Causal reasoning

Kant’s justification of a transeunt account of causal interaction – contra Hume – is not in the Second Analogy of Experience alone, but in all three Analogies conjointly. Officially the Critique of Pure Reason aims to justify our use of the general causal principle: Every event has a cause. The relevant causal principle is more specific: Every spatio-temporal event has a distinct spatio-temporal cause. The Critically justified use of this specific principle is still more specific, because this regulative principle of causal inquiry obtains constitutive significance only by making true and justified causal judgments about particular causal relations amongst spatio-temporal phenomena. Identifying actual causal relations requires conjoint use of all three principles of causal judgment because causal judgments are discriminatory: we can identify any one causal relation only by distinguishing it from causally possible alternative scenarios. Kant’s analysis of legitimate causal judgments bears upon such issues as ‘relevant alternatives’ in epistemology, justificatory fallibilism, the role of imagination in cognitive judgment and the semantics of singular cognitive reference (predication as a cognitive achievement, not merely as a grammatical or logical form). Kant’s analysis of causal judgment and its a priori transcendental conditions hold independently of Transcendental Idealism, because Kant’s ‘Analytic of Principles’ (to which the ‘Analogies’ belong) is a transcendental ‘Doctrine of the Power Judgment’ (B171ff).

Counterfactual conditionals are used extensively in causal reasoning. This observation has motivated a philosophical tradition that aims to provide a counterfactual analysis of causation. However, such analyses have come under pressure from a proliferation of counterexamples and from evidence that suggests that the truth-conditions of counterfactuals are themselves causal. I offer an alternative account of the role of counterfactuals in causal thought that is consistent with these data: counterfactuals are used in a common method of causal reasoning related to John Stuart Mill's method of difference. The method uses background beliefs about causal relationships, history, and the natural laws to establish a new causal claim. Counterfactuals serve as a convenient tool for stating certain intermediate conclusions in this reasoning procedure, and that is part of what makes counterfactuals useful. This account yields a functional explanation of why our language contains a construction with the truth-conditions of counterfactuals. 3 For an interesting alternative explanation of the connection between causation and counterfactuals, see Maudlin (2004). 4 I do not claim that that is the only function of counterfactual conditionals. They clearly also serve other purposes, e.g. in making practical decisions.

In immanent justice reasoning, negative events are attributed to some prior moral failing, even in the absence of a physically plausible causal link between them. Drawing on just-world theory, we examined immanent justice reasoning as an intuitive, deservingness-guided form of causal judgment. Participants were exposed to a story about a man who either did or did not cheat on his wife and who was subsequently injured in a car accident. Under either high or low cognitive load, participants rated the extent to which they believed the accident was the result of the man's prior moral failings. The results showed that participants causally attributed the man's accident to his prior conduct when he was immoral (vs. not immoral) more strongly under high cognitive load. Further, moderated mediation analyses showed that perceived deservingness of the accident mediated the effect of the man's prior immoral behavior on immanent justice attributions more strongly under high cognitive load. These results offer support for the notion that immanent justice attributions reflect an automatic tendency to assume that people get what they deserve.

Purpose To consider wrong intraocular lens (IOL) implant events in cataract surgical care reported through a national incident reporting database. To propose potential solutions for such events where possible. Methods Thematic retrospective review of wrong IOL implantation incidents, as reported through clinical incident reporting methods in NHS care in England and Wales from 2003 to 2010, ascertained from database mining at the National Patient Safety Agency. Results In total, 164 patient safety incident (PSI) reports of wrong IOL implantation were located from the study period and considered. There were 47 reports where further surgical intervention was required. All, but one of these required IOL exchange surgery. A total of 62 reports did not provide any causal reason for the wrong IOL implantation and thus provide little if any potential learning. Inaccurate biometry (n ¼ 29), wrong IOL selection (n ¼ 21), transcription errors (n ¼ 10) and handwriting misinterpretations (n ¼ 7) were causal reasons reported and are thus potential areas for ophthalmic teams to review and improve practice. Conclusion Although infrequent, biometry/ IOL implant errors or wrong implants do occasionally occur during cataract care and are thus a threat to quality. There is room for improvement in incident reporting in NHS cataract care as root causation of error was usually lacking in the PSI reports. Nevertheless, lessons for improvement of care from a national incident reporting database for a frequently undertaken surgical procedure were found. Suggestions are proposed for improving quality by reducing wrong IOL problems in cataract care based on analysis of such reports.

