Intervening on structure.
Some explanations appeal to facts about the causal structure of a system in order to shed light on a particular phenomenon; these are explanations which do more than cite the causes <italic>X</italic> and <italic>Y</italic> of some state-of-affairs <italic>Z</italic>, but rather appeal to “macro-lev...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 195; no. 5; pp. 2295 - 2313 |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
May2018
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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=129021165&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 129021165 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: May2018 vid: 195 iid: 5 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 129021165 10.1007/s11229-017-1341-z ppf: 2295 ppct: 18 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 468KB tig: atl: Intervening on structure. aug: au: Malinsky, Daniel affil: Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, 15206, Pittsburgh, PA, USA su: Operant behavior Biological research Causation (Philosophy) Metaphysics Explanation sug: subj: Operant behavior Biological research Causation (Philosophy) Metaphysics Explanation keyword: Causation Counterfactuals Intervention ab: Some explanations appeal to facts about the causal structure of a system in order to shed light on a particular phenomenon; these are explanations which do more than cite the causes <italic>X</italic> and <italic>Y</italic> of some state-of-affairs <italic>Z</italic>, but rather appeal to “macro-level” causal features—for example the fact that <italic>A</italic> causes <italic>B</italic> as well as <italic>C</italic>, or perhaps that <italic>D</italic> is a strong inhibitor of <italic>E</italic>—in order to explain <italic>Z</italic>. Appeals to these kinds of “macro-level” causal features appear in a wide variety of social scientific and biological research; statements about features such as “patriarchy,” “healthcare infrastructure,” and “functioning DNA repair mechanism,” for instance, can be understood as claims about what would be different (with respect to some target phenomenon) in a system with a different causal structure. I suggest interpreting counterfactual questions involving structural features as questions about alternative parameter settings of causal models, and propose an extension of the usual interventionist framework for causal explanation which enables scientists to explore the consequences of interventions on “macro-level” structure. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2018. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2018 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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