Reasons and Causes

Dialogue ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-83
Author(s):  
Joseph Margolis
Keyword(s):  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Donald Davidson

In a deservedly esteemed paper, Donald Davidson has argued “that rationalization [that is, the explanation of an action in terms of reasons, in the sense in which “the reason explains the action by giving the agent's reason for doing what he did”] is a species of ordinary causal explanation” (685). Davidson himself, of course, in putting his own view forward, knowingly opposes a relatively widespread tendency to deny the thesis. I wish, in turn, to attempt to redeem the doctrine that there is a difference between explanation by causes and explanation by reasons, but I find that it cannot be done, so to speak, by reversing the clock: Davidson's arguments are very telling and the defence of the distinction must, I believe, support a significantly diminished claim. So, for example, I think we must go the distance with Davidson in admitting that “to describe an event in terms of its cause is not to identify the event with its cause, [and that] explanation by redescription … [does not] exclude causal explanation” (685); also, that there is no convincing reason “why on earth … a cause [should] turn an action into a mere happening and a person into a helpless victim” (700).

RAZÃO E INTERPRETAÇÃO: DONALD DAVIDSON E A CONCEPÇÃO PÓS-ÉTICA DA AÇÃO E RACIONALIDADE

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (103) ◽  
pp. 219
Author(s):  
Waldomiro José Da Silva Filho
Keyword(s):  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Analytical Philosophy ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Contemporary Debate

A publicação, em 1963, de “Action, Reason, and Causes” foi uma das mais radicais e profícuas contribuições ao debate contemporâneo sobre razão, racionalidade e explicação da ação humana. O seu argumento era que a explicação da ação mediante razões ou pressupondo racionalidade constitui uma explicação causal, sendo as razões causas da ação. Ao defender esta tese que se opunha tanto ao racionalismo clássico e ao empirismo quanto às correntes hegemônicas da Filosofia Analítica na década de 60, Davidson abriu novos caminhos para a investigação sobre a racionalidade de crenças e ações. Ele deslocou o foco de perguntas como “O que faz com que uma ação ou crença seja racional ou irracional?” para a pergunta “O que há na ação, no pensamento e na linguagem que os torna interpretáveis?”.ABSTRACT: The 1963 publication of “Action, Reason, and Causes” was one of the most radical contributions to the contemporary debate about reason, rationality, and explanation for human actions. The argument put forward by the author was that since the reasons are the causes of the action, explaining actions through reasons or presupposing rationality constitutes a causal explanation. In defending the thesis that objects to classic rationalism, empirism and, at the same time, to the 1960’s hegemonic current of Analytical Philosophy, Davidson opened new ways for the enquiry about the rationality of beliefs and actions. He did change the focus of questions like “what makes an action or beliefs be rational or irrational?” to “ what is it that makes action, thought, and language intelligible?”

Construcción de mundo: interpretación y principio de caridad

Polisemia ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 79-95
Author(s):  
Edisson Rincón Higuera
Keyword(s):  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Paul Feyerabend

El presente artículo es una aproximación a las problemáticos suscitadas por el surgimiento de teorías como lo inconmensurabilidad y la indeterminación de lo traducción, propuestos por Paul Feyerabend y Quine respectivamente, y las cuestiones de fondo que ello suscita en la problemático del multiculturalismo. Luego de plantear las propuestas fundamentales de los teorías mencionadas, revisaremos la crítica que Donald Davidson realiza con la postulación del principio de caridad, como condición de lo posibilidad de la comunicación y, proponemos una línea interpretativa sobre la base de una teoría de construcción de mundo apoyados en el concepto de empatía e imaginación, como presupuesto fundamentales a la hora de entablar un diálogo.

Probability and Explanation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Healey
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Quantum State ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Born Rule ◽  
Correct Application

We can use quantum theory to explain an enormous variety of phenomena by showing why they were to be expected and what they depend on. These explanations of probabilistic phenomena involve applications of the Born rule: to accept quantum theory is to let relevant Born probabilities guide one’s credences about presently inaccessible events. We use quantum theory to explain a probabilistic phenomenon by showing how its probabilities follow from a correct application of the Born rule, thereby exhibiting the phenomenon’s dependence on the quantum state to be assigned in circumstances of that type. This is not a causal explanation since a probabilistic phenomenon is not constituted by events that may manifest it: but each of those events does depend causally on events that actually occur in those circumstances. Born probabilities are objective and sui generis, but not all Born probabilities are chances.

scholarly journals Beyond Causal Explanation: Einstein’s Principle Not Reichenbach’s

Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 114
Author(s):  
Michael Silberstein ◽  
William Mark Stuckey ◽  
Timothy McDevitt
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Information ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Minkowski Spacetime ◽  
Physical Principle ◽  
Causal Principle ◽  
Complete Rejection ◽  
Epr Correlations ◽  
Tsirelson Bound

Our account provides a local, realist and fully non-causal principle explanation for EPR correlations, contextuality, no-signalling, and the Tsirelson bound. Indeed, the account herein is fully consistent with the causal structure of Minkowski spacetime. We argue that retrocausal accounts of quantum mechanics are problematic precisely because they do not fully transcend the assumption that causal or constructive explanation must always be fundamental. Unlike retrocausal accounts, our principle explanation is a complete rejection of Reichenbach’s Principle. Furthermore, we will argue that the basis for our principle account of quantum mechanics is the physical principle sought by quantum information theorists for their reconstructions of quantum mechanics. Finally, we explain why our account is both fully realist and psi-epistemic.

scholarly journals Philosophy as Synchronic History

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
DANIEL STOLJAR
Keyword(s):  
Causal Explanation ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Philosophical Progress ◽  
The Way

Abstract Bernard Williams argues that philosophy is in some deep way akin to history. This article is a novel exploration and defense of the Williams thesis (as I call it)—though in a way anathema to Williams himself. The key idea is to apply a central moral from what is sometimes called the analytic philosophy of history of the 1960s to the philosophy of philosophy of today, namely, the separation of explanation and laws. I suggest that an account of causal explanation offered by David Lewis may be modified to bring out the way in which this moral applies to philosophy, and so to defend the Williams thesis. I discuss in detail the consequences of the thesis for the issue of philosophical progress and note also several further implications: for the larger context of contemporary metaphilosophy, for the relation of philosophy to other subjects, and for explaining, or explaining away, the belief that success in philosophy requires a field-specific ability or brilliance.

scholarly journals The Inflation Technique Completely Solves the Causal Compatibility Problem

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Navascués ◽  
Elie Wolfe
Keyword(s):  
Linear Programming ◽  
Latent Variables ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Categorical Variables ◽  
False Negatives ◽  
The Given ◽  
Causal Structures ◽  
Compatibility Question ◽  
Structure Graph

AbstractThe causal compatibility question asks whether a given causal structure graph — possibly involving latent variables — constitutes a genuinely plausible causal explanation for a given probability distribution over the graph’s observed categorical variables. Algorithms predicated on merely necessary constraints for causal compatibility typically suffer from false negatives, i.e. they admit incompatible distributions as apparently compatible with the given graph. In 10.1515/jci-2017-0020, one of us introduced the inflation technique for formulating useful relaxations of the causal compatibility problem in terms of linear programming. In this work, we develop a formal hierarchy of such causal compatibility relaxations. We prove that inflation is asymptotically tight, i.e., that the hierarchy converges to a zero-error test for causal compatibility. In this sense, the inflation technique fulfills a longstanding desideratum in the field of causal inference. We quantify the rate of convergence by showing that any distribution which passes the nth-order inflation test must be $\begin{array}{} \displaystyle {O}{\left(n^{{{-}{1}}/{2}}\right)} \end{array}$-close in Euclidean norm to some distribution genuinely compatible with the given causal structure. Furthermore, we show that for many causal structures, the (unrelaxed) causal compatibility problem is faithfully formulated already by either the first or second order inflation test.

Flock size and formation in black-billed gulls

1982 ◽  
Vol 60 (8) ◽  
pp. 1806-1811 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger M. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Size Distribution ◽  
Causal Model ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Flock Size ◽  
Group Foraging ◽  
Foraging Site ◽  
Site Tenacity

Black-billed gulls (Larus bulleri) depart form breeding colonies and foraging sites in nonrandom, clumped formations (flocks). Flocks leaving colonies were significantly smaller than those leaving foraging sites, in part owing to more "upflights" at foraging sites. When more birds left a colony per unit time, flocks were both larger and more frequent.A causal model was developed based on the assumptions that flock departures from a colony or foraging site result from the effects of social attractions superimposed on otherwise random departure intervals. This model successfully predicted the size distribution of flocks departing from four colonies and foraging sites. In conjunction with the concepts of site tenacity and habituation, the model also permits a causal explanation of differences in the size of flocks departing colonies compared with foraging sites, and of size differences in flocks arising from "upflights" as opposed to the more common "straggling" columnar formations. The model and results are consistent with the hypothesis that colonies function as assembly points that facilitate group foraging.

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