Causation, physics, and the constitution of reality : Russell's republic revisited / edited by Huw Price and Richard Corry.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Price, Huw, 1953-

Corry, Richard.

University of Sydney. Centre for Time.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Causation--Congresses.

Causation.

Genre:

Conference papers and proceedings.

Physical Description:

403 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007.

Summary:

In philosophy, as in ordinary life, cause and effect are twin pillars on which much of our thought seems based. But almost a century ago, Bertrand Russell declared that modern physics leaves these pillars without foundations. Russell's revolutionary conclusion was that 'the law of causality is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm'.

Russell's famous challenge remains unanswered. Despite dramatic advances in physics, the intervening century has taken us no closer to an explanation of how to find a place for causation in a world of the kind that physics reveals. In particular, we still have no satisfactory account of the directionality of causation-the difference between cause and effect, and the fact that causes typically precede their effects. In this important collection of new essays, thirteen leading scholars revisit Russell's revolution, in search of reconciliation. The connecting theme in these essays is that to reconcile causation with physics, we need to put ourselves in the picture: we need to think about why creatures in our situation should represent their world in causal terms.

Contents:

A case for causal republicanism? / Huw Price and Richard Corry

Causation as folk science / John D. Norton

What Russell got right / Christopher Hitchcock

Causation with a human face / Jim Woodward

Isolation and folk physics / Adam Elga

Agency and causation / Arif Ahmed

Pragmatic causation / Antony Eagle

Causation in context / Peter Menzies

Hume on causation : the projectivist interpretation / Helen Beebee

Causal perspectivalism / Huw Price

Counterfactuals and the Second Law / Barry Loewer

The physical foundations of causation / Douglas Kutach

Causation, counterfactuals, and entropy / Mathias Frisch.

Notes:

Collection of a conference on "Causal republicanism" organized by the Centre for Time of the University of Sydney, July, 2003.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780199278190

0199278199

9780199278183

0199278180

OCLC:

73954025