Jonathan L. Kvanvig - Causation: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide

CAUSATION

OXFORD BIBLIOGRAPHIES ONLINE RESEARCH GUIDE

Jonathan L. Kvanvig

Baylor University

2011 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

ISBN: 9780199808694

TABLE OF CONTENTS

OXFORD BIBLIOGRAPHIES ONLINE RESEARCH GUIDE

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OXFORD BIBLIOGRAPHIES ONLINE | Philosophy

Authority and Innovation for Scholarly Research Written by a leading international authority and bearing the Oxford University Press stamp of excellence, this article is a definitive guide to the most important resources on the topic. The article combines annotated citations, expert recommendations, and narrative pathways through the most important scholarly sources in both print and online formats. All materials recommended in this article were reviewed by the author, and the article has been organized in tiers ranging from general to highly specialized, saving valuable time by allowing researchers to easily narrow or broaden their focus among only the most trusted scholarly sources. This is just one of many articles within the subject area of Atlantic History, which is itself just one of the many subjects covered by Oxford Bibliographies Onlinea revolutionary resource designed to cut through academic information overload by guiding researchers to exactly the right book chapter, journal article, website, archive, or data set they need.

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INTRODUCTION

Causation is a notion that is put to work in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and even aesthetics. This bibliography addresses the main controversies surrounding this central notion itself, leaving to other entries in the relevant subfields the task of citing literature on causation relevant to the special concerns of these subdisciplines. The entry focuses on the nature of the causal relata, the objectivity of the relation, and its relation to the laws of nature, all of which have been subject to significant controversies. On the question of causal relata, the main controversy is whether it is events or facts that are related by causation, but there are alternative views as well. The ordinary assumption has been that causation is a real, objective feature of reality, but investigation of the ways in which the language of causation is context-sensitive raises questions about this assumption. In addition, a natural approach to causation is to identify it with the patterns of history that reflect the operation of laws of nature, but this regularity picture of causation has been challenged by defenders of singularity perspectives, according to which causation can occur without having any basis or connection with laws of nature. Both probabilistic and deterministic accounts will be treated, including the main alternatives in the latter camp.

GENERAL OVERVIEWS

There are hardly any general overviews of work on causation, but two deserve mention here. Already available is Hall 2008, which provides a relatively brief but quite valuable survey of many of the recent controversies concerning causation. More detailed is Beebee, et al. 2010, with articles by central figures in the area and providing broad and deep coverage of the major issues and controversies concerning causation.

Beebee, Helen, Christopher Hitchcock, and Peter Menzies, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Causation . New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Presents overviews and novel viewpoints about the entire range of causation, from its fundamental nature to how it relates to laws of nature and freedom of the will. Also addresses the epistemology of causation and the role of causation in ethics, such as the distinction between acts and omissions.

Hall, Ned. Causation. In The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy . Edited by Frank Jackson and Michael Smith, 505533. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

A detailed account of current work on causation, with a particularly useful taxonomy of the fundamental issues involved in the theory of causation.

REFERENCE WORKS

Among the best reference sources in philosophy on any subject is The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Its articles are written by leading figures in the field and are authoritative guides to their subject matter. Dowe 2007 discusses the recent work relying on the notion of a process to understand causation, and Menzies 2008 summarizes the highly popular approach to causation in terms of counterfactuals. Schaffer 2007 explores the underlying metaphysics involved in the notion of causation, and Woodward 2008 explores the approach to causation in terms of manipulation that is quite popular among social scientists and statisticians. Finally, Hitchcock 2002 provides an overview of the growing body of literature on the relationship between probability theory and causation.

Dowe, Phil. Causal Processes
URL: (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-process/). In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Edited by Edward N. Zalta. 2007.

Presents a clear and comprehensive account of recent approaches to causation in terms of the scientific notion of a process.

Hitchcock, Christopher. Probabilistic Causation
URL: (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-probabilistic/). In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Edited by Edward N. Zalta. 2002.

An overview of probabilistic accounts of causation, with an especially nice feature of suggested readings at the end of each section.

Menzies, Peter. Counterfactual Theories of Causation
URL: (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-counterfactual/). In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Edited by Edward N. Zalta. 2008.

A thorough survey of the most popular approach to causality in the past few decades, deriving from Lewiss seminal statement of the view in his 1973 paper Causation, originally published in the Journal of Philosophy 70, pp. 556567.

Schaffer, Jonathan. The Metaphysics of Causation
URL: (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-metaphysics/). In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Edited by Edward N. Zalta. 2007.

A well-structured entry on the various metaphysical issues arising within the topic of causation, containing an especially extensive bibliography.