Norton, John D. (2003) Causation as Folk Science. [Preprint]

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Abstract

I deny that the world is fundamentally causal, deriving the skepticism on non-Humean grounds from our enduring failures to find a contingent, universal principle of causality that holds true of our science. I explain the prevalence and fertility of causal notions in science by arguing that a causal character for many sciences can be recovered, when they are restricted to appropriately hospitable domains. There they conform to a loose collection of causal notions that form a folk science of causation. This recovery of causation exploits the same generative power of reduction relations that allows us to recover gravity as a force from Einstein's general relativity and heat as a conserved fluid, the caloric, from modern thermal physics, when each theory is restricted to appropriate domains. Causes are real in science to the same degree as caloric and gravitational forces.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Norton, John D.
Additional Information:	Revised version published in Philosophers' Imprint http://www.philosophersimprint.org/003004/
Keywords:	cause causation causality determinism skepticism reduction
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics > Classical Physics General Issues > Causation General Issues > Reductionism/Holism General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism
Depositing User:	John Norton
Date Deposited:	05 Nov 2003
Last Modified:	07 Oct 2010 15:11
Item ID:	1214
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics > Classical Physics General Issues > Causation General Issues > Reductionism/Holism General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism
Date:	June 2003
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/1214

Commentary/Response Threads

• Norton, John D. Causation as Folk Science. (deposited 05 Nov 2003) [Currently Displayed]
  • Norton, John D. Causation as Folk Science (The Italian Translation). (deposited 05 Jun 2006)

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