Agent-based social simulations are typically described in imperative form. While this facilitates implementation as computer programs, it makes implicit the different assumptions made, both about the functional form and the causal ordering involved. As a solution to the problem, a probabilistic graphical model, Action Network (AN), is proposed in this paper for social simulation. Simulation variables are represented by nodes, and causal links by edges. An Action Table is associated with each node, describing incremental probabilistic actions to be performed in response to fuzzy parental states. AN offers a graphical causal model that captures the dynamics of a social process. The details of the formalism are presented, along with illustrative examples. A software implementing the formalism is available in http://actionnetwork.epizy.com.

Binding specificity​ is a centrally important concept in molecular biology, yet it has received little philosophical attention. Here I aim to remedy this by analyzing binding specificity as a causal property. I focus on the concept's role in drug design, where it is highly prized and hence directly studied: From a causal perspective, understanding why binding specificity is a valuable property of drugs contributes to an understanding of causal selection​ ーof how and why scientists distinguish between causes, not just causes from non-causes. In particular, the specificity of drugs is precisely what underwrites their value as experimental interventions on biological processes.

An experiment was conducted to investigate the relative contributions of syntactic form and content to conditional reasoning. The content domain chosen was that of causation. Conditional statements that described causal relationships (if (cause>, then (effect>) were embedded in simple arguments whose entailments are governed by the rules-oftruth-functional logic (i.e., modus ponens, modus tollens, denying the antecedent, and affirming the consequent). The causal statements differed in terms ofthe number of alternative causes and disabling conditions that characterized the causal relationship. (A disabling condition is an event that prevents an effect from occurring even though a relevant cause is present.) Subjects were required to judge whether or not each argument's conclusion could be accepted. Judgments were found to vary systematically with the number of alternative causes and disabling conditions. Conclusions of arguments based on conditionals with few alternative causes or disabling conditionswerefoun~d:tobe-rnore accept~ able than cdnclusions based on those with many.

The COVID-19 outbreak in December 2019 is an unprecedented modern global pandemic. With no vaccination in sight, policy makers are left with transmission and contact reduction interventions to slow the virus spread [6]. However, many of these measures accrue enormous economic costs. Stay-at-home orders and business closures in particular have severe economic consequences forcing policy makers to decide between "flattening the curve" [10] or re-mobilizing the economy [11]. As a result, it is critical to understand the effectiveness of such measures. A common, but limited and misleading, approach of understanding the effectiveness of a reduction strategy is to compare a regions with and without reduction measures. The fallacy in drawing conclusions from such comparisons is that the comparison does not constitute a properly randomized control trial. Although running randomized control trials are impossible in this case, the method of "synthetic control" provides a solution for answer counterfactual "what if" questions [3, 2].

In this paper we examine the ability to perform causal reasoning with recursive equilibrium models. We identify a critical postulate, which we term the Manipulation Postulate, that is required in order to perform causal inference, and we prove that there exists a general class F of recursive equilibrium models that violate the Manipulation Postulate. We relate this class to the existing phenomenon of reversibility and show that all models in F display reversible behavior, thereby providing an explanation for reversibility and suggesting that it is a special case of a more general and perhaps widespread problem. We also show that all models in F possess a set of variables V’ whose manipulation will cause an instability such that no equilibrium model will exist for the system. We define the Structural Stability Principle which provides a graphical criterion for stability in causal models. Our theorems suggest that drastically incorrect inferences may be obtained when applying the Manipulation Postulate to equilibrium models, a result which has implications for current work on causal modeling, especially causal discovery from data.

Causal reasoning can be seen as the backbone of science in aiming at the attainment of stable, transferable, and replicable knowledge. In the empirical sciences , gathering data helps the researcher in forming an opinion about the investigated causal hypothesis. What makes collected data evidence for or against such a hypothesis is its interpretation in light of the indicative traces the hypothetical causal association entails. In this paper, I will first collect the pivotal causal indicators. I will then revisit the literature on causation and put on different hats in reassessing how theory choice influences the relationships amongst this set of indicators. I will finally argue that, for the precise formulations proposed, utilizing all four indicators (i) presents a resolution to seemingly conflicting perspectives in the causal literature, and (ii) paves the way towards an enriched picture of scientific instruction, prediction, and explanation across the conceptual fences of different causal theories.

We argue that Koch's postulates are best understood within an interventionist account of causation, in the sense described in Woodward (2003). We show how this treatment helps to resolve interpretive puzzles associated with Koch's work and how it clarifies the different roles the postulates play in providing useful, yet not universal criteria for disease causation. Our paper is an effort at rational reconstruction; we attempt to show how Koch's postulates and reasoning make sense and are normatively justified within an interventionist framework and more difficult to understand within alternative frameworks for thinking about causation.

Learning in complex and ill-structured knowledge domains requires accommodation of multiple perspectives embedded 11 in authentic activities and the reconciliation of those perspectives with personal beliefs resulting in conceptual change. Cog-12 nitive flexibility hypertext systems support that process by enabling learners to explore authentic cases from multiple the-13 matic perspectives [Spiro, R. J., & Jehng, J. -C., (1990). Cognitive flexibility and hypertext: theory and technology for the 14 non-linear and multidimensional traversal of complex subject matter. In D. Nix, & R. J. Spiro, (Eds.), Cognition, education 15 and multimedia: Exploring ideas in high technology. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates]. Study 1 showed that 16

Reasons transmit. If one has a reason to attain an end, then one has a reason to effect means for that end: reasons are transmitted from end to means. I argue that the likelihood ratio is a compelling measure of reason transmission from ends to means. The likelihood ratio measure is superior to other measures, can be used to construct a condition specifying precisely when reasons transmit, and satisfies intuitions regarding end-means reason transmission in a broad array of cases.

RE: Facades, illusions & ideological concepts created & promoted by ancient royalty out of necessity; effective creation of an alternate version of reality. It is only by knowing this information that the true nature of ancient texts may be understood correctly. Not knowing, means making incorrect assumptions & conclusions. Important!

In this paper we investigate the form and function of causal adverbial clauses, which haveneverbeensystematicallystudiedfromacross-linguisticpointofview.Usingdata from60languages,itisshownthatcausalclausestendtobemoreindependentofthe associated main clause than other semantic types of adverbial clauses. In contrast to temporal and conditional clauses, causal clauses predominantly follow the (main) clause, include the same non-reduced verb forms as independent sentences, and are often intonationally separated from the semantically related clause. We argue that the particularstructuralpropertiesofcausalclausesaremotivatedbytheircommunicative function in speaker-hearer interactions. Drawing on conversational data from English, German, Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, we show that causal clauses are commonly usedtosupportapreviousstatementthathasbeenchallengedbythehearer.Inthisuse, causal adverbial clauses function as independent assertions that are only loosely combinedwiththeassociatedmainclause.

