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Portable Causal Dependence: A Tale of Consilience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Christopher Hitchcock
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Abstract

This article describes research pursued by members of the McDonnell Collaborative on Causal Learning. A number of members independently converged on a similar idea: one of the central functions served by claims of actual causation is to highlight patterns of dependence that are highly portable into novel contexts. I describe in detail how this idea emerged in my own work and also in that of the psychologist Tania Lombrozo. In addition, I use the occasion to reflect on the nature of interdisciplinary collaboration in general and on the interaction between philosophy and psychology in particular.

Type
Psychology and Neuroscience
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 79 , Issue 5 , December 2012 , pp. 942 - 951
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

For comments and suggestions, I would like to thank David Danks, Alison Gopnik, Joseph Halpern, Joshua Knobe, Tania Lombrozo, Joshua Tenenbaum, and James Woodward.

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