Macroscopic Power and Influence

2019 ◽  
pp. 90-118
Author(s):  
Richard Corry
Keyword(s):  
Major Part ◽  
Basic Component ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Fundamental Physics ◽  
Reductive Explanation ◽  
Causal Influence ◽  
Power And Influence

This chapter shows how causal powers and causal influences can be composed, both synchronically and asynchronically, to form composite powers and composite influences, which are a common feature of reductive explanation. Indeed, outside fundamental physics it is likely that many, if not all, the powers and influences mentioned will be composite rather than fundamental. A major part of this chapter involves defending the idea that composite influences can be composed of more basic component influences. In particular, it defends the idea from objections against the existence of composite and component forces. Since forces are paradigmatic examples of causal influence, these arguments will also be objections to the concept of composite influences more generally. Finally, having defended an account of the relation between composite and component powers, it show that this account defuses an argument recently advanced by Alexander Bird, who concludes that there are few, if any, true macroscopic powers.

Causal Models

2019 ◽  
pp. 159-185
Author(s):  
Richard Corry
Keyword(s):  
Causal Models ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Causal Influence ◽  
Causal Modelling ◽  
Modelling Framework ◽  
Standard Framework ◽  
Power And Influence

This chapter shows how the ontology of power and influence can be used to interpret and extend the causal modelling framework developed by Judea Pearl, Peter Spirtes, Clark Glymour, and Richard Scheines. In particular, it is argued that the standard causal modelling framework suffers from an important limitation in that it is not truly modular. A modification to the standard framework is presented that overcomes this limitation. In the modified framework, the basic relations explicitly represent basic causal powers and the influences that they manifest. These ‘causal influence models’ can be used to generate standard causal models, and so can do everything that the standard causal models can do. It is argued, however, that there are both theoretical and practical reasons for preferring causal influence models over standard causal models.

Power and Influence

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Corry
Keyword(s):  
Complex System ◽  
World View ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Ontological Category ◽  
Causal Influence ◽  
The World ◽  
Species Population ◽  
Power And Influence

This book investigates the metaphysical presuppositions of a common—and very successful—reductive approach to dealing with the complexity of the world. The reductive approach in question is one in which we study the components of a complex system in relative isolation, and use the information so gained to explain or predict the behaviour of the complex whole. So, for example, ecologists explain shifts in species population in terms of interactions between individuals, geneticists explain traits of an organism in terms of interactions between genes, and physicists explain the properties of a gas in terms of collisions between the particles that make up the gas. It is argued that this reductive method makes substantive metaphysical assumptions about the world. In particular, the method assumes the existence of causal powers that manifest ‘causal influence’—a relatively unrecognized ontological category of which forces are a paradigm example. The success of the reductive method, therefore, is an argument for the existence of such causal influence. The book goes on to show that adding causal influence to our ontology gives us the resources to solve some traditional problems in the metaphysics of powers, causation, emergence, laws of nature, and possibly even normative ethics. What results, then, is not just an understanding of the reductive method, but an integrated metaphysical world view that is grounded in a novel ontology of power and influence.

Causal Power

2019 ◽  
pp. 43-64
Author(s):  
Richard Corry
Keyword(s):  
Force Fields ◽  
Causal Power ◽  
Conditional Analysis ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Reductive Explanation ◽  
Causal Influence

This chapter investigates the ontology of causal power and causal influence that was suggested by the discussion of reductive explanation in the previous two chapters. In particular, it is suggested that we should understand causal powers to be dispositions to manifest causal influence. Such powers, it is shown, can be given a conditional analysis that is less susceptible to counterexamples than conditional analyses of dispositions more generally. It is further argued that the conditional analysis can be extended to cover multi-track powers by using functions, rather than conditionals, to describe powers. Functional descriptions of powers connect nicely to the descriptions of force fields that one finds in physics, suggesting that we can interpret forces as influences in the sense described here.