A new cognitive approach to religion is bringing fresh insights to our understanding of how religious concepts are maintained, acquired and used to motivate and direct actions. This approach suggests that seemingly extraordinary thoughts and behaviours can be supported by quite ordinary cognition and may thus be termed 'natural'. Simultaneously, this research is expanding the domain of concepts and causal reasoning in general. This review examines recent research into religious rituals, communication and transmission of religious knowledge, the development of god-concepts in children, and the origins and character of religious concepts in adults. Together, these studies consistently emphasize and support the notion that the cultural phenomena typically labeled as 'religion' may be understood as the product of aggregated ordinary cognition. The new cognitive science of religion should eventually provide a fuller account of the distinctive and apparently extraordinary properties of religion. tel: ϩ1 616 957 6745 fax: ϩ1 616 957 8551

This paper shows why the non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function ζ must always be on the critical line Re(s) = 1/2 and not anywhere else on the critical strip bounded by Re(s) = 0 and Re(s) = 1, thus affirming the validity of the Riemann hypothesis. MSC: 11-XX (Number Theory)

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. This content downloaded from 132.198.50.13 on Thu, Abstract -This article provides a critique of Marshall Sahlins' characterization of classic theories of causality in social anthropology. It demonstrates that Sahlins creates a caricature of the anthropological record that vastly oversimplifies the wealth of ideas concerning causality actually found in classic sources. In focusing on a critique of past references to the role of "nature" and material causation, Sahlins overlooks other forms of causality discussed in classic texts and fails to critically interrogate the category of "culture" or the role of cultural construction. Now that cultural constructionism is taking on the patina of assumed knowledge in anthropology, it is vital that we go beyond an "either nature or culture" approach to an exploration of the situations, extent, and ways in which both may contribute to the dynamics of human experience.

According to our view, inferential approaches to legal liability (including cases of pre-emption), embedded in a dialogical framework yield a quite intuitive implementation of Armgardt's proposal to respond to Moore's (2010) study of cases of causal overdetermination in Law, provided the deployment of a fully interpreted language as the one of Martin-Löf's (1984) Constructive Type Theory is casted in a dialogical framework-rather than in a possible-world one-, whereby (1) hypothetical judgements (involving non-actualized tokens) can be explicitly distinguished from categorical conditional judgements, (2) tokens of actions can be introduced as explicit denizens of the object-language, (3) actual harm/tort events are analysed as tokens dependent upon tokens of their (putative) causes-i.e. as (multi) functions over tokens of their causes, (4) tokens of actions can be "enriched" with a timing function. The paper will be divided in two main parts.. The first one follows Armgardt's strategy to start by establishing collective Liability and proceed afterwards with the identification of individual Liability. The second main part, proposes a framework for the attribution of individual responsibility with regard to the determination of individual Causation. This second way is led by the rationale that legally liable is the one who caused the damage, individually or in association with others.

In the Second Analogy of the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), Kant attempts to address Hume’s causal skepticism. Kant argues that the concept of cause must be employed in order to identify objective changes in the world, and that, therefore, all events are caused. In this paper, I will challenge Kant’s argument in the Second Analogy, arguing that we can identify objective changes without using the concept of cause, but by using the concept of logical condition instead. Rather than objectively ordering our perceptions through the idea that one thing that was perceived is the cause of the next thing that was perceived, the first necessitating the second, we can objectively order our perceptions through the idea that the first thing perceived is the logical condition of the second. In terms of Kant’s debate with Hume, I find that, though my objection undermines some of Hume’s own conclusions, it does allow Hume to avoid Kant’s argument against his causal skepticism.

Article based on paper presented as part of Panel 24: ‘Looting, Refusing, Negating, Embodying’ ‘Critical Refusals’ Fourth Biennal Conference of the International Herbert Marcuse Society, University of Pennsylvania, 27-29th October 2011

http://www.pdcnet.org/radphilrev/content/radphilrev_2013_0016_0001_0375_0385

http://web.asc.upenn.edu/news/Critical_Refusals_Conference.pdf

This essay makes three connected claims. First, following the Stoics, Locke assigns a motivational and not merely justificatory role to the law of nature that features prominently in the earlier Essays. Second, the hedonism prominent in later editions of the Essay has a justificatory and not merely motivational role, since, like ancient eudaimonists, Locke permits an objective ranking of certain pleasures and pains, and these operate within his theory as constituents of an objectively conceived human good, not merely as motivational sanctions. Third, the characteristic feature of rational agency, as developed in later editions of the Essay, is a capacity to evaluate and alter the strength of various pressing occurrent motives, through suspension and reflection, in the light of the rational authority and motivational power of moral law and individual happiness. The upshot is that Locke's theory is better integrated than some have supposed, while drawing heavily on ancient precedents.

