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Causality as a Theoretical Concept

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Causal Nets, Interventionism, and Mechanisms

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Abstract

In the first part of this chapter I finish the axiomatization of the causal nets framework started in Chap. 3 I also argue that the causal Markov axiom provides the best explanation for two statistical phenomena. In the second part I present several results about the empirical content of different versions (i.e., combination of axioms) of the theory of causal nets. Both parts together show that causation satisfies the same modern standards as theoretical concepts of good empirical theories do. This can be seen as new empirical support for the theory of causal nets, but also as an answer to Hume’s skeptical challenge: Actually, it seems that we have good reasons to believe in causation as something ontologically real out there in the world.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Modern philosophers who see causation as subjective are, for example, Spohn (2001, 2006) and Williamson (2005). Spohn explicitly presents causation in a Kantian manner as a projection. I am indebted to Markus Schrenk for pointing this out to me.

  2. 2.

    This constraint is required to distinguish synthetic causal dependencies from analytic dependencies such as dependencies due to meaning, definition, conceptualization, etc.

  3. 3.

    For a more detailed explanation why we would find exactly the mentioned probabilistic dependence and independence relations, see Gebharter (2013, p. 66).

  4. 4.

    I call causal systems satisfying the three mentioned conditions “robustly” producing (or underlying) the corresponding empirical systems since these causal systems presuppose robust (or faithful) probability distributions. In the next subsection, I will also introduce underlying systems for explaining (in)dependencies in empirical systems without robust probability distributions.

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    Alexander Gebharter

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Gebharter, A. (2017). Causality as a Theoretical Concept. In: Causal Nets, Interventionism, and Mechanisms. Synthese Library, vol 381. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49908-6_4

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