons of men' (in both plural and singular versions) plays a crucial role, where it too takes on meanings that range far beyond the conventional or traditional ones. (shrink)

The doctrine of physicalism can be roughly spelled out simply as the claim that the physical state of the world determines the total state of the world. However, since there are many forms of determination, a somewhat more precise characterization is needed. One obvious problem with the simple formulation is that the traditional doctrine of epiphenomenalism holds that the mental is determined by the physical (and epiphenomenalists need not assert that there are any properties except mental and physical ones, so (...) one can freely add to epiphenomenalism the claim that everything is determined by the physical state of the world). However, the orthodox view, which seems obviously correct, is that physicalists would and should balk at the claim that epiphenomenalism is a form of physicalism. The philosophical zombie thought experiment vividly reveals exactly why epiphenomenalism is not a version of physicalism. According to traditional epiphenomenalism the determination relation in question is causation, and causal relations do not hold with full necessity. They hold with at most nomological necessity. Thus there is a possible world, w, in which the causal laws (or, if one prefers a more Humean approach, where the cosmic regularities) are different in such a way that the physical states which in the actual world cause mental states either cause no mental states at all in w (the zombie option) or cause aberrant mental states (the inverted spectrum option). Why should the physicalist care about this ‘mere possibility’? Because it shows that the mental can vary independently of the physical and there can be no better demonstration of ontological distinctness 1 than independent variation. Therefore, physicalism requires that the sort of determination at issue must exhibit maximum modal force; it must be absolutely impossible for the mental to vary without attendant, determining physical variation (let us label this relation ‘logical determination’). I think the best way to state physicalism which meets this constraint is in terms of what are called minimal physical duplicates (MPDs) of possible worlds (an approach pioneered by David Lewis, see Lewis (1983b); see also Jackson (1998) and Chalmers and Jackson (2001)).. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Descartes’s Legacy: Minds and Meaning in Early Modern Philosophy by David B. Hausman, Alan HausmanDaniel E. FlageDavid B. Hausman and Alan Hausman. Descartes’s Legacy: Minds and Meaning in Early Modern Philosophy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Pp. xiv + 149. Paper, $19.95.David and Alan Hausman have written a fascinating study of Descartes, Berkeley, and Hume. It is an examination of what the Hausmans call the “information problem,” (...) that is, “how an information-processing entity receives input from a source outside itself and processes it” (1), and how those philosophers attempted to solve the problem. It does not examine the writings of these philosophers in their historical context.At the heart of their work is an argument that Cartesian ideas are intentional. Noting the remark in the Comments on a Certain Broadsheet that all ideas—including ideas of color—are innate, they argue that innate ideas intend exemplars or archetypes, entities whose existence is eternal but in principle, even if not in fact, independent of God. Only such a position, they argue, can solve the semantic problem posed by the third Cartesian demon, namely, that “if our thoughts could mean something other than what we believe they mean, then no proof for the actual existence of anything, including God and the cogito, could give us results” (38). This implies that all ideas are meaningful, have objective reality, and represent genuine possibilities, a point that Descartes himself came to recognize only in the years following the publication of the Meditations (39). Further, it solves the problem posed by the ex nihilo principle: “If the ex nihilo principle as a constraint on efficient causality requires that the meaningfulness of ideas have an intentional structure such that a complex of such ideas necessitates which possibilities must be actualized in order for the ideas to be true; there are necessary connections between ideas and their intentions” (40). Contending that the ex nihilo principle is the basis for Cartesian rationality (41), they argue that their position disposes [End Page 465] of a significant element of the Cartesian circle: the meaningfulness of an idea is independent of the existence and goodness of God (42). Since ideas intend exemplars, it is possible to explain the notion of eminent containment of extension without contending that God is extended (43–46). With the introduction of ideas as intentional entities—not entities which inherently resemble their objects—the mind/body distinction becomes a logical outgrowth of the necessity of solving a new philosophical problem, viz., how to deal with the fact that intentional entities have an entirely different logical structure from physical entities.Descartes’s second demon concerns individuals (49). The Hausmans attempt to solve this problem by way of a discussion of the distinction between simple and complex ideas: “Complex ideas will get meaning as a function of the simple ideas they ‘contain’ ” (49). Simple ideas intend exemplars. Complex ideas are ideas of complex individuals. The Hausmans argue that Descartes deals with the problem of individuation on the basis of some version of a substratum theory of substance, a claim based in part on an analysis of the piece of wax argument (54–57). “[G]iven the causal principles of the Third Meditation, the only way we can account for our judgements about individual physical things is to posit the existence of a physical world” (57): the problem is a semantic problem resting on the necessity of the ex nihilo principle (58).Their first Cartesian demon is discussed in terms of the “inverted spectrum” problem, e.g., the possibility that cubes produce sphere ideas and vice versa, a possibility that results systematically in false judgments: there is a physical world, but it is systematically different from the way we believe it to be (58–61). Unlike the earlier demons, the first demon can be exorcised only if there is a good God, although behaviorally such a systematic deception would be indistinguishable from behavior based on ideas corresponding to a physical reality.In their last three chapters, the Hausmans focus on related issues in the philosophies of Berkeley and Hume. They argue that Berkeley’s account of reality blurs the distinction between idea... (shrink)

