Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:34:20.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Discussion: The Unanimity Theory and Probabilistic Sufficiency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

John W. Carroll
John W. Carroll*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, New York University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The unanimity theory is an account of property-level causation requiring that causes raise the probability of their effects in specified test situations. Richard Otte (1981) and others have presented counterexamples in which one property is probabilistically sufficient for at least one other property. Given the continuing discussion (e.g., Cartwright 1989; Cartwright and Dupré 1988; Eells 1988a,b), many apparently think that these problems are minor. By considering the impact of Otte's cases on recent versions of the theory, by raising several new examples, and by criticizing natural replies, I argue that the problems for the unanimity theory are severe.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , September 1992 , pp. 471 - 479
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

Thanks to an anonymous referee for Philosophy of Science for comments on an earlier version of this paper.

‡

Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, 503 Main Building, New York University, Washington Square, New York, NY 10003, USA.

References

Carroll, J. (1991), “Property-Level Causation?”, Philosophical Studies 63: 245–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, N. (1979), “Causal Laws and Effective Strategies”, Noûs 13: 419–437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, N. (1989), Nature's Capacities and Their Measurement. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Cartwright, N. and Dupré, J. (1988), “Probability and Causality: Why Hume and Indeterminism Don't Mix”, Noûs 22: 521–536.Google Scholar
Davis, W. (1988), “Probabilistic Theories of Causation”, in Fetzer, J. (ed.), Probability and Causality. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 133–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dupré, J. (1990), “Probabilistic Causality: A Rejoinder to Ellery Eells”, Philosophy of Science 57: 690–698.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eells, E. (1986), “Probabilistic Causal Interaction”, Philosophy of Science 53: 52–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eells, E. (1987a), “Cartwright and Otte on Simpson's Paradox”, Philosophy of Science 54: 233–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eells, E. (1987b), “Probabilistic Causality: Reply to John Dupré”, Philosophy of Science 54: 105–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eells, E. (1988a), “Probabilistic Causal Interaction and Disjunctive Causal Factors”, in Fetzer, J. (ed.), Probability and Causality. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 189–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eells, E. (1988b), “Probabilistic Causal Levels”, in Skyrms, B. and Harper, W. (eds.), Causation, Chance, and Credence, vol. 1. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 109–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eells, E. and Sober, E. (1983), “Probabilistic Causality and the Question of Transitivity”, Philosophy of Science 50: 35–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphreys, Paul (1989), The Chances of Explanation: Causal Explanation in the Social, Medical, and Physical Sciences. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Otte, R. (1981), “A Critique of Suppes' Theory of Probabilistic Causality”, Synthese 48: 167–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otte, R. (1985), “Probabilistic Causality and Simpson's Paradox”, Philosophy of Science 52: 110–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skyrms, B. (1980), Causal Necessity: A Pragmatic Investigation of the Necessity of Laws. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (1984), The Nature of Selection. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Suppes, P. (1970), A Probabilistic Theory of Causality. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar