Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T19:23:05.841Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Common Cause Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Elliott Sober
Elliott Sober*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin—Madison
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Russell (1948), Reichenbach (1956), and Salmon (1975, 1979) have argued that a fundamental principle of science and common sense is that “matching” events should not be chalked up to coincidence, but should be explained by postulating a common cause. Reichenbach and Salmon provided this intuitive idea with a probabilistic formulation, which Salmon used to argue for a version of scientific realism. Van Fraassen (1980, 1982) showed that the principle, so construed, runs afoul of certain results in quantum mechanics. In this paper a new formulation of the principle is offered that emerges from its use in evolutionary theory. This characterization identifies fairly general conditions in which postulating common causes will be more explanatory than postulating separate causes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , June 1984 , pp. 212 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1984

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

†

Ellery Eells, Steven Farris, and an anonymous referee of this journal provided useful suggestions for improving an earlier draft. I also am grateful to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School for financial support in the form of a Romnes Faculty Fellowship.

References

Brandt, R. and Kim, J. (1967), “The Logic of the Identity Theory”, Journal of Philosophy 64: 515–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, N. (1979), “Causal Laws and Effective Strategies”, Nous 13: 419–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Causey, R. (1972), “Attribute Identities and Microreductions”, Journal of Philosophy 69: 407–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colless, D. (1970), “The Phenogram as an Estimate of Phytogeny”, Systematic Zoology 19: 352–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crow, J. and Kimura, M. (1970), An Introduction to Population Genetics Theory. Minneapolis: Burgess Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Edwards, A. (1972), Likelihood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Eells, E. and Sober, E. (1983), “Probabilistic Causality and the Question of Transitivity”, Philosophy of Science 50: 35–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farris, S. J. (1983), “The Logical Basis of Phylogenetic Analysis”, in V. Funk and N. Platnick, Advances in Cladistics II. New York: Columbia University Press. Reprinted in Sober (1984a).Google Scholar
Felsenstein, J. (1978), “Cases in Which Parsimony or Compatibility Methods will be Positively Misleading”, Systematic Zoology 27: 401–10. Reprinted in Sober (1984a).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Felsenstein, J. (1982), “Numerical Methods for Inferring Evolutionary Trees”, Quarterly Review of Biology 57: 379–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Good, I. J. (1961–2), “A Causal Calculus I—II”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44: 305–18; 45: 43–51. Errata and Corrigenda, 49: 88.Google Scholar
Greeno, J. (1971), “Explanation and Information”, in W. Salmon, Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 89–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacking, I. (1965), The Logic of Statistical Inference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hennig, W. (1965), “Phylogenetic Systematics”, Annual Review of Entomology 10: 97–116. Reprinted in Sober (1983b).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffreys, R. (1971), “Statistical Explanation vs. Statistical Inference”, in W. Salmon, Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 19–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kyburg, H. (1961), Probability and the Logic of Rational Belief. Middleton: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Maxwell, G. (1962), “The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities”, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science III: 3–27.Google Scholar
Reichenbach, H. (1956), The Direction of Time. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, B. (1948), Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. New York: Simon and Shuster.Google Scholar
Salmon, W. (1971), “Statistical Explanation”, in W. Salmon, Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 29–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W. (1975), “Theoretical Explanation”, in S. Korner (ed.), Explanation. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 118–45.Google Scholar
Salmon, W. (1979), “Why Ask ‘Why‘? An Inquiry Concerning Scientific Explanation”, in W. Salmon, Hans Reichenbach: Logical Empiricist. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 403–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, E. (1951), “The Interpretation of Interaction in Contingency Tables”, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Ser. B, 13: 238–41.Google Scholar
Skyrms, B. (1980), Causal Necessity. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Smart, J. J. C. (1968), Between Science and Philosophy. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (1975), Simplicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, E. (1982), “Frequency-Dependent Causation”, Journal of Philosophy 79: 247–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, E. (1983a), “Equilibrium Explanation”, Philosophical Studies 43: 201–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, E. (1983b), “Parsimony Methods: Philosophical Issues”, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 14: 335–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, E. (1984a), Conceptual Issues of Evolutionary Biology: An Anthology. Cambridge: Bradford/MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (1984b), “A Likelihood Justification of Parsimony”, in V. Funk and N. Platnick (eds.), Advances in Cladistics III. New York: Columbia University Press, in press.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (1984c), The Nature of Selection. Cambridge: Bradford/MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (forthcoming), “Realism and Explanation”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.Google Scholar
Suppes, P. (1970), A Probabilistic Theory of Causality. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Suppes, P. and Zinotti, M. (1976), “On the Determinism of Hidden Variable Theories with Strict Correlation and Conditional Statistical Independence of Observables”, in P. Suppes (ed.), Logic and Probability in Quantum Mechanics. Dordecht: Reidel Publishing Co., pp. 445–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, B. (1980), The Scientific Image. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, B. (1982), “The Charybdis of Realism: Epistemological Implications of Bell's Inequality”, Synthese 52: 25–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar