By James Woodward
Woodward's lengthy awaited ebook is an try to build a entire account of causation rationalization that applies to a large choice of causal and explanatory claims in numerous parts of technology and lifestyle. The booklet engages the various correct literature from different disciplines, as Woodward weaves jointly examples, counterexamples, criticisms, defenses, objections, and replies right into a convincing security of the middle of his concept, that is that we will be able to research causation by means of entice the idea of manipulation.
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Additional info for Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation (Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Science)
Sample text
For example, the academics who purchase TIAA insurance on average have a higher income than people in the general population and may for this reason have better access to health care. They may also be better informed about health-related matters and have less stressful jobs, and this may have an independent effect on longevity. If the correlation between I and L arises entirely as a result of some set of common causes of I and L, that correlation will not be one that an agent can exploit in such a way as to increase life span through the purchase of insurance.
Of course, the only really convincing way of showing this is to actually produce the account in question and to allow the reader to see that it is illuminating. Nonetheless, some general remarks at this point may be helpful in allaying misgivings about the nonreductive character of the theory that follows. , c causes/explains e if c produces or generates e), with no further account of "production" or "generation," are completely unilluminating. But not all nonreductive theories are trivial in the way just illustrated.
Introduction and Preview 21 my positive account turns on whether this skepticism is correct. Indeed, I would be delighted if someone were able to show how the nonreductive characterizations of cause and explanation that I provide might be replaced by reductive characterizations. By contrast, it is crucial to my argument that an account of causation and explanation can be worthwhile and illuminating without being reductive. Of course, the only really convincing way of showing this is to actually produce the account in question and to allow the reader to see that it is illuminating.