Philosophical works on actual causation make wide use of thought experiments. The principal aim of this paper is to show how thought experiments are used in the contemporary debate over actual causation and to discuss their role in relation to formal approaches in terms of causal models. I claim that a recourse to thought experiments is not something old fashioned or superseded by abstract models, but it is useful to interpret abstract models themselves and to use our intuitions to judge the results of the model. Recent research on actual causation has stressed the importance of integrating formal models with some notion of normality; I suggest that thought experiments can be useful in eliciting intuitions where normality is not intended in a statistical sense. The first expository part (1–3) gives a short presentation of the notion of actual causation, summarising some typical problems of counterfactual approaches and how they are treated in causal and structural models. The second part (4–7) works on the problems of model isomorphism and criticises some radical ideas opposing the role of mental experiments, claiming that they may also be of use in evaluating formal models.

The case of remembering poses a particular challenge to theories of situated cognition, and its successful treatment within
this framework will require a more dramatic integration of levels, fields, and methods than has yet been achieved. The challenge arises from the fact that memory often takes us out of the current situation: in remembering episodes or experiences in my personal
past, for example, I am mentally transported away from the social and physical setting in which I am currently embedded. Our ability
to make psychological contact with events and experiences in the past was one motivation, in classical cognitive science and cognitive psychology, for postulating inner mental representations to hold information across the temporal gap. Theorists of situated cognition thus have to show how such an apparently representation-hungry and decoupled high-level cognitive process may nonetheless be fruitfully understood as embodied, contextualized, and distributed.

... Free Will: a historical and philosophical introduction jej autor, Ilham Dilman, przenikają karty najstarszych dzieł literatury greckiej [Dilman, 1999]. ... świadomej woli: „plany działania nie wydają się wymuszać zachowa-nia w tym sensie, iż jeśli pojawi się dany plan, dochodzi do ...

This paper shows why the non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function ζ will always be on the critical line Re(s) = 1/2 and not anywhere else on the critical strip bounded by Re(s) = 0 and Re(s) = 1, thus affirming the validity of the Riemann hypothesis. [The paper is published in a journal of number theory.]

Zusammenfassung Exploratives Experimentieren schafft vielfältige Bedingungen und beobachtet deren Folgen zur systematischen Untersuchung von Ereignismengen hinsichtlich Bedingung-Folge-Verhältnissen. Dabei müssen bestimmende notwendige Bedingungen von begleitenden notwendigen Bedingungen sowie von begleitenden zufälligen Umständen unterschieden werden. Diese werden in konkreten Experimenten vermöge Variation und Kontrolle (Konstanthaltung, Minimierung) von Bedingungen/Umständen empirisch untersucht. Dafür stehen die von J. S. Mill entwickelten Methoden zur Verfügung: Übereinstimmungsmethode, Differenzenmethode, indirekte Differenzenmethode, Residuenmethode, Variationsmethode. Sie führen zwar nicht zu endgültiger Sicherheit bezüglich eindeutiger Bestimmtheit der Komponenten von Bedingung-Folge-Verhältnissen, geben aber eine solide Grundlage ab für sachgemäße Ideenbildungen im Hinblick auf die Entdeckung von Gesetzen der anorganischen Natur. Das einzelne ideale naturwissenschaftliche ...