Laws of Nature

2019 ◽  
pp. 119-133
Author(s):  
Richard Corry
Keyword(s):  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Causal Influence ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Power And Influence

This chapter investigates how an ontology of power and influence might help us answer the question ‘What is it to be a law of nature?’ In particular, the chapter investigates how this ontology might help us develop the dispositional essentialist account of laws as it is presented by Alexander Bird. It is argued that Bird's derivation of laws from dispositions only works if we combine the view that some properties are powers in Bird's sense (they have an essential dispositional nature that is modally fixed) with the view that the relevant properties are powers in the sense developed in this book (they are dispositions to manifest causal influence).

scholarly journals Abstract Objects in the Causal Order

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Justin Ngai
Keyword(s):  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Causal Order ◽  
Causal Influence ◽  
The Third ◽  
Abstract Entities ◽  
To Come

<p>Abstract entities have long been viewed as entities that lack causal powers; that is, they cannot be constitutive of causes or effects. This thesis aims to reject this claim and argue that abstract objects are indeed part of the causal order. I will call this thesis ‘AOCO’ for short. In the first chapter I argue that other philosophers have committed themselves to the claim that some abstract objects have been caused to come into existence. In the second chapter, I argue that the best solution to Benacerraf’s problem is to concede that abstract objects have a causal influence on what we believe. In the third chapter I examine and evaluate objections to AOCO.</p>

scholarly journals The Roots of Occasionalism? Causation, Metaphysical Dependence, and Soul-Body Relations in Augustine

Vivarium ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Tamer Nawar
Keyword(s):  
Causal Power ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Causal Influence ◽  
Dependence Relations ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Metaphysical Dependence

Abstract It has long been thought that Augustine holds that corporeal objects cannot act upon incorporeal souls. However, precisely how and why Augustine imposes limitations upon the causal powers of corporeal objects remains obscure. In this paper, the author clarifies Augustine’s views about the causal and dependence relations between body and soul. He argues that, contrary to what is often thought, Augustine allows that corporeal objects do act upon souls and merely rules out that corporeal objects exercise a particular kind of causal power (that of efficient or sustaining causes). He clarifies how Augustine conceives of the kind of causal influence exercised by souls and bodies.

Causal Influence

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-42
Author(s):  
Richard Corry
Keyword(s):  
Complex System ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Causal Influence

This chapter argues that the reductive method of explanation assumes an ontology of causal powers that manifest invariant causal influence. The reductive method takes what we know about how systems behave in one situation (typically a situation of relative isolation), and apply that knowledge to explain or predict the behaviour of the system in another situation (such as when it is a part of a more complex system). If this method is to work, then there must be something that remains constant from one situation to another in a way that supports the method. It is shown that standard ontologies do not contain anything that can fulfil this role. It is then shown that a relatively novel kind of entity, dubbed ‘causal influence’, can do the job.

scholarly journals Material Parts in Social Structures

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dave Elder-Vass
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Causal Influence ◽  
Human Material ◽  
Social Entities

AbstractThere has been much debate on whether and how groups of human agents can constitute social structures with causal significance. Both sides in this debate, however, implicitly privilege human individuals over non-human material objects and tend to ignore the possibility that such objects might also play a significant role in social structures. This paper argues that social entities are often composed of both human agents and non-human material objects, and that both may make essential contributions to their causal influence. In such cases the causal influence of social structures should be attributed to the emergent causal powers of what I call socio-technical entities.

Putting Things Together

2019 ◽  
pp. 65-89
Author(s):  
Richard Corry
Keyword(s):  
Great Success ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Reductive Explanation

This chapter brings together the discussions of the previous chapters in order to develop a model of reductive explanation that clarifies the role of causal powers and causal influences, and identifies a number of metaphysical assumptions made by the method of reductive explanation. These assumptions are metaphysical in the sense that they bear on issues of traditional concern to metaphysicians. In so far as the model presented here is an accurate account of how reductive explanation works, the great success of the reductive approach will be evidence for the truth of these presuppositions, and so will give us an empirical handle on various metaphysical questions. The presuppositions unearthed in this chapter will inform the metaphysical picture that is developed in subsequent chapters.

scholarly journals Abstract Objects in the Causal Order

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Justin Ngai
Keyword(s):  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Causal Order ◽  
Causal Influence ◽  
The Third ◽  
Abstract Entities ◽  
To Come

<p>Abstract entities have long been viewed as entities that lack causal powers; that is, they cannot be constitutive of causes or effects. This thesis aims to reject this claim and argue that abstract objects are indeed part of the causal order. I will call this thesis ‘AOCO’ for short. In the first chapter I argue that other philosophers have committed themselves to the claim that some abstract objects have been caused to come into existence. In the second chapter, I argue that the best solution to Benacerraf’s problem is to concede that abstract objects have a causal influence on what we believe. In the third chapter I examine and evaluate objections to AOCO.</p>

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