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This volume focuses on alternatives to the two main philosophical approaches to causation: mechanistic explanation, and explanation in terms of difference-making. It explores the pluralistic, the fictionalist, the inferentialist, and the informational approaches, as well as the application of various approaches to natural and social sciences.
List of contents
- 1: Yafeng Shan: Some Reflections on Causation
- 2: Michael Tooley: Causation - A Non-Reductionist, Theoretical-Term Analysis
- 3: Evan Fales: Robust Causal Realism
- 4: John D. Norton: The Metaphysics of Causation: An Empiricist Critique
- 5: Rani Lill Anjum and Elena Rocca: A Dispositional Account of Causation: Applications to the Biological Sciences
- 6: R. D. Ingthorsson: Causal Efficacy: A Comparison of Rival Views
- 7: Phyllis Illari and Federica Russo: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Causal Production: The Prospects of Variation to Trace the Transmission of Information
- 8: Julian Reiss: Rebel With and Without a 'Cause': A Theory of Causation
- 9: Antony Eagle: Causal Fictionalism
- 10: Yafeng Shan, Samuel D. Taylor, Jon Williamson: Epistemic Causality and its Application to the Social and Cognitive Sciences
About the author
Yafeng Shan is Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He completed his PhD at University College London. His books include Doing Integrated History and Philosophy of Science: A Case Study of the Origin of Genetics (Springer, 2020), New Philosophical Perspectives on Scientific Progress (Routledge, 2022), Examining Philosophy Itself (Wiley, 2023), and Evidential Pluralism in the Social Sciences (Routledge, 2023).
Summary
This volume focuses on alternatives to the two main philosophical approaches to causation: mechanistic explanation, and explanation in terms of difference-making. It explores the pluralistic, the fictionalist, the inferentialist, and the informational approaches, as well as the application of various approaches to natural and social sciences.
