Explanation Beyond Causation Philosophical Perspectives on Non-Causal Explanations

by Reutlinger, Alexander; Saatsi, Juha

• ISBN13: 9780198777946
• ISBN10: 0198777949
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2018-08-28
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Author Biography

Alexander Reutlinger is Assistant Professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy). He works on topics in philosophy of science and neighboring areas of epistemology and metaphysics (including topics such as explanation, causation, probabilities, ceteris paribus laws, idealizations, reduction, and models).

Juha Saatsi is Associate Professor of Philosophy at University of Leeds. He is co-editor of The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Science (2014) and of The Structural Foundations of Quantum Gravity (OUP 2006).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Scientific Explanation Beyond Causation, Alexander Reutlinger and Juha Saatsi
Part I: General Approaches
1. Because without Cause: Scientific Explanation by Constraint, Marc Lange
2. Accommodating Explanatory Pluralism, Christopher Pincock
3. Eight Other Questions about Explanation, Angela Potochnik
4. Extending the Counterfactual Theory of Explanation, Alexander Reutlinger
5. The Mathematical Route to Causal Understanding, Michael Strevens
6. Some Varieties of Non-Causal Explanation, James Woodward
Part II: Case Studies from the Sciences
7. Searching for Non-Causal Explanations in the Sea of Causes, Alisa Bokulich
8. Efficient Coding Explanation in Neuroscience, Mazviita Chirimuuta
9. Symmetries and Explanatory Dependencies in Physics, Steven French and Juha Saatsi
10. The Non-Causal Character of Renormalization Group Explanations, Margaret Morrison
Part III: Beyond the Sciences
11. Two Flavours of Mathematical Explanation, Mark Colyvan, John Cusbert, and Kelvin McQueen
12. When Are Structural Equation Models Apt? Causation versus Grounding, Lina Jansson