Dispositions and causes / edited by Toby Handfield.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Handfield, Toby.

Series:

Mind Association occasional series

Mind association occasional series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Disposition (Philosophy).

Causation.

Metaphysics.

Science--Philosophy.

Science.

Physical Description:

viii, 343 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2009.

Summary:

In recent decades, the analysis of causal relations has become a topic of central importance in analytic philosophy. More recently, dispositional properties have also become objects of intense study. Both of these phenomena appear to be intimately related to counterfactual conditionals and other modal phenomena such as objective chance, but little work has been done to directly relate them. Dispositions and Causes contains ten essays by scholars working in both metaphysics and in philosophy of science, examining the relation between dispositional and causal concepts.

Particular issues discussed include the possibility of reducing dispositions to causes, and vice versa; the possibility of a nominalist theory of causal powers; the attempt to reduce all metaphysical necessity to dispositional properties; the relationship between dispositions, causes, and laws of nature; the role of causal capacities in explaining the success of scientific inquiry; the grounding of dispositions and causes in objective chances; and the type of causal power required for free agency.

The introductory chapter contains a detailed overview of recent work in the area, providing a helpful entry to the literature for non-specialists.

Contents:

The metaphysics of dispositions and causes / Toby Handfield

Dispositions, causes, and reduction / Jennifer McKitrick

Causal structuralism, dispositional actualism, and counterfactual conditionals / Antony Eagle

Leaving things to take their chances : cause and disposition grounded in chance / Stephen Barker

Causal laws, policy predictions, and the need for genuine powers / Nancy Cartwright

How is scientific analysis possible? / Richard Corry

Agent-causal power / Timothy O'Connor

Structural properties revisited / Alexander Bird

Causal nominalism / Ann Whittle

Why do the laws explain why? / Marc Lange.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [322]-337) and index.

ISBN:

9780199558933

0199558930

OCLC:

234430754