The aim of this talk unpublished until now, and that constitutes the last contribution of the author to this topic, is to show how Hans Reichenbach’s work “Die Kausalstruktur der Welt und der Unterschied zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft” , published in 1925, and significantly expanded and revised in the posthumously published book in 1956, The Direction of Time, inspires substantially part of the work that is carried out in the domain of causality at the beginning of the twenty first century.

Quantum indeterminism seems incompatible with Kant’s defense of causality in his Second Analogy. The Copenhagen interpretation also takes quantum theory as evidence for anti-realism. This article argues that the law of causality, as transcendental, applies only to the world as observable, not to hypothetical (unobservable) objects such as quarks, detectable only by high energy accelerators. Taking Planck’s constant and the speed of light as the lower and upper bounds of observability provides a way of interpreting the observables of quantum mechanics (...) as empirically real even though they are transcendentally (i.e., preobservationally) ideal.El indeterminismo cuántico parece incompatible con la defensa de la causalidad que hace Kant en su Segunda Analogía. La interpretación de Copenhague de la mecánica cuántica también considera a esta teoría como evidencia a favor del antirrealismo. Este artículo defiende que la ley (trascendental) de la causalidadse aplica solamente al mundo en tanto que observable, y no a objetos hipotéticos (inobservables) como los quarks, detectables solo mediante aceleradores de altas energías. Tomar la constante de Planck y la velocidad de la luz como límites inferior y superior de la observabilidad nos ofrece un modo de interpretar losobservables de la mecánica cuántica como empíricamente reales, incluso aunque estos sean trascendentalmente, es decir, preobservacionalmente, ideales. (shrink)

The evolution of the human mind through natural selection mandates that our conscious experiences are causally potent in order to leave a tangible impact upon the surrounding physical world. Any attempt to construct a functional theory of the conscious mind within the framework of classical physics, however, inevitably leads to causally impotent conscious experiences in direct contradiction to evolution theory. Here, we derive several rigorous theorems that identify the origin of the latter impasse in the mathematical properties of (...) ordinary differential equations employed in combination with the alleged functional production of the mind by the brain. Then, we demonstrate that a mind--brain theory consistent with causally potent conscious experiences is provided by modern quantum physics, in which the unobservable conscious mind is reductively identified with the quantum state of the brain and the observable brain is constructed by the physical measurement of quantum brain observables. The resulting quantum stochastic dynamics obtained from sequential quantum measurements of the brain is governed by stochastic differential equations, which permit genuine free will exercised through sequential conscious choices of future courses of action. Thus, quantum reductionism provides a solid theoretical foundation for the causal potency of consciousness, free will and cultural transmission. (shrink)

