Eva, Benjamin and Stern, Reuben (2017) Causal Explanatory Power. [Preprint]

Preview

Text BJPS Preprint.pdf Download (285kB) | Preview

Abstract

Schupbach and Sprenger (2011) introduce a novel probabilistic approach to measuring the explanatory power that a given explanans exerts over a corresponding explanandum. Though we are sympathetic to their general approach, we argue that it does not (without revision) adequately capture the way in which the causal explanatory power that c exerts on e varies with background knowledge. We then amend their approach so that it does capture this variance. Though our account of explanatory power is less ambitious than Schupbach and Sprenger's in the sense that it is limited to causal explanatory power, it is also more ambitious because we do not limit its domain to cases where c genuinely explains e. Instead, we claim that c causally explains e if and only if our account says that c explains e with some positive amount of causal explanatory power.

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Eva, Benjamin benedgareva@icloud.com Stern, Reuben reuben.stern@gmail.com
Keywords:	Formal Epistemology, Causation, Explanation, Explanatory Power
Subjects:	General Issues > Causation General Issues > Explanation
Depositing User:	Dr Benjamin Eva
Date Deposited:	15 Aug 2017 15:04
Last Modified:	15 Aug 2017 15:04
Item ID:	13327
Subjects:	General Issues > Causation General Issues > Explanation
Date:	11 August 2017
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/13327

Available Versions of this Item

• Causal Explanatory Power. (deposited 12 Aug 2017 14:15)
  • Causal Explanatory Power. (deposited 15 Aug 2017 15:04) [Currently Displayed]

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item