Causes that make a difference

Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 104, Issue 11, 2007, Pages 551-579

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EID: 60950090490     PISSN: 0022362X     EISSN: 19398549     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/jphil2007104111     Document Type: Article

References (31)

1. Mill, A System of Logic (New York: Macmillan, 1950), p. 244.
2. Mackie, The Cement of the Universe (New York: Oxford, 1980), p. 120.
3. For a number of essays and references to essays arguing for"parity, " see Susan Oyama, Paul E. Griffiths, and Russell D. Gray, eds., Cycles of Contingency (Cambridge: MIT, 2001).
4. For example, see Oyama, Evolution's Eye (Durham, NC: Duke, 2000).
5. For example, see Lenny Moss, What Genes Can't Do (Cambridge: MIT, 2003),
6. and Jason Scott Roberts, Embryology, Epigenesis, and Evolution: Taking Development Seriously (New York: Cambridge, 2004).
7. See Moss, What Genes Can't Do.
8. Alternatively, one might perform a linguistic analysis of the terms (suchas 'gene action') or a comparative analysis of metaphors (for example, see Evelyn Fox Keller, Century of the Gene (Cambridge: Harvard, 2000)). While suchapproaches identify biases of classical geneticists, they do not necessarilyidentify the concepts doing the work in explanations of concrete phenomena. Myaim here is to reconstruct the reasoning that made the experimental science workin the laboratory and might reasonably be extended beyond the laboratory.
9. I describe this experiment more fully, establish the typicality of theexplanatory reasoning examined here, and discuss the larger context ofinvestigative reasoning in which this experiment was conducted in C. Kenneth Waters, "What Was Classical Genetics?, " Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, A XXXV (2004): 783-809.
10. For further argumentation on this point and the difference principlestated below, see Waters, "Genes Made Molecular, " Philosophy of Science, LXI (1994): 163-85.
11. Fred Gifford and Lisa Gannett also stress the importance of differencemaking in the context of genetics - see Gifford, "Genetic Trait, "Biology and Philosophy, V (1990): 327-47,
12. and Gannett, "What's in a Cause? The Pragmatic Dimensions of Genetic Explanations, " Biology and Philosophy, XIV (1999): 349-74.
13. Morgan, The Theory of the Gene (New Haven: Yale, 1926), pp. 305-06.
14. Prominent philosophical accounts include R.G. Collingwood, An Essay on Metaphysics (New York: Oxford, 1940),
15. D. Gasking, "Causation and Recipes, " Mind, LXIV (1955): 479-87,
16. Georg Henrik von Wright, Explanation and Understanding (Ithaca, NY:Cornell, 1971),
17. and Peter Menzies and Huw Price, "Causation as a Secondary Quality, " British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, XLIV (1993):187-203.
18. Accounts developed by nonphilosophers include Thomas D. Cook and Donald T. Campbell, Quasi-Experimentation: Design and Analysis Issues for Field Settings (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979),
19. and Judea Pearl, Causality (New York: Cambridge, 2000).
20. Woodward, Making Things Happen (New York: Oxford, 2003), p. 40.
21. See Woodward, Making Things Happen, pp. 74-86.
22. Quoted from Morgan, The Theory of the Gene, pp. 305-06. Woodward takesreaders through a complicated attempt to deal with examples of actual causation, which fails because he tries to identify 'the' in the context of singletoncausal events. I discuss the problem with such attempts later in this paper. Myaim here is to show that the problem of picking out the actual difference makingcause arises within his theoretical framework. I prefer to offer a solutionwithin his framework that works rather than present a detailed argument aboutwhy his tentative analysis of a similar problem will not do the job.
23. Even Jonathan Schaffer, who comes closest to offering an ontologicalaccount, appeals to pragmatic factors to resolve the selection problem. See Schaffer, "Contrastive Causation, " Philosophical Review, CXIV (2005):297-328.
24. Other aspects relevant to a fuller account of this issue are in Waters, "What Was Classical Genetics?, "
25. and Waters, "A Pluralist Interpretation of Gene-Centered Biology, " in Stephen Kellert, Helen Longino, and Waters, eds., Scientific Pluralism: Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume XIX(Minneapolis: Minnesota UP, 2006), pp. 190-214,
26. and Waters, "Beyond Theoretical Reductionism and Layer-Cake Antireductionism: How DNA Retooled Genetics and Transformed Biological Practice, " in Michael Ruse and David Hull, eds., Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Biology (forthcoming).
27. Lewis, "Causation as Influence, " this JOURNAL, XCVII, 4 (April2000): 182-97. Conversations with Chris Hitchcock and Jim Woodward helped medevelop this idea. Woodward pointed out that my ideas about causal specificityhad a lot in common with Lewis's ideas about causal influence.
28. See Waters, "What Was Classical Genetics?, "
29. Waters, "A Pluralist Interpretation of Gene-Centered Biology, "
30. and Waters, "Beyond Theoretical Reductionism and Layer-Cake Antireductionism: How DNA Retooled Genetics and Transformed Biological Practice."
31. Patricia W. Cheng, "From Covariation to Causation: A Causal Power Theory, " Psychological Review, CIV, 2 (1997): 367-405.