26 found
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  1. An Abductive Theory of Constitution.Michael Baumgartner & Lorenzo Casini - 2017 - Philosophy of Science 84 (2):214-233.
    The first part of this paper finds Craver’s (2007) mutual manipulability theory (MM) of constitution inadequate, as it definitionally ties constitution to the feasibility of idealized experiments, which, however, are unrealizable in principle. As an alternative, the second part develops an abductive theory of constitution (NDC), which exploits the fact that phenomena and their constituents are unbreakably coupled via common causes. The best explanation for this common-cause coupling is the existence of an additional dependence relation, viz. constitution. Apart from adequately (...)
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  2. Horizontal Surgicality and Mechanistic Constitution.Michael Baumgartner, Lorenzo Casini & Beate Krickel - 2018 - Erkenntnis 85 (2):417-430.
    While ideal interventions are acknowledged by many as valuable tools for the analysis of causation, recent discussions have shown that, since there are no ideal interventions on upper-level phenomena that non-reductively supervene on their underlying mechanisms, interventions cannot—contrary to a popular opinion—ground an informative analysis of constitution. This has led some to abandon the project of analyzing constitution in interventionist terms. By contrast, this paper defines the notion of a horizontally surgical intervention, and argues that, when combined with some innocuous (...)
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  3.  49
    The PC Algorithm and the Inference to Constitution.Lorenzo Casini & Michael Baumgartner - 2023 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 74 (2):405-429.
    Gebharter has proposed using one of the best known Bayesian network causal discovery algorithms, PC, to identify the constitutive dependencies underwriting mechanistic explanations. His proposal assumes that mechanistic constitution behaves like deterministic direct causation, such that PC is directly applicable to mixed variable sets featuring both causal and constitutive dependencies. Gebharter claims that such mixed sets, under certain restrictions, comply with PC’s background assumptions. The aim of this article is to show that Gebharter’s proposal incurs severe problems, ultimately rooted in (...)
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  4.  86
    How to Model Mechanistic Hierarchies.Lorenzo Casini - 2016 - Philosophy of Science 83 (5):946-958.
    Mechanisms are usually viewed as inherently hierarchical, with lower levels of a mechanism influencing, and decomposing, its higher-level behaviour. In order to adequately draw quantitative predictions from a model of a mechanism, the model needs to capture this hierarchical aspect. The recursive Bayesian network formalism was put forward as a means to model mechanistic hierarchies by decomposing variables. The proposal was recently criticized by Gebharter and Gebharter and Kaiser, who instead propose to decompose arrows. In this paper, I defend the (...)
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  5.  79
    Confirmation by Robustness Analysis: A Bayesian Account.Lorenzo Casini & Jürgen Landes - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-43.
    Some authors claim that minimal models have limited epistemic value (Fumagalli, 2016; Grüne-Yanoff, 2009a). Others defend the epistemic benefits of modelling by invoking the role of robustness analysis for hypothesis confirmation (see, e.g., Levins, 1966; Kuorikoski et al., 2010) but such arguments find much resistance (see, e.g., Odenbaugh & Alexandrova, 2011). In this paper, we offer a Bayesian rationalization and defence of the view that robustness analysis can play a confirmatory role, and thereby shed light on the potential of minimal (...)
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  6. Can Interventions Rescue Glennan’s Mechanistic Account of Causality?Lorenzo Casini - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (4):1155-1183.
    Glennan appeals to interventions to solve the ontological and explanatory regresses that threaten his mechanistic account of causality . I argue that Glennan’s manoeuvre fails. The appeal to interventions is not able to address the ontological regress, and it blocks the explanatory regress only at the cost of making the account inapplicable to non-modular mechanisms. I offer a solution to the explanatory regress that makes use of dynamic Bayesian networks. My argument is illustrated by a case study from systems biology, (...)
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  7.  45
    Not-So-Minimal Models.Lorenzo Casini - 2014 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 44 (5):646-672.
    What can we learn from “minimal” economic models? I argue that learning from such models is not limited to conceptual explorations—which show how something could be the case—but may extend to explanations of real economic phenomena—which show how something is the case. A model may be minimal qua certain world-linking properties, and yet “not-so-minimal” qua learning, provided it is externally valid. This, in turn, depends on using the right principles for model building and not necessarily “isolating” principles. My argument is (...)
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  8.  39
    Variable Definition and Independent Components.Lorenzo Casini, Alessio Moneta & Marco Capasso - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (5):784-795.
    In the causal modeling literature, it is well known that ill-defined variables may give rise to ambiguous manipulations. Here, we illustrate how ill-defined variables may also induce mistakes in causal inference when standard causal search methods are applied. To address the problem, we introduce a representation framework, which exploits an independent component representation of the data, and demonstrate its potential for detecting ill-defined variables and avoiding mistaken causal inferences.
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  9.  7
    Constitution, Non-Causal Explanation, and Demarcation.Lorenzo Casini - 2025 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 12.
    In philosophy of science, constitutive explanations have attracted much attention since Craver’s influential book Explaining the Brain (2007). His Mutual Manipulability (MM) theory of constitution aimed to explicate constitution as a non-causal explanatory relation and to demarcate between constituents and non-constituents. But MM received decisive criticism. In response, Craver et al. (2021) have recently proposed a new theory, called Matched Interlevel Experiments (MIE), which is currently gaining traction in various fields. The authors claim that MIE retains “the spirit of MM (...)
