The Oxford Handbook of Causation

Causation is a central topic in many areas of philosophy. In metaphysics, philosophers want to know what causation is, and how it is related to laws of nature, probability, action, and freedom of the will. In epistemology, philosophers investigate how causal claims can be inferred from statistical data, and how causation is related to perception, knowledge and explanation. In t...

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Causation is a central topic in many areas of philosophy. In metaphysics, philosophers want to know what causation is, and how it is related to laws of nature, probability, action, and freedom of the will. In epistemology, philosophers investigate how causal claims can be inferred from statistical data, and how causation is related to perception, knowledge and explanation. In the philosophy of mind, philosophers want to know whether and how the mind can be said to have causal efficacy, and in ethics, whether there is a moral distinction between acts and omissions and whether the moral value of an act can be judged according to its consequences. And causation is a contested concept in other fields of enquiry, such as biology, physics, and the law.

This book provides an in-depth and comprehensive overview of these and other topics, as well as the history of the causation debate from the ancient Greeks to the logical empiricists. The chapters provide surveys of contemporary debates, while often also advancing novel and controversial claims; and each includes a comprehensive bibliography and suggestions for further reading. The book is thus the most comprehensive source of information about causation currently available, and will be invaluable for upper-level undergraduates through to professional philosophers.

The ancient Greeks / Sarah Broadie --
The medievals / John Marenbon --
The early moderns / Kenneth Clatterbaugh --
Hume / Don Garrett --
Kant / Eric Watkins --
The logical empiricists / Michael Stöltzner --
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The ancient Greeks / Sarah Broadie --
The medievals / John Marenbon --
The early moderns / Kenneth Clatterbaugh --
Hume / Don Garrett --
Kant / Eric Watkins --
The logical empiricists / Michael Stöltzner --
Regularity theories / Stathis Psillos --
Counterfactual theories / L.A. Paul --
Probabilistic theories / Jon Williamson --
Causal process theories / Phil Dowe --
Agency and interventionist theories / James F. Woodward --
Causal powers and capacities / Stephen Mumford --
Anti-reductionism / John W. Carroll --
Causal modelling / Christopher Hitchcock --
Mechanisms / Stuart Glennan --
Causal pluralism / Peter Godfrey-Smith --
Platitudes and counterexamples / Peter Menzies --
Causes, laws, and ontology / Michael Tooley --
Causal relata / Douglas Ehring --
The time-asymmetry of causation / Huw Price and Brad Weslake --
The psychology of causal perception and reasoning / David Danks --
Causation and observation / Helen Beebee --
Causation and statistical inference / Clark Glymour --
Mental causation / Cei Maslen, Terry Horgan, and Helen Daly --
Causation, action, and free will / Alfred R. Mele --
Causation and ethics / Carolina Sartorio --
Causal theories of knowledge and perception / Ram Neta --
Causation and semantic content / Frank Jackson --
Causation and explanation / Peter Lipton --
Causation and reduction / Paul Humphreys --
Causation in classical mechanics / Marc Lange --
Causation in statistical mechanics / Lawrence Sklar --
Causation in quantum mechanics / Richard Healey --
Causation in spacetime theories / Carl Hoefer --
Causation in biology / Samir Okasha --
Causation in the social sciences / Harold Kincaid --
Causation in the law / Jane Stapleton
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