Causality, Modality, and Explanation

Causality, Modality, and Explanation

We start with Fodor’s critique of cognitive science in [8]: he argues that much mental activity cannot be handled by the current methods of cognitive science because it is nonmonotonic and, therefore, is global in nature, is not context-free, and is thus not capable of being formalised by a Turing-like mental architecture. We look at the use of non-monotonic logic in the Artificial Intelligence...

Local Causality, Probability and Explanation

In papers published in the 25 years following his famous 1964 proof John Bell refined and reformulated his views on locality and causality. Although his formulations of local causality were in terms of probability, he had little to say about that notion. But assumptions about probability are implicit in his arguments and conclusions. Probability does not conform to these assumptions when quantu...

Explanation in Agent-Based Modelling: Functions, Causality or Mechanisms?

What kind of knowledge can we obtain from agent-based models? The claim that they help us to study the social world needs unpacking. I will defend agent-based modelling against a recent criticisms that undermine its potential as a method to investigate underlying mechanisms and provide explanations of social phenomena. I show that the criticism is unwarranted and the problem can be resolved wit...

Modality Differences in Timing: Testing the Pacemaker Speed Explanation

A classic effect in the timing field is that “sounds are judged longer than lights” (Goldstone, Boardman & Lhamon, 1959). Recently, judgements for tactile durations have been found to fall between the two (Jones, Poliakoff & Wells, 2009). These modality differences are commonly interpreted within scalar timing theory as the work of a central pacemaker which runs faster for sounds, then vibratio...

Time and Modality in Avicennan Logic