Thinking about Causes

From Greek Philosophy to Modern Physics

Peter Machamer, Gereon Wolters, Peter Machamer, Gereon Wolters

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN:
  9780822971115
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Emerging as a hot topic in the mid-twentieth century, causality is one of the most frequently discussed issues in contemporary philosophy. Causality has been a central concept in philosophy as well as in the sciences, especially the natural sciences, dating back to its beginning in Greek thought. David Hume famously claimed that causality is the cement of the universe. In general terms, it links eventualities, predicts the consequences of action, and is the cognitive basis for the acquisition and the use of categories and concepts in the child. Indeed, how could one answer why-questions, around which early rational thought begins to revolve, without hitting on the relationships between reason and consequence, cause and effect, or without drawing these distinctions? But a comprehensive definition of causality has been notoriously hard to provide, and virtually every aspect of causation has been subject to much debate and analysis.Thinking About Causes brings together top philosophers from the United States and Europe to focus on causality as a major force in philosophical and scientific thought. Topics addressed include: ancient Stoicism and moral philosophy; the case of sacramental causality; traditional causal concepts in Descartes; Kant on transcendental laws; the influence of J. S. Mill's politics on his concept of causation; plurality in causality; causality in modern physics; causality in economics; and the concept of free will.Taken together, the essays in this collection from the Pittsburgh -Konstanz series provide the best current thinking about causality, especially as it relates to the philosophy of science.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• 1: The Concept of Causality in Greek Thought (Jürgen Mittelstrass)
• 2: Moral Causes: The Role of Physical Explanation in Ancient Ethics (Brad Inwood)
• 3: Ancient Stoicism, ‘‘Robust Epistemology,’’ and Moral Philosophy (Emidio Spinelli)
• 4: Powerless Causes: The Case of Sacramental Causality (Marilyn McCord Adams)
• 5: From Scholasticism to Modern Physics—and Back? The Transformation of Traditional Causal Concepts in Descartes and Occasionalism (Robert Schnepf)
• 6: Kant on Transcendental Laws (Eric Watkins)
• 7: Freedom from Necessity: The Influence of J. S. Mill’s Politics on His Concept of Causation (Laura J. Snyder)
• 8: Mill on Causation and the Historical Turn in Philosophy of Science: Some Historical and Methodological Remarks (Paolo Parrini)
• 9: Sprachkritik and the Problem of Historical Understanding: Kant, Dilthey, Wittgenstein, and Weber (Henry Krips)
• 10: Plurality in Causality (Raffaella Campaner and Maria Carla Galavotti)
• 11: How to Be a Causal Pluralist (Christopher Hitchcock)
• 12: Do the Causal Principles of Modern Physics Contradict Causal Anti-Fundamentalism? (John D. Norton)
• 13: Epiphenomenalism: The Dos and the Don’ts (Larry Shapiro and Elliott Sober)
• 14: On Selection Of, For, With, and Against (Peter McLaughlin)
• 15: Causality in Economics (Sir Clive W. J. Granger)
• 16: The Core of Free Will (Wolfgang Spohn)
• Index