The Understanding Of Causation And The Production Of Action

Author : Peter Anthony White
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2018-10-24
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781317734901

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The Understanding of Causation and the Production of Action by Peter Anthony White Pdf

This text is an attempt to trace out a line of development in the understanding of how things happen, from origins in infancy to mature forms in adulthood. There are two distinct but related ways in which people understand things as happening, denoted by the terms "causation" and "action". This book is concerned with both.; The central claim and organizing principle of the book is that, by the end of the second year of life, children have differentiated two core theories of how things happen. These theories deal with causation and action. The two theories have a common point of origin in the infant's experience of producing actions, but thereafter diverge, both in content and in realm of application. Once established, the core theories of causation and action never change, but form a permanent metaphysical underpinning on which subsequent developments in the understanding of how things happen are erected. The story of development is therefore largely the story of how further concepts become attached to integrated with the core theories. Although the developmental and adult literatures on causal understanding appear at first glance to have little in common, in fact this appearance is illusory, and the idea of two theories helps to bring the two literatures in contact with each other.; The book begins with a survey of the main philosophical ideas about causation and action. Following this, the possible origins of understanding in infancy are reviewed, and separate chapters then deal with the development of understanding of action and causation through childhood. This is then linked to the adult understanding of action and causation, and the literature on adult causal attribution and causal judgement is reviewed from this perspective.

Author : PETER A. WHITE
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1138296627

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UNDERSTANDING OF CAUSATION AND THE PRODUCTION OF ACTION by PETER A. WHITE Pdf

Author : Peter A. White
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2024-06-16
Category : PSYCHOLOGY
ISBN : 131509990X

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The Understanding of Causation and the Production of Action by Peter A. White Pdf

Author : John Hyman
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780198735779

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Action, Knowledge, and Will by John Hyman Pdf

Human agency has four irreducibly different dimensions--psychological, ethical, intellectual and physical--which the traditional idea of a 'will' tended to conflate. Twentieth-century philosophers criticized this idea, but the study of human action continued to be governed by a tendency to equate intentional action, voluntary action, action done for reasons, and action in general, or to reduce one of these phenomena to another. Examining the four dimensions of human agency separately deepens our understanding of human conduct and its causes. In Action, Knowledge, and Will, John Hyman ranges across the branches of philosophy, from logic and epistemology to ethics and jurisprudence, defends comprehensive theories of action and knowledge, and offers new answers to some of the most challenging theoretical and practical questions about human conduct, for example: What is the difference between the changes in our bodies we cause personally ourselves, such as the movements of our legs when we walk, and the movements we do not cause personally, such as the contraction of the heart? Are the acts we do to escape threats or fulfil obligations done voluntarily, out of choice? Should duress exculpate a defendant completely, or should it merely mitigate the criminality of an act? When we explain an intentional act by stating our reasons for doing it, do we explain it causally or teleologically or both? How does knowledge inform rational behaviour? Is knowledge a better guide to action than belief?

Author : Anonim
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 191 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2019-10-21
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9789004409965

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Free Will, Causality, and Neuroscience by Anonim Pdf

Neuroscientists often consider free will to be an illusion. Contrary to this hypothesis, the contributions to this volume show that recent developments in neuroscience can also support the existence of free will. Firstly, the possibility of intentional consciousness is studied. Secondly, Libet’s experiments are discussed from this new perspective. Thirdly, the relationship between free will, causality and language is analyzed. This approach suggests that language grants the human brain a possibility to articulate a meaningful personal life. Therefore, human beings can escape strict biological determinism. Contributing author Sofia Bonicalzi has received funding from the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (2014-2020) under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 754388 (LMUResearchFellows) and from LMUexcellent, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Free State of Bavaria under the Excellence Strategy of the German Federal Government and the Länder.

