Varieties of Modularity for Causal and Constitutive Explanations

Kuorikoski, Jaakko (2008) Varieties of Modularity for Causal and Constitutive Explanations. In [2008] Philosophy of Science Assoc. 21st Biennial Mtg (Pittsburgh, PA): PSA 2008 Contributed Papers.

Abstract

The invariance under interventions –account of causal explanation imposes a modularity constraint on causal systems: a local intervention on a part of the system should not change other causal relations in that system. This constraint has generated criticism against the account, since many ordinary causal systems seem to break this condition. This paper answers to this criticism by noting that explanatory models are always models of specific causal structures, not causal systems as a whole, and that models of causal structures can have different modularity properties which determine what can and what cannot be explained with the model.