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Probabilistic Causality: Reply to John Dupré

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Ellery Eells
Ellery Eells*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Abstract

John Dupré (1984) has recently criticized the theory of probabilistic causality developed by, among others, Good (1961–62), Suppes (1970), Cartwright (1979), and Skyrms (1980). He argues that there is a tension or incompatibility between one of its central requirements for the presence of a causal connection, on the one hand, and a feature of the theory pointed out by Elliott Sober and me (1983), on the other. He also argues that the requirement just alluded to should be given up. I defend the theory against Dupré‘s criticisms and conclude with comments on Dupré‘s appraisal of the bearing of his arguments on the nature of probabilistic causal laws.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 105 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

This paper is based on my commentary on the version of Dupré's paper (1984) read at the Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, March 1983. I thank Elliott Sober for useful comments and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School for financial support.

References

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