Power and influence : the metaphysics of reductive explanation / Richard Corry.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Corry, Richard, author.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Reductionism.

Causation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vii, 240 pages) : illustrations.

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Metaphysics of reductive explanation

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2019.

Summary:

The world is a complex place, and this complexity is an obstacle to our attempts to explain, predict, and control it. In this text, Richard Corry investigates the assumptions that are built into the reductive method of explanation - the method whereby we study the components of a complex system in relative isolation and use the information so gained to explain or predict the behaviour of the complex whole. He investigates the metaphysical presuppositions built into the reductive method, seeking to ascertain what the world must be like in order that the method could work. Corry argues that the method assumes the existence of causal powers that manifest causal influence - a relatively unrecognised ontological category, of which forces are a paradigm example. The success of the reductive method, therefore, is an argument for the existence of such causal influences.

Contents:

1. Introduction

2.Taking Apart the World

2.1.Explanatory Reduction vs Theory Reduction

2.2.Characterizing Explanatory Reduction

2.3.Mechanistic Explanation

2.4.Conclusion

3.Causal Influence

3.1.Invariant Behaviour

3.2.Invariant Laws

3.3.Invariant Humean Dispositions

3.4.Invariant Capacities or Non-Humean Dispositions

3.5.Invariant Causal Influence

3.6.Composition of Influence

3.7.Fundamental Influences

3.8.Conclusion

4.Causal Power

4.1.Powers as Dispositions

4.2.Multi-Track Powers

4.3.Functions

4.4.Functions and Invariance

4.5.Fields of Influence

4.6.Probabilistic Power and Influence

4.7.Conclusion

5.Putting Things Together: The Assumptions of Reduction

5.1.Decomposing the Complex System

5.2.Identifying Powers and their Associated Subsystems

5.3.Calculating the Basic Influences

5.4.Composing Influences

5.5.Assumptions of the Reductive Method

5.6.Are Influences Redundant?

5.7.Conclusion

6.Macroscopic Power and Influence

6.1.Synchronic Composition of Powers

6.2.Composite Influences

6.3.Asynchronic Composition of Powers

6.4.Approximate Powers: Keeping Things Simple

6.5.Antidotes, Finks, and Composite Powers

6.6.Bird on the Existence of Macro Powers

6.7.Are All Influences Forces?

6.8.Conclusion

7.Laws of Nature

7.1.From Dispositions to Laws

7.2.Fundamental Finks and Antidotes

7.3.Lying Laws: Regularities in the Course of Events

7.4.Laws of Influence

7.5.Laws of Composition

7.6.Macroscopic Powers and Ceteris Paribus Laws

7.7.Conclusion

8.Causation

8.1.The Problems of Analysis

8.2.From Influence to Causation

8.3.Causation as Production

8.4.Causation as Dependence: The Counterfactual Analysis

8.5.Conclusion

9.Causal Models

9.1.Structural Causal Models

9.2.Level Invariance and Modularity

9.3.Mechanisms and Influence

9.4.Causal Influence Models

9.5.Grounding Counterfactuals

9.6.Influence Invariance

9.7.Implications for Structural Equations

9.8.An Improved Model of Intervention

9.9.Conclusion

10.Emergence and the Failure of Reduction

10.1.Emergence and Supervenience

10.2.Epistemic Emergence and Ontological Emergence

10.3.Assumption 2 and High-Rank Powers

10.4.Kim's Challenge

10.5.Assumption 4 and Compositional Emergence

10.6.Assumption 5 and Non-Linearity

10.7.Conclusion

11.Influentialism: A New Type of Moral Theory?

11.1.Problem Cases for Consequentialism

11.2.Influentialism

11.3.Relations to Other Normative Theories

11.4.Conclusion.

Notes:

This edition also issued in print: 2019.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on July 31, 2019).

ISBN:

0-19-257721-2

0-19-187633-X

0-19-257720-4