Publication Date:
2018
Description:
〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉
〈p〉I argue that Calcott (in Biol Philos 32(4):481–505, Calcott 〈span〉2017〈/span〉) mischaracterizes in an important way the notion of causal specificity proposed by Woodward (in Biol Philos 25(3):287–318, Woodward 〈span〉2010〈/span〉). This leads him to (1) rely too heavily on one single aspect of Woodward’s analysis on causal specificity; (2) propose an information-theoretic measure he calls ‘precision’ which is partly redundant with, but less general than one of the dimensions in Woodward’s analysis of specificity, without acknowledging Woodward’s analysis; and (3) claim that comparing the specificities of two or more causes under what he calls a competitive analysis of causes, does not permit to capture the distinction between permissive and instructive causes. After having restated Woodward’s analysis of causal specificity, I present an information-theoretic measure (variation of causal information) which, although related to Calcott’s measure, is more general than his and corresponds to the notion of specificity he missed in Woodward's analysis. I then show how this measure can be used, together with mutual causal information (which captures another dimension of specificity in Woodward’s analysis), to distinguish permissive from instructive causes in a competitive analysis of causes.〈/p〉
Print ISSN:
0169-3867
Electronic ISSN:
1572-8404
Topics:
Biology
,
Philosophy
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