Causal Asymmetries

Causal Asymmetries PDF Author: Daniel M. Hausman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521622891
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
This book, by one of the pre-eminent philosophers of science writing today, offers the most comprehensive account available of causal asymmetries. Causation is asymmetrical in many different ways. Causes precede effects; explanations cite causes not effects. Agents use causes to manipulate their effects; they don't use effects to manipulate their causes. Effects of a common cause are correlated; causes of a common effect are not. This book explains why a relationship that is asymmetrical in one of these regards is asymmetrical in the others. Hausman discovers surprising hidden connections between theories of causation and traces them all to an asymmetry of independence. This is a major book for philosophers of science that will also prove insightful to economists and statisticians.

Causal Asymmetries

Causal Asymmetries PDF Author: Daniel M. Hausman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521622891
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book, by one of the pre-eminent philosophers of science writing today, offers the most comprehensive account available of causal asymmetries. Causation is asymmetrical in many different ways. Causes precede effects; explanations cite causes not effects. Agents use causes to manipulate their effects; they don't use effects to manipulate their causes. Effects of a common cause are correlated; causes of a common effect are not. This book explains why a relationship that is asymmetrical in one of these regards is asymmetrical in the others. Hausman discovers surprising hidden connections between theories of causation and traces them all to an asymmetry of independence. This is a major book for philosophers of science that will also prove insightful to economists and statisticians.

The Temporal Asymmetry of Causation

The Temporal Asymmetry of Causation PDF Author: Alison Fernandes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108906621
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Causes always seem to come prior to their effects. What might explain this asymmetry? Causation's temporal asymmetry isn't straightforwardly due to a temporal asymmetry in the laws of nature—the laws are, by and large, temporally symmetric. Nor does the asymmetry appear due to an asymmetry in time itself. This Element examines recent empirical attempts to explain the temporal asymmetry of causation: statistical mechanical accounts, agency accounts and fork asymmetry accounts. None of these accounts are complete yet and a full explanation of the temporal asymmetry of causation will likely require contributions from all three programs.

Causal Asymmetry

Causal Asymmetry PDF Author: Douglas Ehring
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Causation
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description


Causal Asymmetry & the Explanatory Constraint

Causal Asymmetry & the Explanatory Constraint PDF Author: Zhiheng Tang
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781907962417
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Causation is an asymmetric relation - if C causes E, then E does not cause C. In this book it is argued that: 1) Two major theories of causation - the regularity theory and the counterfactual theory - cannot adequately account for causal asymmetry; 2) Causal asymmetry consists in the explanatory asymmetry between cause and effect; 3) Generally, the notion of causation is dependent on the notion of explanation; in other words, explanation sets a conceptual constraint on causation. In reaching these conclusions, issues about simultaneous causation, backwards causation and absence causation are discussed.

Causal Reasoning in Physics

Causal Reasoning in Physics PDF Author: Mathias Frisch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107031494
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
This book argues, partly through detailed case studies, for the importance of causal reasoning in physics.

Leibniz’s Metaphysics of Time and Space

Leibniz’s Metaphysics of Time and Space PDF Author: Michael Futch
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402082371
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Leibniz’s metaphysics of space and time stands at the centre of his philosophy and is one of the high-water marks in the history of the philosophy of science. In this work, Futch provides the first systematic and comprehensive examination of Leibniz’s thought on this subject. In addition to elucidating the nature of Leibniz’s relationalism, the book fills a lacuna in existing scholarship by examining his views on the topological structure of space and time, including the unity and unboundedness of space and time. It is shown that, like many of his more recent counterparts, Leibniz adopts a causal theory of time where temporal facts are grounded on causal facts, and that his approach to time represents a precursor to non-tensed theories of time. Futch then goes on to situate Leibniz’s philosophy of space and time within the broader context of his idealistic metaphysics and natural theology. Emphasizing the historical background of Leibniz’s thought, the book also places him in dialogue with contemporary philosophy of science, underscoring the enduring philosophical interest of Leibniz’s metaphysics of time and space.

Causal Reasoning in Physics

Causal Reasoning in Physics PDF Author: Mathias Frisch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316062392
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Much has been written on the role of causal notions and causal reasoning in the so-called 'special sciences' and in common sense. But does causal reasoning also play a role in physics? Mathias Frisch argues that, contrary to what influential philosophical arguments purport to show, the answer is yes. Time-asymmetric causal structures are as integral a part of the representational toolkit of physics as a theory's dynamical equations. Frisch develops his argument partly through a critique of anti-causal arguments and partly through a detailed examination of actual examples of causal notions in physics, including causal principles invoked in linear response theory and in representations of radiation phenomena. Offering a new perspective on the nature of scientific theories and causal reasoning, this book will be of interest to professional philosophers, graduate students, and anyone interested in the role of causal thinking in science.

Causation and Its Basis in Fundamental Physics

Causation and Its Basis in Fundamental Physics PDF Author: Douglas Kutach
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019993620X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
This book is the first comprehensive attempt to solve what Hartry Field has called "the central problem in the metaphysics of causation": the problem of reconciling the need for causal notions in the special sciences with the limited role of causation in physics. If the world evolves fundamentally according to laws of physics, what place can be found for the causal regularities and principles identified by the special sciences? Douglas Kutach answers this question by invoking a novel distinction between fundamental and derivative reality and a complementary conception of reduction. He then constructs a framework that allows all causal regularities from the sciences to be rendered in terms of fundamental relations. By drawing on a methodology that focuses on explaining the results of specially crafted experiments, Kutach avoids the endless task of catering to pre-theoretical judgments about causal scenarios. This volume is a detailed case study that uses fundamental physics to elucidate causation, but technicalities are eschewed so that a wide range of philosophers can profit. The book is packed with innovations: new models of events, probability, counterfactual dependence, influence, and determinism. These lead to surprising implications for topics like Newcomb's paradox, action at a distance, Simpson's paradox, and more. Kutach explores the special connection between causation and time, ultimately providing a never-before-presented explanation for the direction of causation. Along the way, readers will discover that events cause themselves, that low barometer readings do cause thunderstorms after all, and that we humans routinely affect the past more than we affect the future.

Lewis' Account of Causal Asymmetry

Lewis' Account of Causal Asymmetry PDF Author: Kerry Mulvania
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Causation
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description


Time and Causality Across the Sciences

Time and Causality Across the Sciences PDF Author: Samantha Kleinberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108476678
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Explores the critical role time plays in our understanding of causality, across psychology, biology, physics and the social sciences.