Suchergebnisse

AbstractSome non-reductionists claim that so-called 'exclusion arguments' against their position rely on a notion ofcausal sufficiencythat is particularly problematic. I argue that such concerns about the role of causal sufficiency in exclusion arguments are relatively superficial since exclusionists can address them by reformulating exclusion arguments in terms ofphysical sufficiency. The resulting exclusion arguments still face familiar problems, but these are not related to the choice between causal sufficiency and physical sufficiency. The upshot is that objections to the notion of causal sufficiency can be answered in a straightforward fashion and that such objections therefore do not pose a serious threat to exclusion arguments.

The issue of causal comparability in the social sciences underlies matters of both generalization and extrapolation (or external validity). After critiquing two existing interpretations of comparability, due to Hitchcock and Hausman, I propose a distinction between ontological and epistemic comparability. While the former refers to whether two cases are actually comparable, the latter respects that in cases of incomplete information, we need to rely on whatever evidence we have of comparability. I argue, using a political science case study, that in those cases of imperfect information, an epistemic homogeneity criterion can be an adequate justification for generalization.

AbstractI present an argument for causal fundamentality, understood as the thesis that the causal history of every being, whose existence has a causal explanation, includes some uncaused beings. I argue that this thesis is a consequence of an actualist account of metaphysical modality whose novelty lies in its hybrid dispositional-essentialist foundation. I argue that my modal theory is extensionally correct and minimalistic. Its range of metaphysical necessities and possibilities is just as wide as needed to capture the pre-theoretical notion of modality. Moreover, my theory is immune from the necessitism of standard essentialist accounts of modality and addresses the challenge of global possibilities facing dispositionalist modal theories thanks to its essentialist component.