Quantum indeterminism seems incompatible with Kant’s defense of causality in his Second Analogy. The Copenhagen interpretation also takes quantum theory as evidence for anti-realism. This first article of a two-part series argues that the law of causality, as transcendental, applies only to the world as observable, not to hypothetical objects such as quarks, detectable only by high energy accelerators. Taking Planck’s constant and the speed of light as the lower and upper bounds of observability provides a way of interpreting the (...) observables of quantum mechanics as empirically real even though they are transcendentally ideal. (shrink)

This article approaches world poverty from the perspective of rectificatory justice and investigates whether the global rich can be said to have special obligations toward the global poor on the grounds that they have been harming them. The focus rests on the present situation, and more specifically on Thomas Pogge's thesis of a causal link between world poverty and the conduct of present citizens (and governments) in wealthy countries. I argue that, if Pogge does not want his position to boil (...) down to an institutional version of the ‘negative causation'-thesis – according to which one can cause harm simply by failing to alleviate it – and if he wants it to be accepted by those he seeks to convince – namely right-libertarians – he must specify that it is enough for institutions to be just that they do not actively deprive their members of the means of subsistence, even if many of them still do not have the capacity to enjoy the means of subsistence. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 26 (3) 2007: pp. 252-270. (shrink)

This article offers a way of approaching the question of causality in Ibn ʿ Arabī’s relational and processual metaphysical system. Ibn ʿ Arabī’s metaphysics is relational in the sense that entities are perceived as the totality of their relationships to God. The Divine Names are theological categories denoting these relations. It is processual in that it perceives the world as the multiplicity of the incessant and ever-changing process of the manifestations of the divine qualities. The world is recreated anew at (...) each moment and entities are societies of divine acts or theophanies. In this framework, causal power is attributed to God and causality describes the regularity and predictability of the related theophanic individualities. The article, then, turns to examine how Ibn ʿArabī presents a participatory account of freedom in accordance with his understanding of causality. The paper, first, briefly summarizes different accounts of causality offered by Muslim theologians and philosophers before Ibn ʿArabī. The second section introduces some relevant aspects of Ibn ʿArabī’s metaphysics for our discussion and rethinks the question of causality within this larger framework. The third section discusses the question of freedom and responsibility of the moral agents. Finally, the paper offers a comparative examination of Ibn ʿArabī’s theory of causality. (shrink)

A standing challenge in the theory of counterfactuals is to solve the “deviation problem”. Consider ordinary counterfactuals involving an antecedent concerning a difference from the actual course of events at a particular time, and a consequent concerning, at least in part, what happens at a later time. In the possible worlds framework, the problem is often put in terms of which are the relevant antecedent worlds. Desiderata for the solution include that the relevant antecedent worlds be governed (...) by the actual laws of nature with no miracles; that the past in those worlds before the antecedent time matches the actual past; that the account is compatible with determinism, and that many of our ordinary counterfactual judgments are correct, and would be correct even given determinism. Many theorists have compromised on one or more of these desiderata, but this paper presents an account employing impossible worlds that satisfies them all. (shrink)

Introduction -- Simple linear causality : one thing makes another happen -- The cognitive science of simple causality : why do we get stuck? -- Domino causality : effects that become causes -- Cyclic causality : loops and feedback -- Spiraling causality : escalation and de-escalation -- Mutual causality : symbiosis and bi-directionality -- Relational causality : balances and differentials -- Across time and distance : detecting delayed and distant effects -- "What happened?" vs. "what's going on?" : thinking about (...) steady states -- What you can't see does matter : attending to obvious and non-obvious causes -- It's not always a case of who did it : minding passive and unintentional causality -- Step by step, or not : the mind-bending concept of simultaneous causality -- Figuring out what to count on : dealing with stochastic causality -- Isn't anybody in charge around here? : attending to distributed causality and emergence -- Summing up : the implications for helping a new generation understand causal complexity -- Putting it all together : teaching for causal complexity. (shrink)

