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Causal Pluralism in Philosophy: Empirical Challenges and Alternative Proposals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Phuong (Phoebe) Ngoc Dinh  and
David Danks
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Abstract

An increasing number of arguments for causal pluralism invoke empirical psychological data. Different aspects of causal cognition—specifically, causal perception and causal inference—are thought to involve distinct cognitive processes and representations, and they thereby distinctively support transference and dependency theories of causation, respectively. We argue that this dualistic picture of causal concepts arises from methodological differences, rather than from an actual plurality of concepts. Hence, philosophical causal pluralism is not particularly supported by the empirical data. Serious engagement with cognitive science reveals that the connection between psychological concepts of causation and philosophical notions is substantially more complicated than is traditionally presumed.

Type
Causation
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 88 , Issue 5 , December 2021 , pp. 761 - 772
Copyright
Copyright 2021 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.

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