Agent Causality

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Agent Causality

Author : F. Vollmer
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 188 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2013-03-14
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9789401592253

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Agent Causality by F. Vollmer Pdf

We act for reasons. But, it is sometimes claimed, the mental states and events that make up reasons, are not sufficient conditions of actions. Reasons never make actions happen. We- as agents (persons, selves, subjects) - make our actions happen. Actions are done by us, not elicited by reasons. The present essay is an attempt to understand this concept of agent causality. Who -~ or what - is an agent ? And how - in virtue of what - does an agent do things, or refrain from doing them? The first chapter deals with problems in the theory of action that seem to require the assumption that actions are controlled by agents. Chapters two and three then review and discuss theories of agent cau sality. Chapters four and five make up the central parts of the essay in which my own solution is put forth, and chapter six presents some data that seem to support this view. Chapter seven discusses how the theory can be reconciled with neuro-physiological facts. And in the last two chapters the theory is confronted with conflicting viewpoints and phe nomena. Daniel Robinson and Richard Swinburne took time to read parts of the manuscript in draft form. Though they disagree with my main viewpoints on the nature of the self, their conunents were very helpful. I hereby thank them both.

Free Will and God's Universal Causality

Author : W. Matthews Grant
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 259 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2019-05-16
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781350082922

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Free Will and God's Universal Causality by W. Matthews Grant Pdf

The traditional doctrine of God's universal causality holds that God directly causes all entities distinct from himself, including all creaturely actions. But can our actions be free in the strong, libertarian sense if they are directly caused by God? W. Matthews Grant argues that free creaturely acts have dual sources, God and the free creaturely agent, and are ultimately up to both in a way that leaves all the standard conditions for libertarian freedom satisfied. Offering a comprehensive alternative to existing approaches for combining theism and libertarian freedom, he proposes new solutions for reconciling libertarian freedom with robust accounts of God's providence, grace, and predestination. He also addresses the problem of moral evil without the commonly employed Free Will Defense. Written for analytic philosophers and theologians, Grant's approach can be characterized as “neo-scholastic” as well as “analytic,” since many of the positions defended are inspired by, consonant with, and develop resources drawn from the scholastic tradition, especially Aquinas.

Substance and Attribute

Author : Christian Kanzian,Muhammad Legenhausen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2013-05-02
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9783110328974

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Substance and Attribute by Christian Kanzian,Muhammad Legenhausen Pdf

The aim of this volume is to investigate the topic of Substance and Attribute. The way leading to this aim is a dialogue between Islamic and Western Philosophy. Our project is motivated by the observation that the historical roots of Islamic and of Western Philosophy are very similar. Thus some of the articles in this volume are dedicated to the history of philosophy, in Islamic thinking as well as in Western traditions. But the dialogue between Islamic and Western Philosophy is not only an historical issue, it also has systematic relevance for actual philosophical questions. The topic Substance and Attribute particularly has an important history in both traditions; and it has systematic relevance for the actual ontological debate. The volume includes contributions (among others) by Hans Burkhardt, Hans Kraml, Muhammad Legenhausen, Michal Loux, Pedro Schmechtig, Muhammad Shomali, Erwin Tegtmeier, and Daniel von Wachter.

Bayesian Nets and Causality: Philosophical and Computational Foundations

Author : Jon Williamson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 250 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9780198530794

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Bayesian Nets and Causality: Philosophical and Computational Foundations by Jon Williamson Pdf

Bayesian nets are used in artificial intelligence as a calculus for causal reasoning, enabling machines to make predictions perform diagnoses, take decisions and even to discover causal relationships. This book brings together how to automate reasoning in artificial intelligence, and the nature of causality and probability in philosophy.

Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality

Author : Eric Watkins
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 466 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : History
ISBN : 0521543614

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Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality by Eric Watkins Pdf

A book about Kant's views on causality as understood in their proper historical context.

Action and Existence

Author : J. Swindal
Publisher : Springer
Page : 206 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2011-11-08
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780230355460

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Action and Existence by J. Swindal Pdf

Since the pioneering work of Donald Davidson on action, many philosophers have taken critical stances on his causal account. This book criticizes Davidson's event-causal view of action, and offers instead an agent causal view both to describe what an action is and to set a framework for how actions are explained.

