Stuart Glennan

Mechanisms (Oxford)

Stuart Glennan — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 05:06:40 PST

Mechanism is undoubtedly a causal concept, in the sense that ordinary definitions and philosophical analyses explicate the concept in terms of other causal concepts such as production and interaction. Given this fact, many philosophers have supposed that analyses of the concept of mechanism, while they might appeal to philosophical theories about the nature of causation, could do little to inform such theories. On the other hand, methods of causal inference and explanation appeal to mechanisms. Discovering a mechanism is the gold standard for establishing and explaining causal connections. This fact suggests that it might be possible to provide an analysis of causation that appeals to mechanisms.

Rethinking Mechanistic Explanation

Stuart Glennan — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:51:12 PST

Philosophers of science typically associate the causal-mechanical view of scientific explanation with the work of Railton and Salmon. In this paper I shall argue that the defects of this view arise from an inadequate analysis of the concept of mechanism. I contrast Salmon's account of mechanisms in terms of the causal nexus with my own account of mechanisms, in which mechanisms are viewed as complex systems. After describing these two concepts of mechanism, I show how the complex-systems approach avoids certain objections to Salmon's account of causal-mechanical explanation. I conclude by discussing how mechanistic explanations can provide understanding by unification.

Mechanisms, Causes, and the Layered Model of the World

Stuart Glennan — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:06:01 PST

Most philosophical accounts of causation take causal relations to obtain between individuals and events in virtue of nomological relations between properties of these individuals and events. Such views fail to take into account the consequences of the fact that in general the properties of individuals and events will depend upon mechanisms that realize those properties. In this paper I attempt to rectify this failure, and in so doing to provide an account of the causal relevance of higher-level properties. I do this by critiquing one prominent model of higher-level properties – Kim’s functional model of reduction – and contrasting it with a mechanistic approach to higher-level properties and causation.

Ephemeral Mechanisms and Historical Explanation

Stuart Glennan — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 09:39:38 PST

While much of the recent literature on mechanisms has emphasized the superiority of mechanisms and mechanistic explanation over laws and nomological explanation, paradigmatic mechanisms—e.g., clocks or synapses – actually exhibit a great deal of stability in their behavior. And while mechanisms of this kind are certainly of great importance, there are many events that do not occur as a consequence of the operation of stable mechanisms. Events of natural and human history are often the consequence of causal processes that are ephemeral and capricious. In this paper I shall argue that, notwithstanding their ephemeral nature, these processes deserve to be called mechanisms. Ephemeral mechanisms share important characteristics with their more stable cousins, and these shared characteristics will help us to understand connections between scientific and historical explanation.

Mechanisms and the Nature of Causation

Stuart Glennan — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 09:32:36 PST

In this paper I offer an analysis of causation based upon a theory of mechanisms – complex systems whose "internal" parts interact to produce a system's "external" behavior. I argue that all but the fundamental laws of physics can be explained by reference to mechanisms. Mechanisms provide an epistemologically unproblematic way to explain the necessity which is often taken to distinguish laws from other generalizations. This account of necessity leads to a theory of causation according to which events are causally related when there is a mechanism that connects them. I present reasons why the lack of an account of fundamental physical causation does not undermine the mechanical account.

Singular and General Causal Relations: A Mechanist Perspective

Stuart Glennan — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 08:47:33 PST

My aim in this paper is to make a case for the singularist view from the perspective of a mechanical theory of causation (Glennan 1996, 1997, 2010, forthcoming), and to explain what, from this perspective, causal generalizations mean, and what role they play within the mechanical theory.

Why There Can't be a Logic of Induction

Stuart Glennan — Thu, 27 May 2010 12:25:05 PDT

No abstract available

Modeling mechanisms

Stuart Glennan — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:00:35 PDT

Philosophers of science increasingly believe that much of science is concerned with understanding the mechanisms responsible for the production of natural phenomena. An adequate understanding of scientific research requires an account of how scientists develop and test models of mechanisms. This paper offers a general account of the nature of mechanical models, discussing the representational relationship that holds between mechanisms and their models as well as the techniques that can be used to test and refine such models. The analysis is supported by study of two competing models of a mechanism of speech perception.

