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Causation and its basis in fundamental physics / Douglas Kutach.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Kutach, Douglas, author.
- Series:
- Oxford studies in philosophy of science.
- Oxford studies in philosophy of science
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Causality (Physics).
- Physics--Philosophy.
- Physics.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (xiii, 334 pages) : illustrations
- Place of Publication:
- Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2013]
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- This text provides a comprehensive attempt to solve what Henry Field has called 'the central problem in the metaphysics of causation': the problem of reconciling the need for causal notions in the special sciences with the limited role fo causation in physics.
- Contents:
- 1. Empirical analysis and the metaphysics of causation
- Empirical analysis
- The distinctive features of empirical analysis
- Empirical analysis of the metaphysics of causation
- Effective strategies
- Empirical analysis of the non-metaphysical aspects of causation
- Causation as conceptually tripartite
- A sketch of the metaphysics of causation
- Fundamental and derivative
- The kinetic energy example
- Some constitutive principles of fundamentality
- Abstreduction
- Strict standards and relaxed standards
- Limitations on the aspirations of empirical analysis
- Comparison of empirical and orthodox analysis
- Summary
- Part I: The bottom conceptual layer of causation
- 2. Fundamental causation
- Preliminaries
- Events
- Laws
- Terminance
- Causal Contribution
- Trivial terminance
- The space-time arena
- Classical gravitation
- Galilean space-time
- Terminants in classical gravitation
- Overdetermination in classical gravitation
- Instantaneous causation
- Relativistic electromagnetism
- Minkowski space-time
- Terminants in relativistic electromagnetism
- Classical unified field theory
- Content independence
- Continuity and shielding
- Transitivity
- Determinism
- Stochastic indeterminism
- Stochastic lattices
- A toy theory of particle decay
- Non-stochastic indeterminism
- Newtonian indeterminism
- Contribution extended
- General relativity
- Spatio-temporal indeterminism
- Closed time-like curves
- Quantum mechanics
- The quantum arena and its contents
- Bohmian mechanics
- Spontaneous collapse interpretations
- Other interpretations of quantum mechanics
- Part II: The middle conceptual layer of causation
- 3. Counterfactuals and difference-making
- General causation
- Counterfactuals
- Goodman's account of counterfactuals
- The nomic conditional
- Comparison to ordinary language conditionals
- Prob-dependence
- Contrastive events
- 4. Derivative causation
- Influence
- Prob-influence
- Temporally extended events
- Idiomatic differences between promotion and causation
- Aspect promotion
- Promotion by omission
- Contrastivity
- Transivity
- Continuity
- Shielding
- Partial influence
- Summary.
- 5. The empirical content of promotion
- The promotion experiment
- Insensitivity considerations
- Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics
- The asymmetry of bizarre coincidences
- The analogy to thermal and mechanical energy
- Broad and narrow promotion
- Inferences from empirical data to promotion
- Simpson's paradox
- Why there are effective strategies
- Mechanistic theories of causation
- 6. Backtracking influence
- The direction of influence
- Proof of causal directness
- A search for empirical phenomena
- 'Past-directed then future-directed' influence
- 7. Causal asymmetry
- The empirical content of the causal asymmetry
- Causation and advancement
- An explanation of the advancement asymmetry
- Prob-influence through backtracking
- Directly past-directed prob-influence
- Pseudo-backtracking prob-influence
- The entropy asymmetry and causal directionality
- Recent alternative explanations of causal asymmetry
- The Albert-Kutach-Loewer approach
- The Price-Weslake approach
- The fork asymmetry approach
- Fundamental influence asymmetry
- Fundamental influence asymmetry by fiat
- Fundamental influence asymmetry by happenstance
- Part III: The top conceptual layer of causation
- 8. Culpable causation
- The empirical insignificance of culpability
- Part I: Singular causation
- Part II: General causation
- Culpability as a Heuristic for learning about promotion
- Culpability as an explanatory device
- Culpability as a proxy for terminance and promotion
- Commentary
- 9. The psychology of culpable
- The toy theory of culpable causation
- Culpability₁
- Salience
- Irreflexivity
- Asymmetry
- Significant promotion
- Shortcomings of culpability₁
- Precise character of the effect
- Overlapping causation
- Probability-lowering causes
- Culpability₂
- Shortcomings of culpability₂
- Saved fizzles
- Early cutting preëmption
- Late cutting preëmption
- Culpability₃
- Culpability₄
- 10. Causation in a physical world
- Future directions.
- Notes:
- Description based on online resource and other sources; title from home page (viewed on September 2, 2013).
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 0-19-993621-8
- OCLC:
- 855689114
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