Problem: distinguish chance regularities from causal regularities. Lewis’s solution: use ideal theory – promote those regularities to causal that, under reflective equilibrium, given all the evidence, retain their regularity under a nearest possible worlds account of counterfactuals Thus, R2: A causes B iff B is later than A and there is a constant conjunction of events of type A and type B in ...

In this essay the authors explore the nature of efficient causal explanation in Newton’s Principia and The Opticks. It is argued that: (1) In the dynamical explanations of the Principia, Newton treats the phenomena under study as cases of Hall’s second kind of atypical causation. The underlying concept of causation is therefore a purely interventionist one. (2) In the descriptions of his optica...

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In teletraffic engineering, the effective design of wireless networks providing voice and data services at hot spots is of great practical importance. This paper presents a model of such networks in terms of a BMAP/ PH/N retrial queue. Due to the batch occurrence and high correlation of the traffic, it is decisive to choose the correct Batch Markovian Arrival (BMAP) representation of the empiri...

We have argued elsewhere that natural selection is not a cause of evolution, and that a resolution-of-forces (or vector addition) model does not provide us with a proper understanding of how natural selection combines with other evolutionary influences. These propositions have come in for criticism recently, and here we clarify and defend them. We do so within the broad framework of our own ‘hi...

This paper argues that functional states, and states defined in terms of them, cannot be causally relevant to the output or state transitions in terms of which those functional states are defined, or to intervening mechanisms or to anything to which their output is in turn causally relevant. Functional states therefore cannot be correctly invoked in what I call "simple causal explanations". Exp...

Clark Glymour is Alumni University Professor of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University, and Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition and John Pace Eminent Scholar at the University of West Florida. He is the author or coauthor of numerous articles and books, including “The Mind’s Arrows” (2001), “Computation, Causation and Discovery” (1999), and “Thinking Thi...

This survey presents some of the main principles involved in discovering causal relations. They belong to a large array of possible assumptions and conditions about causal relations, whose various combinations limit the possibilities of acquiring causal knowledge in different ways. How much and in what detail the causal structure can be discovered from what kinds of data depends on the particul...

Environmentalist concerns have moved centre stage in most major religious traditions of late and Buddhism is no exception to this rule. This paper shows that the canonical writings of Indic Buddhism possess elements that may harmonise with a //de facto// ecological consciousness. However, their basic attitude towards the causal process drastically reduces the possibility of developing an authen...