The Manipulability Account of Causation Applied to Typical Physical Systems

Authors

  • Louis Vervoort Université du Québec à Montréal

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20416/lsrsps.v1i1.43

Keywords:

cause, causation, manipulability, modularity, physical system, coupling

Abstract

In the following we will apply the manipulability theory of causation of Woodward (2004) to physical systems, and show that, in the context of physical systems, the theory can be simplified. Elaborating on an argument by Cartwright, we will argue that the notions of ‘modularity’ and ‘intervention’ of the cited work should be adapted for typical physical systems, in order to take into account the coupling of system equations. We will show that this allows the reduction of all cause types discussed in Woodward (2004) to only one, namely that of ‘total cause’. We therefore claim that the manipulability account can be drastically simplified when applied to coupled physical systems

References

BOYCE, William, DIPRIMA, Richard. 1997. Elementary Differential Equations. New York: John Wiley.

CARTWRIGHT, Nancy. 2002. Against Modularity, the Causal Markov Condition and any Link between the Two. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 53, 411 - 453.

CARTWRIGHT, Nancy. 2004. Causation: One Word, Many Things. Philosophy of Science 71, 805 - 819.

CARTWRIGHT, Nancy. 2006. From Metaphysics to Method: Comments on Manipulability and the Causal Markov Condition.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57, 197 - 218.

GIORDANO, Frank, WEIR, Maurice. 1988. Differential Equations. A Modeling Approach. Reading: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

HAUSMAN, Daniel, WOODWARD, James. 2004. Modularity and the Causal Markov Condition: A Restatement. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55, 147 – 161.

JACKSON, John. 1999. Classical Electrodynamics. New York: John Wiley.

PEARL, Judea. 2009. Causality. Models, Reasoning, and Inference, 2nd Ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.

SPIRTES, Peter, Clark GLYMOUR, and Richard SCHEINES. 2000. Causation, Prediction, and Search, 2nd Ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

SUPPES, Patrick. 1970. A Probabilistic Theory of Causality. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company.

WOODWARD, James. 2004. Making Things Happen. A Theory of Causal Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Published

2014-07-01

How to Cite

Vervoort, Louis. 2014. “The Manipulability Account of Causation Applied to Typical Physical Systems”. Lato Sensu: Revue De La Société De Philosophie Des Sciences 1 (1). https://doi.org/10.20416/lsrsps.v1i1.43.

Issue

Section

Proceedings of the 2012 congress (outside the main theme)