If the decades of the forties through the sixties were dominated by discussion of Hempel's “covering law“ explication of explanation, that of the seventies was preoccupied with Salmon's “statistical relevance” conception, which emerged as the principal alternative to Hempel's enormously influential account. Readers of Wesley C. Salmon's Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World, therefore, ought to find it refreshing to discover that its author has not remained content with a facile defense of his previous investigations; on the (...) contrary, Salmon offers an original account of different kinds of explications, advances additional criticisms of various alternative theories, and elaborates a novel “two-tiered“ analysis of explanation that tacitly depends upon a “two-tiered” account of homogeneity. Indeed, if the considerations that follow are correct, Salmon has not merely refined his statistical relevance account but has actually abandoned it in favor of a “causal/mechanistic“ construction. This striking development suggests that the theory of explanation is likely to remain as lively an arena of debate in the eighties as it has been in the past. (shrink)

The philosophical theory of scientific explanation proposed here involves a radically new treatment of causality that accords with the pervasively statistical character of contemporary science. Wesley C. Salmon describes three fundamental conceptions of scientific explanation--the epistemic, modal, and ontic. He argues that the prevailing view is untenable and that the modal conception is scientifically out-dated. Significantly revising aspects of his earlier work, he defends a causal/mechanical theory that is a version of the ontic conception. Professor Salmon's theory furnishes a robust (...) argument for scientific realism akin to the argument that convinced twentieth-century physical scientists of the existence of atoms and molecules. To do justice to such notions as irreducibly statistical laws and statistical explanation, he offers a novel account of physical randomness. The transition from the "reviewed view" of scientific explanation to the causal/mechanical model requires fundamental rethinking of basic explanatory concepts. (shrink)

The causal closure of physics is usually discussed in a context free way. Here I discuss it in the context of engineering systems and biology, where strong emergence takes place due to a combination of upwards emergence and downwards causation. Firstly, I show that causal closure is strictly limited in terms of spatial interactions because these are cases that are of necessity strongly interacting with the environment. Effective Spatial Closure holds ceteris parabus, and can be violated by Black Swan Events. (...) Secondly, I show that causal closure in the hierarchy of emergence is a strictly interlevel affair, and in the cases of engineering and biology encompasses all levels from the social level to the particle physics level. However Effective Causal Closure can usefully be defined for a restricted set of levels, and one can experimentally determine Effective Theories that hold at each level. This does not however imply those effective theories are causally complete by themselves. In particular, the particle physics level is not causally complete by itself in the contexts of solid state physics, digital computers, or biology. Furthermore Inextricably Intertwined Levels occur in all these contexts. (shrink)

