Invariance and Causation by Absence

I am very pleased to contribute to this symposium on Causation with a Human Face (CHF). My commentary concerns chapter 6 of CHF, which uses the notion of invariance to shed light on various puzzle cases about causation. (See Jim’s post “Invariance and Distinctions Within Causation” for a summary of …

Invariance and Distinctions Within Causation

A previous post  mentioned  the notion of distinctions within causation (or among causal claims). The general idea is that a relationship can satisfy a minimal “interventionist”  condition for causation (in the sense that X can be related to Y in such a way that some interventions on X are associated with a change …

Empirical Results concerning Causal Reasoning and Their Philosophical Significance

As explained in the previous post, one very rich area of inquiry concerns the extent to which normative theories of causal reasoning, from both philosophy and elsewhere, successfully characterize how, as an empirical matter,  various sorts  of subjects (adults, children, non-human animals) reason. This has been explored by psychologists and other researchers …

Introduction to Causation With A Human Face

How should philosophers (and others) approach the topic of causation and causal reasoning? Causation with a Human Face (CHF) proposes an approach that brings together results from a number of different disciplines, both descriptive ( e.g., the empirical psychology of causal cognition) and normative (statistics, econometrics, machine learning,  philosophy).  The guiding idea is that   causal …

John Zeimbekis: Malleability or cognitive effects on recognition?

John Zeimbekis It’s a relief to see a new book about how perception interacts with thought. Decades of work on modularity and other distinguishing traits of perception (perception as nonconceptual, analog, iconic, unstructured) leave us with a picture of thought as informationally separate from perception, but few suggestions about how …

Jonna Vance: Vicious Perceptual Expertise

Jonna Vance (she/her) Northern Arizona University jonnavance.com [Note: All citations are to Stokes (2021) Thinking and Perceiving (Routledge), unless otherwise noted.] In the final few chapters of Thinking and Perceiving, Stokes turns to perceptual expertise: an enhanced capacity for perceptual recognition or discrimination. In Chapter 6, Stokes offers a pluralistic …

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