A pesar del vasto volumen de investigación científica sobre el aprendizaje y la enseñanza de la producción escrita, a menudo puede atestiguarse una falta de correspondencia entre la teoría y la praxis en las aulas de secundaria. Este trabajo final de máster pretende ofrecer un marco de referencia y unas pautas de mejora de la actuación docente en la enseñanza de la producción escrita en la asignatura de Lengua Castellana y Literatura de 4º de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria. Primero que todo, se identifican los problemas metodológicos y de contenido principales que la enseñanza de la producción escrita presenta en las aulas de secundaria. En segundo lugar, se indaga en los fundamentos teóricos sobre el desarrollo y la enseñanza de la producción escrita. A este respecto, se atiende a los factores sociales y cognitivos implicados en el desarrollo de la composición escrita, así como a su enseñanza como un proceso compuesto por distintas fases que exigen estrategias específicas. Además, se examina la relación de la producción textual con el conocimiento gramatical, abogando por las propiedades textuales de coherencia y cohesión como terreno de encuentro entre estos dos aspectos. En particular, el trabajo se centra en la enseñanza de la composición de un texto expositivo de análisis de causas en vinculación con el conocimiento gramatical de la oración subordinada adverbial causal y aporta unas orientaciones de actuación docente en la forma de una secuencia didáctica para ese nivel.

This article presents the results of our effort in specifying the minimal common sense conceptualization used in reasoning about legal causal matters. Coming from t he humanistic side of formal ontology, we give priorit y to the intuitive definitions, rather than to the technical formalization of the contents of our ontology. We t herefore introduce all the material in natural

Instead going straight into dealing with specific approaches, issues, and domains of computational cognitive modeling, it would be more appropriate to first take some time to explore a few general questions that lie at the very core of cognitive science and computational cognitive modeling.

This classroom-based study investigated the development of learners’ ability to summarize short stories in English in a way that requires them "to attribute intentions and mental states to others and reason from this to a conclusion about why others performed certain actions"(Robinson, 2010: 253). Two groups of 30 second-year Japanese English majors completed a similar reading and discussion course. In both of the sections, learners were acquainted with the task and goals, and provided with the same amount of reading, discussion and task performance opportunities. However, in one group, instruction followed the SSARC model of task sequencing (Robinson, 2010), whereas in the other group learners were left to their own devices in using the classroom activities to reach the task performance goal in their own ways. Written pre-test and post-test scores were compared between and within groups to determine whether and to what extent learning outcomes varied. Although findings showed that the SSARC group demonstrated a consistently higher rate of gain over the course of instruction, and felt the course to be better suited to their level of ability, there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups on measures of the syntactic complexity, intentional reasoning or grammatical accuracy of story summaries following the respective courses of instruction.

Walter Edward Young (2019). Concomitance to Causation: Arguing Dawarān in the Proto-Ādāb al-Baḥth. In Peter Adamson (Editor), Philosophy and Jurisprudence in the Islamic World (pp. 205–282). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110552386-013

Book abstract. Since the ground-breaking work of Saul Kripke, David Lewis, and others in the 1960s and 70s, one dominant interest of analytic philosophers has been in modal truths, which concern the question what is possible and what is necessary. However, there is considerable controversy over the source and nature of necessity. In Modality and Explanatory Reasoning, Boris Kment takes a novel approach to the study of modality that places special emphasis on understanding the origin of modal notions in everyday thought.
    Kment argues that the concepts of necessity and possibility originate in a common type of thought experiment—counterfactual reasoning—that allows us to investigate explanatory connections. This procedure is closely related to the controlled experiments of empirical science. Necessity is defined in terms of causation and other forms of explanation such as grounding, a relation that connects metaphysically fundamental facts to non-fundamental ones. Therefore, contrary to a widespread view, explanation is more fundamental than modality. The study of modal facts is important for philosophy, not because these facts are of much metaphysical interest in their own right, but because they provide evidence about explanatory relationships.
    In the course of developing this position, the book offers new accounts of possible and impossible worlds, counterfactual conditionals, essential truths and their role in grounding, and a novel theory of how counterfactuals relate to causation and explanation.

