Causation with a human face : normative theory and descriptive psychology / James Woodward.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Woodward, James F. (James Francis), 1946- author.

Series:

Oxford studies in philosophy of science.

Oxford studies in philosophy of science

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Causation.

Science--Philosophy.

Science.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 409 pages) : illustrations (some color)

Other Title:

Normative theory and descriptive psychology

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Oxford University Press, [2021]

Summary:

The past few decades have seen an explosion of research on causal reasoning in philosophy, computer science, and statistics, as well as descriptive research in psychology about how people reason about causes. 'Causation with a Human Face' integrates these lines of research and argues for an understanding of how each can inform the other: normative ideas can suggest interesting experiments, while descriptive results can suggest important normative concepts. Woodward's overall framework builds on an interventionist treatment of causation, and discusses proposals about the role of invariant or stable relationships in successful causal reasoning and the notion of proportionality. He argues that these normative ideas are reflected in the causal judgments that people actually make as a descriptive matter.

Contents:

Introduction

1. The Normative and the Descriptive

2. Theories of Causation

3. Methods for Investigating Causal Cognition: Armchair Philosophy, X-​Phi, and Empirical Psychology

4. Some Empirical Results Concerning Causal Learning and Representation

5. Invariance

6. Invariance Applied

7. Experimental Results Concerning Invariance: Cheng, Lombrozo, and Others

8. Proportionality.

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2021.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-19-758544-2

0-19-758543-4

OCLC:

1257401466