San Pedro, Iñaki (2010) Venetian Sea Levels, British Bread Prices and the Principle of the Common Cause: A Reassessment. In: [2009] EPSA09: 2nd Conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association (Amsterdam, 21-24 October, 2009) > EPSA 2009 Contributed Papers.

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Abstract

It is still a controversial issue whether Reichenbach’s Principle of the Common Cause (RPCC) is a sound method for causal inference. In fact, the status of the principle has been a subject of intense philosophical debate. An extensive literature has been thus generated both with arguments in favor and against the adequacy of the principle. A remarkable argument against the principle, first proposed by Elliott Sober (Sober, 1987, 2001), consists on a counterexample which involves corelations between bread prices in Britain and sea levels in Venice. The aim of this paper is to put into perspective criticisms to RPCC of the kind of Sober’s in the light of recent formal results regarding the so-called extendability and common cause completability.

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• Venetian Sea Levels, British Bread Prices and the Principle of the Common Cause: A Reassessment. (deposited 02 Apr 2010)
  • Venetian Sea Levels, British Bread Prices and the Principle of the Common Cause: A Reassessment. (deposited 06 Apr 2010)[Currently Displayed]

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