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The discussions are detailed and technical, but not such as to lead us to lose sight of the big picture; his treatment is illuminating... As other reviewers have stated, Woodward's book is outstanding. (James G. Murphy, Milltown Studies )
this is a splendid book. It is beautifully and clearly written; and in countless ways sheds a flood of light on a range of topics to do with causation and explanation. It represents the most significant and substantial philosophical contribution to the study of these concepts in recent years. Reading and studying this book will be obligatory for everyone whose work bears directly or indirectly on the topics of causation and explanation. (Peter Menzies, Mind )
this is a splendid book. It is beautifully and clearly written; and in countless ways sheds a flood of light on a range of topics to do with causation and explanation. It represents the most significant and substantial philosophical contribution to the study of these concepts in recent years. Reading and studying this book will be obligatory for everyone whose work bears directly or indirectly on the topics of causation and explanation. (Peter Menzies, Mind )
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Woodward's long awaited book is an attempt to construct a comprehensive account of causation explanation that applies to a wide variety of causal and explanatory claims in different areas of science and everyday life. The book engages some of the relevant literature from other disciplines, as Woodward weaves together examples, counterexamples, criticisms, defenses, objections, and replies into a convincing defense of the core of his theory, which is that we can analyze causation by appeal to the notion of manipulation.
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An interest in causes and explanations pervades our lives. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
An interest in causes and explanations pervades our lives. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is for those who are serious about philosophy of science. And vice-versa: anyone serious about philosophy of science should read this book. Read it on the underground, on the bus, in the bath... let it flow over you, let it soak in. It's so nicely written that it makes a good holiday book, there's no poring over the words to understand it... the effort is only then needed when you think about the issues it raises afterwards. And at the end at least you'll understand what the manipulability theory of causal explanation is all about. (After all, when you began reading, admit it... you really didn't think it was such a good way of explicating causation, did you?!) Along the way Woodward points out obvious things you may not have realised (surely a mark of a good philosopher): how manipulation is different to prediction; how distinguishing causes is not merely an intellectual pastime; how exactly Hempel's D-N model of scientific explanation fails... He takes care to discuss the apparent circularities in the theory and to argue that it is not anthropomorphic.
I don't think Woodward ever fully admits that the theory does not provide meaning to the word "cause" (It doesn't: a causal relationship between two things is defined by reference to other causes). It's also curious that the causal relationship holds between variables. This means that the usual, causal statements we make are more ambiguous than we may have thought, because the underlying variables which are the true subjects of the statement may not be obvious. We may also wonder whether this explanation of causation that Woodward provides us with fits the theory of explanation he proposes? So there's new things to think about when you think about causation. A good read, "Making Things Happen"... making you think.
I don't think Woodward ever fully admits that the theory does not provide meaning to the word "cause" (It doesn't: a causal relationship between two things is defined by reference to other causes). It's also curious that the causal relationship holds between variables. This means that the usual, causal statements we make are more ambiguous than we may have thought, because the underlying variables which are the true subjects of the statement may not be obvious. We may also wonder whether this explanation of causation that Woodward provides us with fits the theory of explanation he proposes? So there's new things to think about when you think about causation. A good read, "Making Things Happen"... making you think.
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41 of 41 people found the following review helpful
a detailed and lucid "manipulability" theory of causation
25 July 2006
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Woodward, a philosopher at Cal Tech, presents a detailed development and defense of an "interventionist" or "manipulability" theory of causation.
Major influences on Woodward include Spirtes, Glymour, and Scheines (1993/2000), who focus on causal inference and discovery from statistical data, and Judea Pearl (2000), who developed the notion of an intervention and showed how to estimate quantitative causal notions given qualitative notions of causal dependence. Woodward, by contrast, focuses on the semantic or interpretive project of understanding the basic qualitative causal notions (p. 38). Of all these writers, Woodward's concerns are most directly continuous with those of traditional philosophy of science.
Chapter 1 is an introduction and preview. Chapter 2 presents the guts of the manipulability theory. Here we get, among other things, a non-technical introduction to the use of acyclic directed graphs to represent causal relations. We also get solutions to a basketful of fascinating puzzle cases.
Chapter 3 expands on the notion of intervention that the theory needs. Since that notion is itself causal, the theory is non-reductive. The manipulability theory is contrasted with the closely related agency theory of causation, and also with David Lewis's counterfactual theory of causation.
Chapter 4 treats causal explanation, and includes a critique of the venerable Deductive-Nomological model of explanation. Chapter 5 develops a counterfactual theory of explanation, in which the complex antecedents of the relevant counterfactuals correspond to possible manipulations. There are also pragmatic or epistemic constraints on causal explanation that are not present in purely causal claims.
Chapter 6 deals with the notions of invariant relationships, lawfulness, exceptions, and ceteris paribus clauses in light of the manipulability theory. Chapter 7 interprets the structural equation models of biomedical and social science in light of the manipulability theory. Chapter 8 treats Wesley Salmon's causal-mechanical (causal process) model, and Philip Kitcher's unificationist model.
The painstaking detail of the treatment is admirable, if occasionally wearying. I am not a philosopher of science, but the work strikes me as lucid and penetrating throughout, in a way that recalls the philosophical virtues of classic writers like Carnap and Hempel.
Major influences on Woodward include Spirtes, Glymour, and Scheines (1993/2000), who focus on causal inference and discovery from statistical data, and Judea Pearl (2000), who developed the notion of an intervention and showed how to estimate quantitative causal notions given qualitative notions of causal dependence. Woodward, by contrast, focuses on the semantic or interpretive project of understanding the basic qualitative causal notions (p. 38). Of all these writers, Woodward's concerns are most directly continuous with those of traditional philosophy of science.
Chapter 1 is an introduction and preview. Chapter 2 presents the guts of the manipulability theory. Here we get, among other things, a non-technical introduction to the use of acyclic directed graphs to represent causal relations. We also get solutions to a basketful of fascinating puzzle cases.
Chapter 3 expands on the notion of intervention that the theory needs. Since that notion is itself causal, the theory is non-reductive. The manipulability theory is contrasted with the closely related agency theory of causation, and also with David Lewis's counterfactual theory of causation.
Chapter 4 treats causal explanation, and includes a critique of the venerable Deductive-Nomological model of explanation. Chapter 5 develops a counterfactual theory of explanation, in which the complex antecedents of the relevant counterfactuals correspond to possible manipulations. There are also pragmatic or epistemic constraints on causal explanation that are not present in purely causal claims.
Chapter 6 deals with the notions of invariant relationships, lawfulness, exceptions, and ceteris paribus clauses in light of the manipulability theory. Chapter 7 interprets the structural equation models of biomedical and social science in light of the manipulability theory. Chapter 8 treats Wesley Salmon's causal-mechanical (causal process) model, and Philip Kitcher's unificationist model.
The painstaking detail of the treatment is admirable, if occasionally wearying. I am not a philosopher of science, but the work strikes me as lucid and penetrating throughout, in a way that recalls the philosophical virtues of classic writers like Carnap and Hempel.
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