Causation and contrast classes

Northcott, Robert

doi:10.1007/s11098-007-9105-0

Cited by 56 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Moreover the restriction to binary variables can naturally be lifted by introducing a second layer of contrastivity, beyond the presence of the range function in the signature, into the structure of token causation itself (see generally Hitchcock 1996;Maslen 2004;Schaffer 2005;Northcott 2008):…”

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confidence: 99%

Grounding in the image of causation

2015

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Grounding in the image of causation

2015

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“…In particular, relativization to contrasts introduces a pragmatic element that has traditionally been thought characteristic only of explanation. On the other hand, there is a growing segment of the literature that does endorse an explicitly contrastive view of causation itself (Northcott 2008b, Schaffer 2005, Maslen 2004. 18 This view is also endorsed by the contemporary Bayes net and causal modeling literatures (Pearl 2000, Spirtes et al 2000, as well as, as already noted, by Woodward (2003).…”

Section: ) Relation To Previous Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic Traits and Causal Explanation

Northcott

2011

Philosophy of Behavioral Biology

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I use a contrastive theory of causal explanation to analyze the notion of a genetic trait.The resulting definition is relational, an implication of which is that no trait is genetic always and everywhere. Rather, every trait may be either genetic or non-genetic, depending on explanatory context. I also outline some other advantages of connecting the debate to the wider causation literature, including how that yields us an account of the distinction between genetic traits and genetic dispositions.

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“…This initial step involves identifying the topic of the question by bringing it into relief against a contrast class, in a sense defining the explanandum by highlighting a set of other possible, but non-occurring, events. The notion of contrast class is not necessarily intuitive, but it has been successfully utilized in related domains such as the role of focal sets in constraining computations of covariation when assessing causal induction (Cheng and Novick 1992: see also Northcott 2008). The contrast class defines the question that the explanation must answer by pointing to other possible, contrastive questions that could be answered.…”

Section: Essentialist Theories Of Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Background shifts affect explanatory style: how a pragmatic theory of explanation accounts for background effects in the generation of explanations

Chin-Parker

Bradner

2009

Cogn Process

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Cognitive scientists are interested in explanation because it provides a window into the cognition that underlies one's understanding of the world. We argue that the study of explanation has tended to focus on what makes an explanation "bona fide" as opposed to the processes involved in how the explanation is generated. In the current study, we asked participants to respond to the request for an explanation within a novel domain after we manipulated their initial exposure to the domain, and thus the background of the request. In two experiments, we found evidence that the background shaped participants' interpretations of the prompt for the explanation and that this, in turn, influenced whether they used a causal or functional style of explanation when responding to the prompt. We also asked participants to evaluate a number of explanations and found that the manipulation of the background did not have the same effect on the evaluative tasks. Our data support a pragmatic approach (e.g. The scientific image. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980) to the study of explanation generation, a philosophical approach which argues that the background influences the interpretation of the question, the development of a relevance relation which connects the question and explanation, and the identification of some set of candidate answers. We also suggest there is an important difference between the process of generating an explanation and evaluating an explanation, a difference that has escaped the attention of cognitive scientists thus far.

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Causation and contrast classes

Cited by 56 publications

References 14 publications

Grounding in the image of causation

Grounding in the image of causation

Genetic Traits and Causal Explanation

Background shifts affect explanatory style: how a pragmatic theory of explanation accounts for background effects in the generation of explanations

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