Hunting Causes and Using Them: Approaches in Philosophy and Economics - Hardcover

Cartwright, Nancy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521860814 ISBN 13: 9780521860819

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2007

Synopsis

Hunting Causes and Using Them argues that causation is not one thing, as commonly assumed, but many. There is a huge variety of causal relations, each with different characterizing features, different methods for discovery and different uses to which it can be put. In this collection of new and previously published essays, Nancy Cartwright provides a critical survey of philosophical and economic literature on causality, with a special focus on the currently fashionable Bayes-nets and invariance methods - and it exposes a huge gap in that literature. Almost every account treats either exclusively how to hunt causes or how to use them. But where is the bridge between? It's no good knowing how to warrant a causal claim if we don't know what we can do with that claim once we have it. This book will interest philosophers, economists and social scientists.

About this title

Book Description

Hunting Causes and Using Them argues that causation is not one thing, as commonly assumed, but many. In this collection of essays, Nancy Cartwright provides a critical survey of philosophical and economic literature on causality, with a special focus on the currently fashionable Bayes-nets and invariance methods.

About the Author

Nancy Cartwright is Professor of Philosophy at the London School of Economics and Political Science and at the University of California, San Diego. Her many publications include The Dappled World (1999).

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0521860814
• ISBN 13: 9780521860819
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 282