Whose Science and whose Religion? Reflections on the Relations between Scientific and Religious Worldviews

Stuart Glennan — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 08:01:51 PDT

Arguments about the relationship between science and religion often proceed by identifying a set of essential characteristics of scientific and religious worldviews and arguing on the basis of these characteristics for claims about a relationship of conflict or compatibility between them. Such a strategy is doomed to failure because science, to some extent, and religion, to a much larger extent, are cultural phenomena that are too diverse in their expressions to be characterized in terms of a unified worldview. In this paper I follow a different strategy. Having offered a loose characterization of the nature of science, I pose five questions about specific areas where religious and scientific worldviews may conflict - questions about the nature of faith, the belief in a God or Gods, the authority of sacred texts, the relationship between scientific and religious conceptions of the mind/soul, and the relationship between scientific and religious understandings of moral behavior. My review of these questions will show that they cannot be answered unequivocally because there is no agreement amongst religious believers as to the meaning of important religious concepts. Thus, whether scientific and religious worldviews conflict depends essentially upon whose science and whose religion one is considering. In closing, I consider the implications of this conundrum for science education.

Productivity, relevance and natural selection

Stuart Glennan — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:03:54 PDT

Recent papers by a number of philosophers have been concerned with the question of whether natural selection is a causal process, and if it is, whether the causes of selection are properties of individuals or properties of populations. I shall argue that much confusion in this debate arises because of a failure to distinguish between causal productivity and causal relevance. Causal productivity is a relation that holds between events connected via continuous causal processes, while causal relevance is a relationship that can hold between a variety of different kinds of facts and the events that counterfactually depend upon them. I shall argue that the productive character of natural selection derives from the aggregation of individual processes in which organisms live, reproduce and die. At the same time, a causal explanation of the distribution of traits will necessarily appeal both to causally relevant properties of individuals and to causally relevant properties that exist only at the level of the population.

The nature of science: A perspective from the philosophy of science

Judy T. Eflin et al. — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:31:03 PST

A central goal of elementary and secondary science education is to go beyond the facts and theories associated with particular sciences and to give students an understanding of the nature of science (NOS) in general. Educational researchers have developed a variety of test instruments to assess student comprehension of NOS, but a lack of consensus among educators about how to characterize NOS raises questions about the validity of these instruments. Brian Alters (Professor of Science Education, McGill University) has sought to clarify the various possible positions on the nature of science by conducting a survey of philosophers of science. In this paper, we discuss the results of Alters' efforts, arguing that the techniques of data collection and statistical analysis used by Alters give a confused and misleading picture of philosophical positions on the nature of science. We also discuss ways in which we think that research in the philosophy of science might be more fruitfully brought to bear on the teaching of NOS.

Note: Link is to the article on the publisher’s web site, which is available in full text for a fee.

Mechanisms

Stuart Glennan — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:26:36 PST

This book chapter contains an overview of recent work on mechanisms -- especially the work of myself, Bechtel, Craver, Darden and Machamer. The essay discusses the competing analyses of the concept of mechanism and applications of this work to other areas of research in the philosophy of science, including laws, causation, reduction, explanation, and discovery.

Note: Link is to the catalog entry in WorldCat's catalog. Please see your local librarian for assistance in borrowing this item via interlibrary loan.

Explanation

Stuart Glennan — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:23:55 PST

This encyclopedia article provides an overview of developments in the theory of explanation from Hempel to the present.

Note: Link is to the catalog entry in Butler University's catalog. Users not affiliated with Butler University should check WorldCat (http://www.worldcat.org) for this item in local libraries.