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Dual-process theories of higher order cognition (DPTs) have been enjoying much success, particularly since Kahneman's 2002 Nobel prize address and recent book Thinking, Fast and Slow (2009). Historically, DPTs have attempted to provide a conceptual framework that helps classify and predict differences in patterns of behavior found under some circumstances and not others in a host of reasoning, judgment, and decision-making tasks. As evidence has changed and techniques for examining behavior have moved on, so too have DPTs. Killing two birds with one stone, Evans and Stanovich (2013, this issue) respond to five main criticisms of DPTs. Along with addressing each criticism in turn, they set out to clarify the essential defining characteristics that distinguish one form of higher order cognition from the other. The aim of this commentary is to consider the defining characteristics of Type 1 and Type 2 processing that have been proposed and to suggest that the evidence can be taken to support quantitative differences rather than qualitatively distinct processes.

One of Stuart Glennan's most prominent contributions to the new mechanist debate consists in his reductive analysis of higher-level causation in terms of mechanisms (Glennan, 1996). In this paper I employ the causal Bayes net framework to reconstruct his analysis. This allows for specifying general assumptions which have to be satis ed to get Glennan's approach working. I show that once these assumptions are in place, they imply (against the background of the causal Bayes net machinery) that higher-level causation indeed reduces to interactions between component parts of mechanisms. I also briefly discuss the plausibility of these assumptions and some consequences for the mechanism debate.

Citation information: Gebharter, A. (2022). A causal Bayes net analysis of Glennan’s mechanistic account of higher-level causation (and some consequences). British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 73(1), 185-210. doi:10.1093/bjps/axz034

Formulare un giudizio causale significa distinguere, entro l'insieme di circostanze nelle quali un certo fenomeno ha luogo, quelle che ne possono essere indicate come cause: i nostri giudizi causali, dunque, comportano sempre un riferimento, implicito o esplicito, ad un contesto, e la loro affidabilità dipende in maniera sostanziale dall'accuratezza con cui il contesto viene considerato. Tuttavia, la corretta individuazione del contesto delle relazioni causali non è semplice: di fatto, come ha osservato P. Suppes, «il problema di come maneggiare lo sfondo che serve da contesto [framework] per l'occorrenza dei particolari eventi che vogliamo studiare è forse uno degli aspetti più complicati e difficili dell'analisi della causalità» 1. Che cosa rende il " problema del contesto " così difficile? Detto brevemente, il fatto che una considerazione affidabile del contesto dovrebbe impegnarci nell'impossibile impresa di elencare tutte le circostanze che precedono l'effetto (ed eventualmente quelle ad esso simultanee), o, in alternativa, in una selezione delle circostanze rilevanti; ma " circostanze rilevanti " significa " circostanze causalmente rilevanti " ; dunque, per essere in grado di appurare se tra due eventi esiste un nesso causale, dovremmo già disporre della conoscenza delle relazioni causali che sussistono nel dominio considerato. Mi riferirò nel seguito a questo specifico problema come al " problema della circolarità ". In questo lavoro propongo (nel Paragrafo 5.1) una distinzione tra due tipi di contestualità legati alla nozione di causa: il primo, chiamato " contesto di indagine " , stabilisce, per così dire, la prospettiva epistemica dei giudizi causali, imponendo una prima selezione dei fattori potenzialmente rilevanti ai fini del giudizio causale; il secondo, denominato " contesto di occorrenza " , si compone di quei fattori che, all'interno del dominio di indagine prescelto, vanno effettivamente considerati nella valutazione di una relazione causale. I problemi legati alla dipendenza contestuale e alla circolarità emergono con particolare chiarezza se, in accordo con un ampio settore della ricerca recente sulla causalità, si considerano le relazioni tra cause e probabilità (Paragrafi 5.2 e 5.33). Da questa prospettiva, si può mostrare (Paragrafi 5.4 e 5.5) che il problema della circolarità può essere eliminato, o fortemente ridotto, nel contesto di occorrenza. Tuttavia, poiché il contesto di occorrenza dipende dal contesto di indagine, l'eliminazione della circolarità dal contesto di occorrenza non equivale a una eliminazione completa (Paragrafo 5.6).

