Indispensability, causation and explanation

Indispensability Arguments and Mathematical Explanation in Science

The aim of this thesis is to find a way to undermine the indispensability argument for mathematical platonism. In chapter 1 I provide a brief survey of the indispensability argument, arguing that the explanatory indispensability argument is stronger than earlier forms of the argument. This is because it has less controversial premises, appealing neither to confirmational holism nor to a strong ...

Causation, mediation and explanation

doi: 10.1093/ije/dyw281 Advance Access Publication Date: 18 November 2016 Causation, mediation and explanation Neil Pearce and Jan P Vandenbroucke* Department of Medical Statistics and Centre for Global NCDs, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK and Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand and Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Leiden...

Causation and Explanation

How to define levels of explanation and evaluate their indispensability

Some explanations in social science, psychology and biology belong to a higher level than other explanations. And higher explanations possess the virtue of abstracting away from the details of lower explanations, many philosophers argue. As a result, these higher explanations are irreplaceable. And this suggests that there are genuine higher laws or patterns involving social, psychological and ...

Causation , Explanation and Nonmonotonic Temporal Reasoning

We introduce a new approach to reasoning about action and change using nonmonotonic logic. The approach is arrived at by applying Pearl's theory of causal networks to logical formalizations of temporal reasoning domains. It handles complicated reasoning domains involving concurrent actions, actions with nondeterministic eects, preconditions over several points in time, ramication/qualication co...