The thesis explores and suggests a solution to a problem that I identify in John McDowell’s and Lynne Rudder Baker’s approaches to mental and intention-dependent (ID) causation in the physical world. I begin (chapter 1) with a brief discussion of McDowell’s non-reductive and anti-scientistic account of mind and world, which I believe offers, through its vision of the unbounded conceptual and the world as within the space of reasons, to liberate and renew philosophy. However, I find an inconsistency in McDowell’s (...) criticism of Davidson’s anomalous monism (chapter 2), stemming from a tension between McDowell’s naïve common sense view of mental causation and an understanding of ordinary physical causation which I think McDowell ought to embrace, which portrays it as both objective, in the sense of being recognition- independent, and as belonging within the space of reasons. The question of the relation between these two concepts of causation is an aspect of the more general question of the relation between the space of reasons and the realm of law. In chapter 3 I begin examining the possibility that Baker’s account of material and property constitution could form the basis of a bridge between the two spaces, and find it generally promising. However, I find that her defence of her version of non-reductive monism against Kim’s causal arguments also runs into problems, which I attribute to the fact that she holds a view of causation as secondary to causal explanation. 2 3 In chapter 4 I develop an account of what I call manifest physical causation – of objective causal relations in the world of Sellars’s manifest image. Based upon McDowell’s transcendental empiricism, which takes the existence of the ordinary perceived world as a condition of the possibility of our possession of conceptual capacities, I contend that it is this picture of reality, rather than that of fundamental physics, that should be the starting point of our theorizing. Causation in the manifest image, I argue, covers the behaviour of the familiar physical world as well as that of its well-understood extensions into the special sciences and engineering. Manifest physical causation, on my account, is productive, acts through mechanisms which are almost entirely mechanical, electromagnetic, and/ or chemical, and is causally closed. In my view, normative, semantic, contentful property-instances are not part of the manifest physical causal nexus. In my final chapter I suggest a modification of Baker’s constitution account, which I call Constituted Causation, whereby higher-level – mental and other ID – causal relations are constituted, in favourable circumstances, by lower-level ones. ID causal relations belong in their own causal nexus but are connected to the manifest physical world through constitution, a relation of unity without identity. Causation and constitution are, respectively, intra- and inter-level relations, and they are non-overlapping. The constituted network of rational and normative relations bears, I believe, striking parallels with McDowell’s view of reality. According to Baker’s view of constitution, the essential properties of constituted entities subsume those of their constituters; extending this to my account enables us to say that the real cause and explanation of someone’s action is that they consciously performed it 4 rather than that certain manifest causal processes occurred at the lower level. (shrink)

We suggest a rigorous theory of how objective single-case transition probabilities fit into our world. The theory combines indeterminism and relativity in the “branching space–times” pattern, and relies on the existing theory of causae causantes (originating causes). Its fundamental suggestion is that (at least in simple cases) the probabilities of all transitions can be computed from the basic probabilities attributed individually to their originating causes. The theory explains when and how one can reasonably infer from the probabilities of one “chance (...) set-up” to the probabilities of another such set-up that is located far away. (shrink)

Although Newton carefully eschews questions about gravity’s causal basis in the published Principia, the original version of his masterwork’s third book contains some intriguing causal language. “These forces,” he writes, “arise from the universal nature of matter.” Such remarks seem to assert knowledge of gravity’s cause, even that matter is capable of robust and distant action. Some commentators defend that interpretation of the text—a text whose proper interpretation is important since Newton’s reasons for suppressing it strongly suggest that he continued (...) to endorse its ideas. This article argues that the surface appearance of Newton’s causal language is deceptive. What does New- ton intend with his causal language if not a full causal hypothesis? His remarks actually indicate a way of considering the force mathematically, something he contrasts to the structure of the force as it really is in nature. In explaining that, he identifies a significant disjunction between the physical force itself and mathematical ways of considering it, and the text’s significance lies in its view of the force’s structure and in the questions raised about the relationship between mathematical representations and the physical world. (shrink)

According to Papineau’s qualitative view, experiences instantiate both representational and phenomenal properties. The instantiation of phenomenal properties is people undergoing the relevant experience. In contrast, the instantiation of representational properties relies on changing relationships between the person and the environment in which the person is embedded. The upshot is that phenomenal and representational properties are only contingently related: phenomenal properties are neither identical to, nor supervene on, representational properties. In this article, the author gives a detailed criticism of Papineau’s qualitative (...) view. Papineau’s qualitative view left unexplained the relevant causal role of consciousness in accounting for actions—assuming that a mental state only becomes conscious when it is poised to make a direct difference to what the subject believes and later remembers, how the subject reasons, what decisions the subject makes, and what rational actions the subject performs. The author argues that the same reasons that support Papineau’s complaint that it is hard to see how distal particulars and properties make their way into the realm of consciousness—namely some traditional arguments against representationalism—also show that it is hard to see how phenomenal consciousness makes its way back into the outside world in explaining the rational control of actions. (shrink)