Suárez on Aristotelian Causality

Author : Anonim
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 182 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2015-03-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004292161

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Suárez on Aristotelian Causality by Anonim Pdf

Suárez on Aristotelian Causality offers the first comprehensive account of Francisco Suárez’s position with respect to the four Aristotelian causes in his Metaphysical Disputations. Suárez deals with these causes in the greater part of Metaphysical Disputations 12–27 approximately a third of his famous work on metaphysics. Nevertheless, no previous attempt at analysis of causality as a part of his overall metaphysical position has been offered. The material, formal, efficient and final cause as understood by Suárez each receives a chapter in this volume just as his general account of causality is considered. This should be relevant to anyone interested in the role and pertinence of Aristotelian causality for Suárez’s metaphysics. Contributors (in order of appearance) are Jakob Leth Fink, Erik Åkerlund, Kara Richardson, Stephan Schmid and Sydney Penner.

Free Will, Causality and the Self

Author : Atle Ottesen Søvik
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2016-09-12
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9783110474688

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Free Will, Causality and the Self by Atle Ottesen Søvik Pdf

A major goal for compatibilists is to avoid the luck problem and to include all the facts from neuroscience and natural science in general which purportedly show that the brain works in a law-governed and causal way like any other part of nature. Libertarians, for their part, want to avoid the manipulation argument and demonstrate that very common and deep seated convictions about freedom and responsibility are true: it can really be fundamentally up to us as agents to determine that the future should be either A or B. This book presents a theory of free will which integrates the main motivations of compatibilists and libertarians, while at the same time avoiding their problems. The so-called event-causal libertarianism is the libertarian account closest to compatibilitsm, as it claims there is indeterminism in the mind of an agent. The charge of compatibilists, however, is that this position is impaired by the problem of luck. This book is unique in arguing that free will in a strong sense of the term does not require indeterminism in the brain, only indeterminism somewhere in the world which there plausibly is.

Questioning Causality

Author : Rom Harré,Fathali M. Moghaddam
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 435 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2016-01-25
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781440831799

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Questioning Causality by Rom Harré,Fathali M. Moghaddam Pdf

Covering a topic applicable to fields ranging from education to health care to psychology, this book provides a broad critical analysis of the assumptions that researchers and practitioners have about causation and explains how readers can improve their thinking about causation. In virtually every laboratory, research center, or classroom focused on the social or physical sciences today, the concept of causation is a core issue to be questioned, tested, and determined. Even debates in unrelated areas such as biology, law, and philosophy often focus on causality—"What made that happen?" In this book, experts from across disciplines adopt a reader-friendly approach to reconsider this age-old question in a modern light, defining different kinds of causation and examining how causes and consequences are framed and approached in a particular field. Each chapter uses applied examples to illustrate key points in an accessible manner. The contributors to this work supply a coherent critical analysis of the assumptions researchers and practitioners hold about causation, and explain how such thinking about causation can be improved. Collectively, the coverage is broad, providing readers with a fuller picture of research in social contexts. Beyond providing insightful description and thought-provoking questioning of causation in different research areas, the book applies analysis of data in order to point the way to smarter, more efficient practices. Consequently, both practitioners and researchers will benefit from this book.

Dispositions and Causes

Author : Toby Handfield
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 355 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2009-02-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780191565410

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Dispositions and Causes by Toby Handfield Pdf

In recent decades, the analysis of causal relations has become a topic of central importance in analytic philosophy. More recently, dispositional properties have also become objects of intense study. Both of these phenomena appear to be intimately related to counterfactual conditionals and other modal phenomena such as objective chance, but little work has been done to directly relate them. Dispositions and Causes contains ten essays by scholars working in both metaphysics and in philosophy of science, examining the relation between dispositional and causal concepts. Particular issues discussed include the possibility of reducing dispositions to causes, and vice versa; the possibility of a nominalist theory of causal powers; the attempt to reduce all metaphysical necessity to dispositional properties; the relationship between dispositions, causes, and laws of nature; the role of causal capacities in explaining the success of scientific inquiry; the grounding of dispositions and causes in objective chances; and the type of causal power required for free agency. The introductory chapter contains a detailed overview of recent work in the area, providing a helpful entry to the literature for non-specialists.

Rational Decision and Causality

Author : Ellery Eells
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 229 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2016-08-26
Category : Mathematics
ISBN : 9781107144811

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Rational Decision and Causality by Ellery Eells Pdf

Originally published: New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Substantiality and Causality

Author : Miroslaw Szatkowski,Marek Rosiak
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2014-12-11
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781614519492

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Substantiality and Causality by Miroslaw Szatkowski,Marek Rosiak Pdf

The content of the volume is divided as follows: after presenting two rival approaches to substantiality and causality: a traditional (ontological) view vs. a transcendental one (Rosiak) there follow two sections: the first presents studies of substance as showing some causal aspects (Buchheim, Keinänen, Kovac, Piwowarczyk), whereas the other contains investigations of causality showing in a way its reference to the category of substance (Kobiela, Meixner, Mitscherling, Wroński). The last, short section contains two studies of extension (Leszczyński and Skowron) which can be regarded as a conceptual background of both substantiality and causality. The book gives a very colourful picture of the discussions connected with substantiality and causality which may be of potential interest for the readers.

