Causality as a theoretical concept: explanatory warrant and empirical content of the theory of causal nets.
We start this paper by arguing that causality should, in analogy with force in Newtonian physics, be understood as a theoretical concept that is not explicated by a single definition, but by the axioms of a theory. Such an understanding of causality implicitly underlies the well-known theory of caus...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 193; no. 4; pp. 1073 - 1104 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Apr2016
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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=114677306&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 114677306 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Apr2016 vid: 193 iid: 4 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 114677306 10.1007/s11229-014-0630-z ppf: 1073 ppct: 31 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 832KB tig: atl: Causality as a theoretical concept: explanatory warrant and empirical content of the theory of causal nets. aug: au: Schurz, Gerhard Gebharter, Alexander affil: Düsseldorf Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science (DCLPS), Department of Philosophy, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf Germany su: Causality (Physics) Causation (Philosophy) Philosophy of science Causal models Axioms sug: subj: Causality (Physics) Causation (Philosophy) Philosophy of science Causal models Axioms keyword: Axioms for causal nets Empirical content Inference to the best explanation Linking up Screening off ab: We start this paper by arguing that causality should, in analogy with force in Newtonian physics, be understood as a theoretical concept that is not explicated by a single definition, but by the axioms of a theory. Such an understanding of causality implicitly underlies the well-known theory of causal (Bayes) nets (TCN) and has been explicitly promoted by Glymour (Br J Philos Sci 55:779-790, ). In this paper we investigate the explanatory warrant and empirical content of TCN. We sketch how the assumption of directed cause-effect relations can be philosophically justified by an inference to the best explanation. We then ask whether the explanations provided by TCN are merely post-facto or have independently testable empirical content. To answer this question we develop a fine-grained axiomatization of TCN, including a distinction of different kinds of faithfulness. A number of theorems show that although the core axioms of TCN are empirically empty, extended versions of TCN have successively increasing empirical content. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2016. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2016 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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