Toward a propensity interpretation of stochastic mechanism for the life sciences.
In what follows, I suggest that it makes good sense to think of the truth of (at least some of) the probabilistic generalizations made in the life sciences as metaphysically grounded in stochastic mechanisms in the world. To further understand these stochastic mechanisms, I take the general characte...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 192; no. 9; pp. 2921 - 2954 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Oct2015
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=110280090&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 110280090 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Oct2015 vid: 192 iid: 9 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 110280090 10.1007/s11229-015-0694-4 ppf: 2921 ppct: 33 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 721KB tig: atl: Toward a propensity interpretation of stochastic mechanism for the life sciences. aug: au: DesAutels, Lane affil: History and Philosophy of Science Department, University of Notre Dame, Geddes Hall South Bend 46556 USA su: Life sciences Disposition (Philosophy) Similar fact evidence Stochastic analysis Subjectivity sug: subj: Life sciences Disposition (Philosophy) Similar fact evidence Stochastic analysis Subjectivity keyword: Chance Life science Mechanism Propensity Stochastic ab: In what follows, I suggest that it makes good sense to think of the truth of (at least some of) the probabilistic generalizations made in the life sciences as metaphysically grounded in stochastic mechanisms in the world. To further understand these stochastic mechanisms, I take the general characterization of mechanism offered by MDC (Philos Sci 76(1):1-25, ) and explore how it fits with several of the going philosophical accounts of chance: subjectivism, frequentism, Lewisian best-systems, and propensity. I argue that neither subjectivism, frequentism, nor a best-system-style interpretation of chance will give us what we need from an account of stochastic mechanism, but some version of propensity theory can. I then draw a few important lessons from recent propensity interpretations of fitness in order to present a novel propensity interpretation of stochastic mechanism according to which stochastic mechanisms are thought to have probabilistic propensities to produce certain outcomes over others. This understanding of stochastic mechanism, once fully fleshed-out, provides the benefits of (1) allowing the stochasticity of a particular mechanism to be an objective property in the world, a property investigable by science, (2) a way of quantifying the stochasticity of a particular mechanism, and (3) a way to avoid a problematic commitment to the causal efficacy of propensities (and dispositional properties in general). pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2015. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2015 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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