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Varieties of Modularity for Causal and Constitutive Explanations

Kuorikoski, Jaakko (2008) Varieties of Modularity for Causal and Constitutive Explanations. In: UNSPECIFIED.

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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.


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Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (UNSPECIFIED)
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Kuorikoski, Jaakko
Keywords: modularity; constitutive explanation
Subjects: General Issues > Causation
General Issues > Explanation
Depositing User: Jaakko Kuorikoski
Date Deposited: 05 Nov 2008
Last Modified: 07 Oct 2010 15:17
Item ID: 4303
Subjects: General Issues > Causation
General Issues > Explanation
Date: 2008
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/4303

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