Elements of deductive inference : an introduction to symbolic logic

Joseph Bessie et al. — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:00:56 PST

Elements of Deductive Inference is a introductory textbook in symbolic logic. Joe and I wrote this book because we could not find a logic text that appropriately balanced the need for a treatment of logic that is philosophically and formally sophisticated with a sensitivity to the fact that many of the students who take symbolic logic will enter their first course with only modest mathematical background and aptitude. The text covers statement logic and predicate logic with identity and functions. It allows the instructor a choice between natural deduction and truth-tree proof systems. It discusses basic metatheoretical issues, though it omits real proofs. Finally, it provides short introductions to extensions of predicate logic -- including modal logic, higher order logic, and free logic. For more information, visit the Elements of Deductive Inference web site (http://blue.butler.edu/~sglennan/InferenceEngine.html).

Note: Link is to the catalog entry in WorldCat's catalog. Please see your local librarian for assistance in borrowing this item via interlibrary loan.

Computationalism and the problem of other minds

Stuart S. Glennan — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:52:18 PST

In this paper I discuss Searle's claim that the computational properties of a system could never cause a system to be conscious. In the first section of the paper I argue that Searle is correct that, even if a system both behaves in a way that is characteristic of conscious agents (like ourselves) and has a computational structure similar to those agents , one cannot be certain that that system is conscious. On the other hand, I suggest that Searle's intuition that it is "empirically absurd" that such a system could be conscious is unfounded. In the second section I show that Searle's attempt to show that a system's computational states could not possibly cause it to be conscious is based upon an erroneous distinction between computational and physical properties. On the basis of these two arguments, I conclude that, supposing that the behavior of conscious agents can be explained in terms of their computational properties, we have good reason to suppose that a system having computational properties similar to such agents is also conscious.

Note: Link is to the article in a subscription database available to users affiliated with Butler University. Appropriate login information will be required for access. Users not affiliated with Butler University should contact their local librarian for assistance in locating a copy of this article.

Probable causes and the distinction between subjective and objective chance

Stuart S. Glennan — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:45:50 PST

In this paper I present both a critical appraisal of Humphreys' probabilistic theory of causality and a sketch of an alternative view of the relationship between the notions of probability and of cause. Though I do not doubt that determinism is false, I claim that the examples used to motivate Humphreys' theory typically refer to subjective rather than objective chance. Additionally, I argue on a number of grounds that Humphreys' suggestion that linear regression models be used as a canonical form for the description of causal relations is untenable. I conclude by exploring the variety of ways in which probabilistic elements can be embedded into the structure of causal mechanisms. This investigation suggests both that deterministic mechanisms can produce stochastic behavior and stochastic mechanisms can produce deterministic behavior.

Capacities, universality and singularity

Stuart Glennan — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:41:17 PST

In this paper I criticize Cartwright's analysis of capacities and offer an alternative analysis. I argue that Cartwright's attempt to connect capacities to her condition CC fails because individuals can exercise capacities only in certain contexts. My own analysis emphasizes three features of capacities: 1) Capacities belong to individuals; 2) Capacities are typically not metaphysically fundamental properties of individuals, but can be explained by referring to structural properties of individuals; and 3) Laws are best understood as ascriptions of capacities.

Contextual unanimity and the units of selection problem

Stuart Glennan — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:29:37 PST

Eliot Sober and Richard Lewontin claim that genic selection misrepresents the causes of evolution. Their argument is based upon a general condition for distinguishing genuine from spurious causes that is sometimes called the contextual unanimity condition. According to this condition, a genuine cause must increase the probability of its effect across all causally relevant background contexts. Their critics claim that even the higher level units that Sober and Lewontin suggest are the causes of evolutionary change fail to meet this condition. In this paper I side with the critics, but argue that Sober and Lewontin's attack on genic selectionism can be sustained by abandoning the contextual unanimity condition and replacing it with a principle in which genuine causes are distinguished by their roles in the mechanisms of evolution.

The modeler in the crib

Stuart Glennan — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:02:54 PST

A number of developmental psychologists have argued for a theory they call the theory theory – a theory of cognitive development that suggests that infants and small children make sense of their world by constructing cognitive representations that have many of the attributes of scientific theories. In this paper I argue that there are indeed close parallels between the activities of children and scientists, but that these parallels will be better understood if one recognizes that both scientists and children are not so much theorists as model builders.