Causality and explanation
Title:
Causality and explanation
JLCTITLE245:
Wesley C. Salmon.
Personal Author:
Publication Information:
New York ; Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1998.
Physical Description:
xiv, 434 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
ISBN:
9780195108637
9780195108644
Abstract:
For over two decades Wesley Salmon has helped to shape the course of debate in philosophy of science. He is a major contributor to the philosophical discussion of problems associated with causality and the author of two influential books on scientific explanation. This volume collects twenty-six of Salmon's essays, including seven that have never before been published and others difficult to find.
Bibliography Note:
Includes bibliographical references (p. 405-415) and index.
Contents:
Pt. I. Introductory Essays: Causality, Determinism, and Explanation. 1. A New Look at Causality. 2. Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Science. 3. Comets, Pollen, and Dreams: Some Reflections on Scientific Explanation. 4. Scientific Explanation: Causation and Unification. 5. The Importance of Scientific Understanding -- Pt. II. Scientific Explanation. 6. A Third Dogma of Empiricism. 7. Causal and Theoretical Explanation. 8. Why Ask, "Why?"?: An Inquiry Concerning Scientific Explanation. 9. Deductivism Visited and Revisited. 10. Explanatory Assymetry: A Letter to Professor Adolf Grunbaum from His Friend and Colleague. 11. Van Fraassen on Explanation / Wesley C. Salmon and Philip Kitcher -- Pt. III. Causality. 12. An "At-At" Theory of Causal Influence. 13. Causal Propensities: Statistical Causality versus Aleatory Causality. 14. Probabilistic Causality. 15. Intuitions - Good and Not-So-Good. 16. Causality without Counterfactuals. 17. Indeterminacy, Indeterminism, and Quantum Mechanics -- Pt. IV. Concise Overviews. 18. Causality: Production and Propagation. 19. Scientific Explanation: How We Got from There to Here. 20. Scientific Explanation: Three Basic Conceptions -- Pt. V. Applications to Other Disciplines: Archaeology and Anthropology, Astrophysics and Cosmology, and Physics. 21. Alternative Models of Scientific Explanation / Wesley C. Salmon and Merrilee H. Salmon. 22. Causality in Archaeological Explanation. 23. Explanation in Archaeology: An Update. 24. The Formulation of Why-Questions. 25. Quasars, Causality, and Geometry: A Scientific Controversy That Did Not Occur. 26. Dreams of a Famous Physicist: An Apology for Philosophy of Science.