Author : M. Hulswit
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2012-12-06
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9789401002974

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From Cause to Causation by M. Hulswit Pdf

From Cause to Causation presents both a critical analysis of C.S. Peirce's conception of causation, and a novel approach to causation, based upon the semeiotic of Peirce. The book begins with a review of the history of causation, and with a critical discussion of contemporary theories of the concept of `cause'. The author uncovers a number of inadequacies in the received views of causation, and discusses their historical roots. He makes a distinction between "causality", which is the relation between cause and effect, and causation, which is the production of a certain effect. He argues that, by focusing on causality, the contemporary theories fatally neglect the more fundamental problem of causation. The author successively discusses Peirce's theories of final causation, natural classes, semeiotic, and semeiotic causation. Finally, he uses Peirce's semeiotic to develop a new approach to causation, which relates causation to our experience of signs.

Author : Peter White
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 337 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2002-09-26
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781134889242

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Psychological Metaphysics by Peter White Pdf

The research literature on causal attribution and social cognition generally consists of many fascinating but fragmented and superficial phenomena. These can only be understood as an organised whole by elucidating the fundamental psychological assumptions on which they depend. Psychological Metaphysics is an exploration of the most basic and important assumptions in the psychological construction of reality, with the aim of showing what they are, how they originate, and what they are there for. Peter White proposes that people basically understand causation in terms of stable, special powers of things operating to produce effects under suitable conditions. This underpins an analysis of people's understanding of causal processes in the physical world, and of human action. In making a radical break with the Heiderian tradition, Psychological Metaphysics suggests that causal attribution is in the service of the person's practical concerns and any interest in accuracy or understanding is subservient to this. Indeed, a notion of regularity in the world is of no more than minor importance, and social cognition is not a matter of cognitive mechanisms or processes but of cultural ways of thinking imposed upon tacit, unquestioned, universal assumptions.

Author : Judea Pearl
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 487 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2009-09-14
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9780521895606

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Causality by Judea Pearl Pdf

Causality offers the first comprehensive coverage of causal analysis in many sciences, including recent advances using graphical methods. Pearl presents a unified account of the probabilistic, manipulative, counterfactual and structural approaches to causation, and devises simple mathematical tools for analyzing the relationships between causal connections, statistical associations, actions and observations. The book will open the way for including causal analysis in the standard curriculum of statistics, artificial intelligence ...

Author : National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine,Health and Medicine Division,Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice,Committee on Community-Based Solutions to Promote Health Equity in the United States
Publisher : National Academies Press
Page : 583 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2017-04-27
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780309452960

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Communities in Action by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine,Health and Medicine Division,Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice,Committee on Community-Based Solutions to Promote Health Equity in the United States Pdf

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Author : G.E.M. Anscombe
Publisher : Andrews UK Limited
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2011-11-18
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781845402709

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Human Life, Action and Ethics by G.E.M. Anscombe Pdf

A collection of essays by the celebrated philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe. This collection includes papers on human nature and practical philosophy, together with the classic 'Modern Moral Philosophy'

Author : Albert Michotte
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 390 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2017-03-27
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781315519036

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The Perception of Causality by Albert Michotte Pdf

Originally published in 1963, this is a classic work on the psychology of perception. By means of suitable patterns on a partly concealed rotating disc Michotte was able to give the impression of objects in movement; and where certain conditions of speed, position, and time-interval were satisfied, his subjects received the impression of a causal interaction between two objects – for example, the impression that one object has ‘bumped into’ another (the ‘Launching Effect’) or is carrying it along (the ‘Entraining Effect’). In a further group of experiments Michotte studies the conditions in which moving objects look as though they are alive. A large number of experiments are described, and on the basis of them Michotte formulates a theory as to the conditions in which causal impressions occur. He also compares his own views on causality with those of Hume, Maine de Biran, and Piaget.

