Causation, Coherence and Concepts (eBook)

Wolfgang Spohn, born 1950, is one of the most distinguished analytic philosophers and philosophers of science of Germany, editor-in-chief of Erkenntnis for more than 13 years, author of two books and more than 60 papers covering a wide range: epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of science, philosophical logic, philosophy of language and mind, and the theory of practical rationality. This collection presents 15 of his most important essays on theoretical philosophy. The centre piece is his uniquely successful theory of the dynamics of belief, tantamount to an account of induction and nowadays widely acknowledged as ‘ranking theory’. Like any account of induction, this theory has deep implications ingeniously elaborated in the papers included. They cover an account of deterministic and also probabilistic causation, initially subjectively relativized, but then objectivized in a projectivistic sense, and an account of explanation and of strict, of ceteris paribus, and of chance laws. They advance a coherentist epistemology, though giving foundationalist intuitions their due, and establish some coherence principles as a priori true, entailing even a weak principle of causality. They finally shed light on concept formation by more broadly embedding the epistemological considerations into the framework of two-dimensional semantics. All this is carried out with formal rigor when feasible.

Preface 7
Contents 12
Introduction 16
Belief 31
Ordinal Conditional Functions: A Dynamic Theory of Epistemic States 32
1.1 Introduction 32
1.2 Simple Conditional Functions 35
1.3 A Problem with Simple Conditional Functions 38
1.4 Ordinal Conditional Functions 41
1.5 Conditionalization and Generalized Conditionalization 43
1.6 Independence and Conditional Independence 46
1.7 Connections with Probability Theory 50
1.8 Discussion 51
Causation 55
Direct and Indirect Causes 56
2.1 Introduction 56
2.2 The Conceptual and Formal Framework 57
2.3 Direct Causes 61
2.4 The Circumstances of Direct Causes 64
2.5 The Difficulties with Indirect Causation 68
2.6 Causation 77
Causation: An Alternative 86
3.1 Introduction 86
3.2 Variables, Propositions, Time 87
3.3 Induction First 89
3.4 Causation 95
3.5 Redundant Causation 100
3.6 Objectivization 105
Bayesian Nets Are All There Is to Causal Dependence 109
4.1 Introduction 109
4.2 Causal Graphs and Bayesian Nets 109
4.3 About the Causal Import of Bayesian Nets 113
4.4 Actions and Interventions 118
Causal Laws are Objectifications of Inductive Schemes 122
5.1 Is Causation Objective? 123
5.2 Induction 125
5.3 Causation 129
5.4 An Explication of Objectification 131
5.5 The Objectification of Induction and Causation 135
5.6 Outlook 142
Laws 144
Laws, Ceteris Paribus Conditions, and the Dynamics of Belief 145
6.1 Preparations 145
6.2 Ranking Functions 148
6.3 Laws 151
6.4 Other Things Being Equal, Normal, or Absent 155
6.5 On the Confirmation of Laws 158
6.6 Some Comparative Remarks 160
Enumerative Induction and Lawlikeness 163
7.1 Introduction 163
7.2 Ranking Functions 165
7.3 Symmetry and Non-negative Instantial Relevance 169
7.4 Laws 172
7.5 Laws and Enumerative Induction 175
7.6 The Apriority of Lawfulness 180
Chance and Necessity: From Humean Supervenience to Humean Projection 182
8.1 Introduction 182
8.2 Chance-Credence Principles 186
8.3 The Admissibility of Historic and Chance Information 190
8.4 The Admissibility of Chance Information and Humean Supervenience 194
8.5 Humean Supervenience 198
8.6 Projection Turns the Principal Principle into a Special Case of the Reflection Principle 201
8.7 Humean Projection 206
8.8 Appendix on Ranking Functions and Deterministic Laws: The Same All Over Again 210
Coherence 213
A Reason for Explanation: Explanations Provide Stable Reasons 214
9.1 Introduction 214
9.2 Induction and Causation 215
9.3 Causation and Explanation 220
9.4 Reason and Truth 226
9.5 Explanations and Stable Reasons 232
Two Coherence Principles 238
10.1 Introduction 238
10.2 Reasons 239
10.3 Two Coherence Principles 241
10.4 Justifying the Coherence Principles via Enumerative Induction? 245
10.5 Justifying the Coherence Principles via the Essence of Propositions? 246
10.6 Justifying the Coherence Principles via Consciousness? 247
10.7 Justifying the Coherence Principles via a Theory of Perception 251
How to Understand the Foundations of Empirical Belief in a Coherentist Way 256
11.1 Introduction 256
11.2 Belief, Belief Change, Reasons, and Apriority 257
11.3 Dispositions and Reduction Sentences 260
11.4 A Thesis Concerning the Basis of Empirical Beliefs 262
11.5 Defending the Thesis 264
11.6 The Foundationalist’s Last Resort? 267
Concepts 269
A Priori Reasons: A Fresh Look at Disposition Predicates 270
12.1 Introduction 270
12.2 Beliefs and Reasons 271
12.3 Kant, Kripke, Kaplan and Beliefs A Priori 273
12.4 Disposition Predicates and Reduction Sentences 278
12.5 Normal Conditions and A Priori Reasons 280
12.6 The Categorical Base of a Disposition 283
12.7 Outlook 285
The Character of Color Terms: A Materialist View 287
Concepts Are Beliefs About Essences 307
14.1 Introduction 307
14.2 The Problems Specified 309
14.3 How to Define Concepts: A Proposal 315
14.4 Explanations 319
14.5 Individualism Rescued? 326
Changing Concepts 331
The Intentional Versus the Propositional Structure of Contents 336
16.1 The Thesis 336
16.2 Stage Setting 338
16.3 The Dialectical Background of the Thesis 343
16.4 Two Arguments for the Thesis and an Objection 347
16.5 The Method of Sufficiently Fine-Grained Descriptions 354
16.6 Some Afterthoughts 359
Bibliography 361
Name Index 376
Subject Index 380