Causation in Science
Causation in science concerns what the causal relation is and how scientific theories and methods identify causes.
Definition
Causation is the relation in which one event, state, process, or variable brings about or produces another; theories of causation seek to say what this relation consists in and how it is discovered in scientific practice.
Scope
This topic covers the major analyses of causation — regularity and INUS accounts, counterfactual theories, physical-process theories, and interventionist or causal-modelling accounts — and their bearing on causal inference, the asymmetry of cause and effect, and the distinction between causation and mere correlation.
Core questions
- Can causation be reduced to regularities or counterfactual dependence?
- What grounds the asymmetry between cause and effect?
- How do interventions and experiments identify causes?
- What distinguishes genuine causation from spurious correlation?
Key concepts
- counterfactual dependence
- INUS condition
- causal process
- intervention
- causal asymmetry
- common cause
- causation versus correlation
Key theories
- Counterfactual theory
- Lewis analyses causation as a chain of counterfactual dependences: roughly, c causes e if, had c not occurred, e would not have occurred.
- Regularity (INUS) theory
- Mackie holds that a cause is an insufficient but non-redundant part of an unnecessary but sufficient condition for the effect.
- Process theory
- Salmon analyses causation in terms of causal processes that transmit conserved quantities and the interactions between them.
- Interventionist theory
- Woodward analyses causation in terms of how variables would change under idealized interventions, linking causation to manipulation and experiment.
History
The Humean regularity view gave way mid-century to Mackie's INUS analysis (1974) and Lewis's counterfactual theory (1973). Salmon's process theory and Woodward's interventionist account, developed alongside the causal-modelling literature, have made causation central to the philosophy of the special sciences.
Debates
- Reductive versus non-reductive analyses
- Regularity and counterfactual theories try to reduce causation to non-causal facts, while process and interventionist theories take causal notions as comparatively primitive, disputing whether causation can be analysed without circularity.
Key figures
- David Lewis
- J. L. Mackie
- Wesley Salmon
- James Woodward
Related topics
Seminal works
- lewis1973
- mackie1974
- salmon1984
- woodward2003
Frequently asked questions
- What is an INUS condition?
- Mackie's term abbreviates 'an Insufficient but Non-redundant part of an Unnecessary but Sufficient condition.' A short circuit, for example, is an INUS condition of a house fire: it is not by itself sufficient, but it is a needed part of a complex of conditions that together suffice, and that complex is only one of several ways a fire could start.