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  10.  50
    Hypothetical Interventions and Belief Changes.Holger Andreas & Lorenzo Casini - 2019 - Foundations of Science 24 (4):681-704.
    According to Woodward’s influential account of explanation, explanations have a counterfactual structure, and explanatory counterfactuals are analysed in terms of causal relations and interventions. In this paper, we provide a formal semantics of explanatory counterfactuals based on a Ramsey Test semantics of conditionals. Like Woodward’s account, our account is guided by causal considerations. Unlike Woodward’s account, it makes no reference to causal graphs and it also covers cases of explanation where interventions are impossible.
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  11. (1 other version)Causation.Lorenzo Casini - 2012 - Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 27 (2):203-219.
    How many notions of cause are there? The causality literature is witnessing a flourishing of pluralist positions. Here I focus on a recent debate on whether interpreting causality in terms of inferential relations commits one to semantic pluralism (Reiss 2011) or not (Williamson 2006). I argue that inferentialism is compatible with a ‘weak’ form of monism, where causality is envisaged as one, vague cluster concept. I offer two arguments for this, one for vagueness, one for uniqueness. Finally, I qualify in (...)
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  12.  5
    Guest Editorial: Agent-based models in philosophy of science.Lorenzo Casini - unknown
    Agent-based models in philosophy of science.
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  13.  40
    Malfunctions and teleology: On the chances of statistical accounts of functions.Lorenzo Casini - 2017 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 7 (2):319-335.
    The core idea of statistical accounts of biological functions is that to function normally is to provide a statistically typical contribution to some goal state of the organism. In this way, statistical accounts purport to naturalize the teleological notion of function in terms of statistical facts. Boorse’s, 542–573, 1977) original biostatistical account was criticized for failing to distinguish functions from malfunctions. Recently, many have attempted to circumvent the criticism, 519–541, 2012, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 39, 634–647, 2014). Here, I (...)
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  14.  21
    Causality in complex systems: An inferentialist proposal.Lorenzo Casini - unknown
    I argue for an inferentialist account of the meaning of causal claims, which draws on the writings of Sellars and Brandom. The account is meant to be widely applicable. In this work, it is motivated and defended with reference to complex systems sciences, i.e., sciences that study the behaviour of systems with many components interacting at various levels of organisation (e.g. cells, brain, social groups). Here are three, seemingly-uncontroversial platitudes about causality. (1) Causal relations are objective, mind-independent relations and, as (...)
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  15.  70
    (1 other version)Alexander Gebharter: Causal Nets, Interventionism, and Mechanisms. Philosophical Foundations and Applications.Lorenzo Casini - 2018 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 49 (3):481-485.
  16. Bångstyriga emotioner.Lorenzo Casini - 2005 - Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 2.
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  17.  56
    Constitution and Causal Roles.Lorenzo Casini & Michael Baumgartner - unknown
    Alexander Gebharter has recently proposed to use Bayesian network causal discovery methods to identify the constitutive dependencies that underwrite mechanistic explanations. The proposal depends on using the assumptions of the causal Bayesian network framework to implicitly define mechanistic constitution as a kind of deterministic direct causal dependence. The aim of this paper is twofold. In the first half, we argue that Gebharter’s proposal incurs severe conceptual problems. In the second half, we present an alternative way to bring Bayesian network tools (...)
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  18. Descartes och Spinoza om själens aktioner och passioner.Lorenzo Casini - 2000 - Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 1.
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  19.  43
    Emotions in renaissance humanism: Juan Luis Vives' De anima et vita.Lorenzo Casini - 2002 - In Henrik Lagerlund & Mikko Yrjönsuuri, Emotions and choice from boethius to descartes. kluwer. pp. 205--228.
  20.  1
    Interview with Dunja Šešelja, Samuli Reijula, and Matteo Michelini.Lorenzo Casini - unknown
    This interview discusses the use of agent-based modelling in philosophy of science with leading scholars in the field, Dunja Šešelja, Samuli Reijula, and Matteo Michelini.
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  21. Juan Luis Vives' conception of freedom of the will and its scholastic background.Lorenzo Casini - 2006 - Vivarium 44 (s 2-3):396-417.
    The aim of the present paper is to approach Juan Luis Vives' conception of freedom of the will in light of scholastic discussions on will and free choice, and point to some interesting similarities with the analysis of free choice contained in Jean Buridan's Quaestiones super decem libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum.
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  22.  40
    (1 other version)Juan Luis Vives [joannes ludovicus Vives].Lorenzo Casini - 2009 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  23. Platon och dialogformens filosofiska innebörd.Lorenzo Casini - 2006 - Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 3.
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  24.  47
    Risto Saarinen.Lorenzo Casini - 2014 - Vivarium 52 (1-2):184-186.
  25. Skam och frispråkighet.Lorenzo Casini - 2002 - Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 1.
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  26. The immortality of the soul.Lorenzo Casini - 2018 - In Stephan Schmid, Philosophy of Mind in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance. New York: Routledge.
     
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