Agent-based Models and Causal Inference

Author : Gianluca Manzo
Publisher : Wiley
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2022-02-14
Category : Mathematics
ISBN : 1119704472

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Agent-based Models and Causal Inference by Gianluca Manzo Pdf

Explore the issue of causal inference in agent-based computational models in a first-of-it’s-kind volume Agent-based Models and Causal Inference delivers an insightful investigation into the conditions under which different quantitative methods can legitimately hold to be able to establish causal claims. The book compares agent-based computational methods with randomized experiments, instrumental variables, and various types of causal graphs. It goes on to explain why there is no strong argument to believe that observational and experimental methods are qualitatively superior to simulation-based methods in their capacity to contribute to establishing causal claims. Organized in two parts, Agent-based Models and Causal Inference connects the literature from various fields, including causality, social mechanisms, statistical and experimental methods for causal inference, and agent-based computation models to help show that causality means different things within different methods for causal analysis, and that persuasive causal claims can only be built at the intersection of these various methods. Readers will also benefit from the inclusion of: A thorough comparison between agent-based computation models to randomized experiments, instrumental variables, and several types of causal graphs. A compelling argument that observational and experimental methods are not qualitatively superior to simulation-based methods in their ability to establish causal claims Practical discussions of how statistical, experimental and computational methods can be combined to produce reliable causal inferences Perfect for academic social scientists and scholars in the fields of computational social science, philosophy, statistics, experimental design, and ecology, Agent-based Models and Causal Inference will also earn a place in the libraries of PhD students seeking a one-stop reference on the issue of causal inference in agent-based computational models.

Actual Causality

Author : Joseph Y. Halpern
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2019-02-19
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780262537131

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Actual Causality by Joseph Y. Halpern Pdf

A new approach for defining causality and such related notions as degree of responsibility, degrees of blame, and causal explanation. Causality plays a central role in the way people structure the world; we constantly seek causal explanations for our observations. But what does it even mean that an event C “actually caused” event E? The problem of defining actual causation goes beyond mere philosophical speculation. For example, in many legal arguments, it is precisely what needs to be established in order to determine responsibility. The philosophy literature has been struggling with the problem of defining causality since Hume. In this book, Joseph Halpern explores actual causality, and such related notions as degree of responsibility, degree of blame, and causal explanation. The goal is to arrive at a definition of causality that matches our natural language usage and is helpful, for example, to a jury deciding a legal case, a programmer looking for the line of code that cause some software to fail, or an economist trying to determine whether austerity caused a subsequent depression. Halpern applies and expands an approach to causality that he and Judea Pearl developed, based on structural equations. He carefully formulates a definition of causality, and building on this, defines degree of responsibility, degree of blame, and causal explanation. He concludes by discussing how these ideas can be applied to such practical problems as accountability and program verification. Technical details are generally confined to the final section of each chapter and can be skipped by non-mathematical readers.

Natural Final Causality and Scholastic Thought

Author : Corey Barnes
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2024-08-13
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781040113172

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Natural Final Causality and Scholastic Thought by Corey Barnes Pdf

This book examines scholastic conceptions of final causality through the methods and concerns of historical theology. It argues the history of final causality is most profitably understood according to the interplay of regularity, order, and intentionality as interpretive categories. Within this analytic framework, the author explores the history and theological implications of final causality from Aristotle to Nicole Oresme, utilizing shifts in the dominant interpretive category to clarify how final causality could change from one of four co-equal explanatory strategies in Aristotle to the cause of causes in Avicenna to a merely metaphorical cause in Walter Chatton. Theological debates – ranging from questions of creation, the relationship of primary and secondary causality and of the ultimate good to secondary goods, the autonomy or instrumentality of nature, and the compatibility of chance with providence – motivated many of these changes. The chapters examine final causality in Aristotle and the commentorial tradition from late antiquity to medieval Arabic sources and then consider in detail various scholastic understandings and uses of final causality. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of historical theology, systematic theology, scholastic thought, and medieval philosophy.