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Causation is a central topic in many areas of philosophy. In metaphysics, philosophers want to know what causation is, and how it is related to laws of nature, probability, action, and freedom of the will. In epistemology, philosophers investigate how causal claims can be inferred from statistical data, and how causation is related to perception, knowledge and explanation. In the philosophy of mind, philosophers want to know whether and how the mind can be said to have causal efficacy, and in ethics, whether there is a moral distinction between acts and omissions and whether the moral value of an act can be judged according to its consequences. And causation is a contested concept in other fields of enquiry, such as biology, physics, and the law. This book provides an in-depth and comprehensive overview of these and other topics, as well as the history of the causation debate from the ancient Greeks to the logical empiricists. The chapters provide surveys of contemporary debates, while often also advancing novel and controversial claims; and each includes a comprehensive bibliography and suggestions for further reading. The book is thus the most comprehensive source of information about causation currently available, and will be invaluable for upper-level undergraduates through to professional philosophers.
List of contents
- Introduction
- 1: Sarah Broadie: The Ancient Greeks
- 2: John Marenbon: The Medievals
- 3: Kenneth Clatterbaugh: The Early Moderns
- 4: Don Garrett: Hume
- 5: Eric Watkins: Kant
- 6: Michael Stöltzner: The Logical Empiricists
- 7: Stathis Psillos: Regularity Theories
- 8: L.A. Paul: Counterfactual Theories
- 9: Jon Williamson: Probabilistic Theories
- 10: Phil Dowe: Causal Process Theories
- 11: James Woodward: Agency and Interventionist Theories
- 12: Stephen Mumford: Causal Powers and Capacities
- 13: John Carroll: Anti-Reductionism
- 14: Christopher Hitchcock: Causal Modelling
- 15: Stuart Glennan: Mechanisms
- 16: Peter Godfrey-Smith: Causal Pluralism
- 17: Peter Menzies: Platitudes and Counterexamples
- 18: Michael Tooley: Causes, Laws and Ontology
- 19: Douglas Ehring: Causal Relata
- 20: Huw Price and Brad Weslake: The Time-Asymmetry of Causation
- 21: David Danks: The Psychology of Causal Perception and Reasoning
- 22: Helen Beebee: Causation and Observation
- 23: Clark Glymour: Causation and Statistical Inference
- 24: Cei Maslen, Terry Horgan and Helen Daly: Mental Causation
- 25: Alfred Mele: Causation, Action, and Free Will
- 26: Carolina Sartorio: Causation and Ethics
- 27: Ram Neta: Causal Theories of Knowledge and Perception
- 28: Frank Jackson: Causation and Semantic Content
- 29: Peter Lipton: Causation and Explanation
- 30: Paul Humphreys: Causation and Reduction
- 31: Marc Lange: Causation in Classical Mechanics
- 32: Lawrence Sklar: Causation in Statistical Mechanics
- 33: Richard Healey: Causation in Quantum Mechanics
- 34: Carl Hoefer: Causation in Spacetime Theories
- 35: Samir Okasha: Causation in Biology
- 36: Harold Kincaid: Causation in the Social Sciences
- 37: Jane Stapleton: Causation in the Law
About the author
Helen Beebee is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham
Christopher Hitchcock is Professor of Philosophy at the California Institute of Technology
Peter Menzies is Professor of Philosophy at Macquarie University, Sydney
