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Causation: One Word, Many Things

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Nancy Cartwright
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Abstract

We currently have on offer a variety of different theories of causation. Many are strikingly good, providing detailed and plausible treatments of exemplary cases; and all suffer from clear counterexamples. I argue that, contra Hume and Kant, this is because causation is not a single, monolithic concept. There are different kinds of causal relations imbedded in different kinds of systems, readily described using thick causal concepts. Our causal theories pick out important and useful structures that fit some familiar cases—cases we discover and ones we devise to fit.

Type
Causation and Bayesian Networks
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 71 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers , December 2004 , pp. 805 - 819
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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