Causation, Chance and Credence

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. On the Nature of Probabilistic Causation

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Causality Testing in a Decision Science

      • C. W. J. Granger

      Pages 3-21

   3. Causal Tendency: A Review

      • I. J. Good

      Pages 23-50

   4. Intuitions — Good and Not-So-Good

      • Wesley C. Salmon

      Pages 51-71

   5. Response to Salmon

      • I. J. Good

      Pages 73-78

   6. Regular Associations and Singular Causes

      • Nancy Cartwright

      Pages 79-97

   7. Eliminating Singular Causes: Reply to Nancy Cartwright

      • Ellery Eells

      Pages 99-104

   8. Reply to Ellery Eells

      • Nancy Cartwright

      Pages 105-108

   9. Probabilistic Causal Levels

      • Ellery Eells

      Pages 109-133

   10. Probabilistic Causality in Space and Time

       • Patrick Suppes

       Pages 135-151

3. Physical Probability, Degree of Belief, and De Finetti’s Theorem

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 153-153

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   2. Symmetry and Its Discontents

      • S. L. Zabell

      Pages 155-190

   3. A Theory of Higher Order Probabilities

      • Haim Gaifman

      Pages 191-219

   4. Conditioning, Kinematics, and Exchangeability

      • Richard Jeffrey

      Pages 221-255

   5. Ergodic Theory and the Foundations of Probability

      • Jan Von Plato

      Pages 257-277

4. Back Matter

   Pages 279-286

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The papers collected here are, with three exceptions, those presented at a conference on probability and causation held at the University of California at Irvine on July 15-19, 1985. The exceptions are that David Freedman and Abner Shimony were not able to contribute the papers that they presented to this volume, and that Clark Glymour who was not able to attend the conference did contribute a paper. We would like to thank the National Science Foundation and the School of Humanities of the University of California at Irvine for generous support. WILLIAM HARPER University of Western Ontario BRIAN SKYRMS University of California at Irvine VII INTRODUCTION TO CAUSATION, CHANCE, AND CREDENCE The search for causes is so central to science that it has sometimes been taken as the defining attribute of the scientific enterprise. Yet even after twenty-five centuries of philosophical analysis the meaning of "cause" is still a matter of controversy, among scientists as well as philosophers. Part of the problem is that the servicable concepts of causation built out of Necessity, Sufficiency, Locality, and Temporal Precedence were constructed for a deterministic world-view which has been obsolete since the advent of quantum theory. A physically credible theory of causation must be, at basis, statistical. And statistical analyses of caus­ ation may be of interest even when an underlying deterministic theory is assumed, as in classical statistical mechanics.

• causality
• concept
• foundation
• nature
• probability
• science
• singular
• space
• space and time
• symmetry
• time

`I strongly recommend these two volumes to anyone interested in the topics they cover.'
Philosophy of Science

• Department of Philosophy, University of California, Irvine, USA

  Brian Skyrms

• Talbot College, The University of Western Ontario, Canada

  William L. Harper

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