Northcott, Robert
(2005)
Comparing apples with oranges.
Analysis, 65 (1).
pp. 12-18.
ISSN 0003-2638
Abstract
'If two men lay bricks to build a wall, we may quite fairly measure their contributions by counting the number laid by each; but if one mixes the mortar and the other lays the bricks, it would be absurd to measure their relative quantitative contributions by measuring the volumes of bricks and of mortar' (Richard Lewontin). Thus: 'For it to make sense to ask what (or how much) a cause contributes to an effect, the various causes must be commensurable in the way they produce their effects' (Elliott Sober). These claims sound reasonable but I show on the contrary that, for their contributions to be comparable, it is neither necessary nor sufficient that two causes also be commensurable. Rather, in a sense that I discuss, what really matters is that they be separable.
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