Author : David Hume
Publisher : VM eBooks
Page : 142 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2016-11-10
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume Pdf

Moral philosophy, or the science of human nature, may be treated after two different manners; each of which has its peculiar merit, and may contribute to the entertainment, instruction, and reformation of mankind. The one considers man chiefly as born for action; and as influenced in his measures by taste and sentiment; pursuing one object, and avoiding another, according to the value which these objects seem to possess, and according to the light in which they present themselves. As virtue, of all objects, is allowed to be the most valuable, this species of philosophers paint her in the most amiable colours; borrowing all helps from poetry and eloquence, and treating their subject in an easy and obvious manner, and such as is best fitted to please the imagination, and engage the affections. They select the most striking observations and instances from common life; place opposite characters in a proper contrast; and alluring us into the paths of virtue by the views of glory and happiness, direct our steps in these paths by the soundest precepts and most illustrious examples. They make us feel the difference between vice and virtue; they excite and regulate our sentiments; and so they can but bend our hearts to the love of probity and true honour, they think, that they have fully attained the end of all their labours.

Author : Gideon Yaffe,Associate Professor of Philosophy and Law Gideon Yaffe
Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand
Page : 178 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780199268559

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Manifest Activity by Gideon Yaffe,Associate Professor of Philosophy and Law Gideon Yaffe Pdf

Manifest Activity presents and critically examines Thomas Reid's doctrines about the model of human power, the will, our capacities for purposeful conduct, and the place of our agency in the natural world. Reid is one of the most important philosophers of the 18th century, but hithertounder-appreciated; through the reconstruction of his arguments, many of which have never before been discussed, Gideon Yaffe demonstrates that Reid's simple prose and direct style belie the complexity of the views he advocates and the subtlety of the reasons he offers in their favour.For Reid, contrary to the view of many of his predecessors, it is simply manifest that we are active with respect to our behaviours; it is manifest, he thinks, that our actions are not merely remote products of forces that lie outside of our control. Reid holds, instead, that actions are all andonly those events that spring from active power, and he produces insightful and imaginative arguments for the claim that only a creature with a mind is capable of having active power. He believes that only human beings, and creatures 'above us', are capable of directing events towards ends, ofendowing them with purpose or direction, the distinctive feature of action. However, he also holds that all events, and not merely human actions, are products of active power, power possessed either by human beings or by God. This collection of theses leads Reid to the view that human behaviour andthe progress of nature are both essentially teleological. Patterns in nature are the products of laws of which God is the author; patterns in human conduct are the products of character and the laws that individuals set for themselves. Manifest Activity examines Reid's arguments for this view and the view's implications for the nature of character, motivation, and the special kind of causation involved in the production of human behaviour. Yaffe's assessment will greatly profit anyone working on current theories of action and freewill, as well as historians of ideas.

Author : Jonas Peters,Dominik Janzing,Bernhard Scholkopf
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2017-11-29
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9780262037310

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Elements of Causal Inference by Jonas Peters,Dominik Janzing,Bernhard Scholkopf Pdf

A concise and self-contained introduction to causal inference, increasingly important in data science and machine learning. The mathematization of causality is a relatively recent development, and has become increasingly important in data science and machine learning. This book offers a self-contained and concise introduction to causal models and how to learn them from data. After explaining the need for causal models and discussing some of the principles underlying causal inference, the book teaches readers how to use causal models: how to compute intervention distributions, how to infer causal models from observational and interventional data, and how causal ideas could be exploited for classical machine learning problems. All of these topics are discussed first in terms of two variables and then in the more general multivariate case. The bivariate case turns out to be a particularly hard problem for causal learning because there are no conditional independences as used by classical methods for solving multivariate cases. The authors consider analyzing statistical asymmetries between cause and effect to be highly instructive, and they report on their decade of intensive research into this problem. The book is accessible to readers with a background in machine learning or statistics, and can be used in graduate courses or as a reference for researchers. The text includes code snippets that can be copied and pasted, exercises, and an appendix with a summary of the most important technical concepts.

Author : G. E. M. Anscombe
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 110 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2000-10-16
Category : Mathematics
ISBN : 0674003993

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Intention by G. E. M. Anscombe Pdf

Intention is one of the masterworks of twentieth-century philosophy in English. First published in 1957, it has acquired the status of a modern philosophical classic. The book attempts to show in detail that the natural and widely accepted picture of what we mean by an intention gives rise to insoluble problems and must be abandoned. This is a welcome reprint of a book that continues to grow in importance.