Causation in Science

This book explores the role of causal constraints in science, shifting our attention from causal relations between individual events--the focus of most philosophical treatments of causation-to a broad family of concepts and principles generating constraints on possible change. Yemima Ben-Menahem looks at determinism, locality, stability, symmetry p

About the author

Yemima Ben-Menahem is professor of philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author of Conventionalism, the editor of Hilary Putnam, and the coeditor of Probability in Physics.

Summary

This book explores the role of causal constraints in science, shifting our attention from causal relations between individual events--the focus of most philosophical treatments of causation-to a broad family of concepts and principles generating constraints on possible change. Yemima Ben-Menahem looks at determinism, locality, stability, symmetry p

Additional text

"The author’s writing is an admirable blend of substantive, hardheaded scholarship and illustrative, homespun cases and examples accessible to many readers."---D.B. Boersema, Choice

Product details

• Authors: Yemima Ben-Menahem, Ben-Menahem Yemima
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Content: Book
• Product form: Hardback
• Publication date: 31.07.2018
• Subject: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Natural sciences (general)
• EAN: 9780691174938
• ISBN: 978-0-691-17493-8
• Pages: 224
• Subjects: SCIENCE / History, Philosophy, SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects, Mathematics, Philosophy of Science, Theory, symmetry, Reason, Concept, History of Science, Axiom, Explanation, Linguistic Turn, Theorem, Calculation, probability, Classical mechanics, ASYMMETRY, Measurement, requirement, Thermodynamics, Principle, Special Relativity, Theoretical Physics, Statistical Mechanics, Understanding, teleology, Phenomenon, Analogy, Ambiguity, Determinism, quantum mechanics, reductionism, Uncertainty principle, Wave function, Emergence, idealization, Gauge theory, Prediction, causality, Quantum Entanglement, Vagueness, Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, Indeterminism, physicist, Quantum probability, Overdetermination, Philosopher, Equations of Motion, Hamiltonian Mechanics, Supervenience, Quantity, Principle of least action, Physical law, Coordinate system, Lagrangian (field theory), Degrees of freedom (statistics), Contingency (philosophy), Princeton University Press, Ipso facto, Conservation law, Fermat's principle, Counterexample, Newton's laws of motion, Lorentz covariance, Multiple realizability, Pauli exclusion principle, General covariance, Classical limit, Mental event, causal structure, Microstate (statistical mechanics), Scientific law, Haim Sompolinsky