Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Causal explanation: A causal explanation provides a reason or justification for why a particular event or phenomenon occurs, focusing on the underlying causes and their relationship to the observed outcome. See also Causality, Causes, Effects._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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John Bigelow on Causal Explanation - Dictionary of Arguments
I 320 Explanation/Hempel/Lewis/Bigelow/Pargetter: pro: Hempel's explanations are generally correct but do not exhaust all cases. >C. Hempel. Individual case causation/individual event/Lewis: (1986e)(1) need not to be explained according to Hempel's style. >Single case causation. Probabilistic explanation/Bigelow/Pargetter: here applies: a cause does not necessarily increase the probability of the effect. If one assumes the opposite, one must assume that the explanation itself is the cause. This is because the explanation makes the result more likely. BigelowVsProbabilistic Explanation (see above). Instead. Approach by Lewis: Causation/Lewis/Bigelow/Pargetter: (1986e)(1) 5 stages: 1. Natural laws as input for a theory of counterfactual conditionals. I 321 2. Used counterfactual conditionals to define a relation between events, namely, counterfactual dependency. 3. Used counterfactual dependency to explain causation by two principles: (1) Thesis: Counterfactual dependency is causation (2) the cause of a cause is a cause. Causes/Lewis: is transitive. 4. Lewis constructs a causal history of an event. (Tree structure, it may be that more distant causes are not connected by counterfactual dependency, i.e. another cause could have taken the place, but in fact it is the cause.) 5. Definition Causal explanation/Lewis: is everything that provides information about the causal history. This can also be partial. E.g. maternal line, paternal line. E.g. information about a temporal section of the tree: this corresponds to the explanation by Hempel. >Counterfactual conditional, >Counterfactual dependency, >Natural laws, >Events, >Causation, >Causes, >Causality, >Transitivity. I 322 Causal explanation/BigelowVsLewis/Bigelow/Pargetter: our theory is similar to that of D. Lewis, but also has differences: Lewis: used laws to explain counterfactual conditionals. Bigelow/Pargetter: we use degrees of accessibility for both. >Accessibility, >Degrees/Graduals. Lewis: needs counterfactual conditionals to explain causation Bigelow/Pargetter: we do not. For that, we assume forces - Lewis does not. >Forces. Transitivity: causation: Lewis pro, BigelowVs. Causal Explanation/BigelowVsLewis/Bigelow/Pargetter: because we do not recognize any transitivity, the causal history will not be traced back to the past. Otherwise, Adam and Eve are an explanation for everything. Somewhere the causal connection has to be broken. BigelowVsLewis/Bigelow/Pargetter: the main difference is that for Lewis information about the causal history is sufficient for a causal explanation, but for us only information about causes and thus about forces. Appropriateness/causal explanation/pragmatic/Lewis/Bigelow/Pargetter: Thesis: The adequacy of an explanation must be decided pragmatically. Bigelow/Pargetter dito. >Science, >Arbitrariness, >Acceptability, >Objectivity. I 323 Why-explanation/why/Bigelow/Pargetter: Thesis: no explanation can do entirely without a why-explanation. This in turn needs a how-explanations. >Why-questions. 1. Lewis, D.K. (1986e). Causal Explanation. In: Philosophical Papers Vol. II. pp. 214-40. New York Oxford University Press._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Big I J. Bigelow, R. Pargetter Science and Necessity Cambridge 1990 |
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> Counter arguments against Bigelow
> Counter arguments in relation to Causal Explanation
