Nancy Cartwright, Hunting Causes and Using Them: Approaches in Philosophy and Economics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Until only a few years ago, relatively speaking, real causal claims were in disrepute in philosophy (page 1). However, causality is back today, so to speak, with ardor. Cartwright claims that if causal claims or to play a central role, three questions must be answered about them:
#1: what do they mean?
#2: how do we confirm them?
#3: what juice can we make of them?
According to Cartwright, metaphysics, methods, and use must go hand-in-hand (page 1). Methods must be legitimized by showing that there are good ways for finding just the kind of things that causes all; so too the conclusions we want to draw from my causal claims must be conclusions that are warranted given are accountable causes or (page 1).
Cartwright begins this book with the defense of causal pluralism, which was begun in her 1989 title, Nature Capacities and their Measurement, where she distinguished between three levels of causal notions; she also continued this defense of causal pluralism in her 1999 volume, The Dappled world.
Cartwright claims that causation is a highly varied things; what causes should be expected to do and how they do it––really what causes are––can vary from one kind of system of causal relations to another and from case to case. Some causes that some standard pattern, and some are rather idiosyncratic (page 2). Part II of this book illustrates this with two different kinds of causal systems, matching two different philosophical accounts of what causation is, to different methodologies for testing causal claims, and two different sets of conclusions that can be drawn from causal claims that are excepted (page 3).
Cartwright maintains that there are a variety of different kinds of relations that “cause” may refer to, and he’s different kind of relation needs to be matched with the right methods for finding out about it, as well as with the right inference rules for how to use our knowledge of it (page 9).
Chapter 2, “Causation: one word, many things”, defense car rights pluralist view of causality and suggest that the different accounts of causality that philosophers offer point to different features that a system of particular causal relations might have (page 9). Whereas chapter 2 endorses ontological pluralism, Chapter 3 deals with the Vista mileage he of causal claims, describing the plurality of methods that can provide warrant for a causal conclusion.
In Cartwright 1999, she noticed that there is a great variety of different kinds of causes and that even the same kind of cause can operate in different ways; does the term causes highly unspecific, and it commits us to nothing about the kind of causality included nor about how the causes operate. Recognizing this, Cartwright claims, should make us more cautious in our quest for universal methods of causal inquiry (cross-reference Cartwright, chapter 5, 1999).
Cartwright asserts that “thick” causal concepts give license to use the term “cause” in law, since there is no universal account of causality to be given (page 12). Further, she claims that the value of the term “cause” depends on the assumption we make in using it (12).
Content–rich causal verbs often represent causal relations they constitute a causal law; for example, she notes: one) compress; two) attracts; three) discourages, etc. etc. (19–20).
Since Karl Popper and the positivists, philosophers of science have taken the hypothetico-deductive method of inquiry that derives reliable scientific knowledge: from the hypothesis under consideration in conjunction with a number of auxiliary hypotheses we deduce some more readily observable consequences. If the predicted consequences do not obtain, the hypothesis––or one of the auxiliaries––must be mistaken; this is a paradigm of a method that clinches the conclusion. If our premises are correct, our conclusion must be correct (25–26).
Following are eight theories of causality that do not embrace the David Hume program of replacing causation by something weaker; these eight are all “informative” in that they are all trying in some sense to describe the central characteristics and features of causation; also included are some of the major proponents according to cart ride (43):
I PROBABILISTIC and his descendents: (Patrick Suppes, 1970,)
- Bayesian nets (Judea Pearl. 2000; W. Spohn 2001; C. Glymour 1993)
- Granger causality (Judea Pearl 2000; economist C. Granger 1980)
- Modularity account (Judea Pearl 2000; J.Woodard 2003; economist S. Leroy 2004).
III. manipulation account (Peter Menzies 1993; H. Price 1991).
- Invariants account (J.Woodard 2003; philosopher K Hoover 2001; economist David Hendury 2004)
V natural experiments (Herbert Simon 1953; economist J Hamilton 1997)
- Causal process theories (Wesley Salmon 1984; Philip Dowe 2000).
VII. the efficacy account uses of that concept Kevin Hoover 2001).
VIII. Counterfactual account (David Lewis 1970; economist David Hendury 2004; social scientist Paul Holland 1988).
As one can see, causality is not a monolithic concept, nor is there one thing––the causal relation––that underpins our usage of that concept. There are a variety of different kinds of relations pigged out by the absent term “causes” and a variety of different––correct––uses of the term for a variety of different purposes, with little substantial content in common (44).
END OF REVIEW.