This monograph investigates the temporal interpretation of narrative discourse in two parts. The theme of the first part is narrative progression. It begins with a case study of the adverb ‘now’ and its interaction with the meaning of tense. The case study motivates an ontological distinction between events, states and times and proposes that ‘now’ seeks a prominent state that holds throughout the time described by the tense. Building on prior research, prominence is shown to be influenced by principles of discourse coherence and two coherence principles, NARRATION and RESULT, are given a formally explicit characterization. The key innovation is a new method for testing the definitional adequacy of NARRATION and RESULT, namely by an abductive argument. This contribution opens a new way of thinking about how eventive and stative descriptions contribute to the perceived narrative progression in a discourse.

The theme of the second part of the monograph is the semantics and pragmatics of tense. A key innovation is that the present and past tenses are treated as scalar alternatives, a view that is motivated by adopting a particular hypothesis concerning stative predication. The proposed analysis accounts for tense in both matrix clauses and in complements of propositional attitudes, where the notorious double access reading arises. This reading is explored as part of a corpus study that provides a glimpse of how tense semantics interacts with Gricean principles and at-issueness. Several cross-linguistic predictions of the analysis are considered, including their consequences for the Sequence of Tense phenomenon and the Upper Limit Constraint. Finally, a hypothesis is provided about how tense meanings compose with temporal adverbs and verb phrases. Two influential analysis of viewpoint aspect are then compared in light of the hypothesis.

The monograph is directed at graduate students and researchers in semantics, pragmatics and philosophy of language. The analysis of narrative discourse that is developed in the monograph synthesizes and builds on prior collaborative research with Corien Bary, Valentine Hacquard, Thomas Roberts, Roger Schwarzschild, Una Stojnić, Károly Varasdi and Aaron White.

Soziologie und Sozialforschung sind nicht einfach zwei Lager innerhalb desselben Territoriums. Vielmehr handelt es sich um zwei verschiedene Arten Territorien abzustecken und sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung zu betreiben. Das bedeutet, dass sowohl die Soziologie als auch die Sozialforschung ihre jeweils eigenen Theorien und Methoden entwickeln und anwenden. Beide brauchen sowohl Theorie als auch Methode und entwickeln daher auch beides. Insofern ist es problematisch, sie als untrennbare Einheit zu begreifen und sie darüber hinaus, was das eigentlich Fatale ist, in ein Verhältnis von Theorie auf der einen und Methode auf der anderen Seite zu bringen.
Weil es an Anerkennung dieser Differenz fehlt, haben sich die Fronten zwischen ihnen immer mehr verhärtet. Was als Vernunftehe begonnen hat, ist nun zur Hassliebe geworden. Einer scheiternden Ehe ähnlich, hagelt es einerseits laufend Vorwürfe, das man sich wechselseitig zu wenig Beachtung schenkt, aber man findet andererseits immer auch gute Gründe, sich nicht zu trennen: vor allem die gemeinsamen Kinder.

Discussions of the evolution of intelligence have focused on monkeys and apes because of their close evolutionary relationship to humans. Other large-brained social animals, such as corvids, also understand their physical and social worlds. Here we review recent studies of tool manufacture, mental time travel, and social cognition in corvids, and suggest that complex cognition depends on a ''tool kit'' consisting of causal reasoning, flexibility, imagination, and prospection. Because corvids and apes share these cognitive tools, we argue that complex cognitive abilities evolved multiple times in distantly related species with vastly different brain structures in order to solve similar socioecological problems.