Philosophers have long analyzed the truth-condition of counterfactual conditionals in terms of the possible-worlds semantics advanced by Lewis [13] and Stalnaker [23]. In this paper, I argue that, from the perspective of philosophical semantics, the causal modeling semantics proposed by Pearl [17] and others (e.g., Briggs [3]) is more plausible than the Lewis-Stalnaker possible-worlds semantics. I offer two reasons. First, the possible-worlds semantics has suffered from a specific type of counterexamples. While the causal modeling semantics can handle (...) such examples with ease, the only way for the possible-worlds semantics to do so seems to cost it its distinctive status as a philosophical semantics. Second, the causal modeling semantics, but not the possible-worlds semantics, has the resources enough for accounting for both forward-tracking and backtracking counterfactual conditionals. (shrink)

We show that, given standard assumptions about classical dynamical systems, Lewis' conception of possible worlds is incompatible with classical physics in that it would imply that all dynamical systems were integrable.

David Chalmers claims that the logical possibility of ‘zombie worlds’ — worlds physically indiscernible from the actual world, but that lack consciousness — reveal that consciousness is a distinct fact, or property, in addition to the physical facts or properties.The ‘existence’ or possibility of Zombie worlds violates the physicalist demand that consciousness logically supervene upon the physical. On the assumption that the logical supervenience of consciousness upon the physical is, indeed, a necessary entailment of physicalism, the existence (...) of zombie worlds implies the falsity of physicalism. How do we determine the logical possibility of zombie worlds? By conceptual analysis of the concepts involved, keeping empirical facts in mind. (shrink)

The work described in this report is motivated by the desire to test the expressive possibilities of action language C+. The Causal Calculator (CCalc) is a system that answers queries about action domains described in a fragment of that language. The Zoo World and the Traffic World have been proposed by Erik Sandewall in his Logic Modelling Workshop—an environment for communicating axiomatizations of action domains of nontrivial size. -/- The Zoo World consists of several cages and the exterior, gates between (...) them, and animals of several species, including humans. Actions in this domain include moving within and between cages, opening and closing gates, and mounting and riding animals. The Traffic World includes vehicles moving continuously between road crossings subject to a number of restrictions, such as speed limits and keeping a fixed safety distance away from other vehicles on the road. We show how to represent the two domains in the input language of CCalc, and how to use CCalc to test these representations. (shrink)

Joseph Bracken examines key writings of process-oriented philosophers like Alfred North Whitehead along with systems-oriented thinkers such as Ludwig von Bertalanffy to create a systems-oriented understanding of the God-world relation that serves as a complement to Pope Francis’s reflections on the environmental crisis.

The philosophical theory of scientific explanation proposed here involves a radically new treatment of causality that accords with the pervasively statistical character of contemporary science. Wesley C. Salmon describes three fundamental conceptions of scientific explanation--the epistemic, modal, and ontic. He argues that the prevailing view (a version of the epistemic conception) is untenable and that the modal conception is scientifically out-dated. Significantly revising aspects of his earlier work, he defends a causal/mechanical theory that is a version of the ontic conception. (...) Professor Salmon's theory furnishes a robust argument for scientific realism akin to the argument that convinced twentieth-century physical scientists of the existence of atoms and molecules. To do justice to such notions as irreducibly statistical laws and statistical explanation, he offers a novel account of physical randomness. The transition from the "reviewed view" of scientific explanation (that explanations are arguments) to the causal/mechanical model requires fundamental rethinking of basic explanatory concepts. (shrink)

David Lewis' account of counterfactuals is based on a relation of comparative similarity between possible worlds. We investigate what this relation might amount to in the case where the possible worlds are trajectories of dynamic systems: for most dynamic systems, there are unexpected difficulties in defining the sort of relation that Lewis requires. The difficulties are related to a pervasive, but counter-intuitive, feature of dynamic systems called non-integrability.