Overview

The past few decades have seen an explosion of research on causal reasoning in philosophy, computer science, and statistics, as well as descriptive work in psychology. In Causation with a Human Face, James Woodward integrates these lines of research and argues for an understanding of how each can inform the other: normative ideas can suggest interesting experiments, while descriptive results can suggest important normative concepts. Woodward's overall framework builds on the interventionist treatment of causation that he developed in Making Things Happen. Normative ideas discussed include proposals about the role of invariant or stable relationships in successful causal reasoning and the notion of proportionality. He argues that these normative ideas are reflected in the causal judgments that people actually make as a descriptive matter. Woodward also discusses the common philosophical practice-particularly salient in philosophical accounts of causation--of appealing to ""intuitions"" or ""judgments about cases"" in support of philosophical theses. He explores how, properly understood, such appeals are not different in principle from appeals to results from empirical research, and demonstrates how they may serve as a useful source of information about causal cognition.

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9780197800065

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The writing is clear, precise, and thorough. Woodward's powerful syntheses of ideas from philosophy, psychology, statistics, and computer science mark this work as a major advance in understanding of causality. * L. C. Archie, Lander University, CHOICE * For anyone who is interested in how we humans come to understand the causal world as we do, Woodward's astonishingly broad and deep assessment of both the philosophy and cognition literatures will offer a rewarding read. This book will arm you with insights and findings that may completely change how you think about causation and the mind's role in an 'objective' understanding of it. * Patricia Cheng, Department of Psychology, UCLA * James Woodward's new book is a compelling synthesis of what is known about human causal judgement, its purposes, and how the norms of causal reasoning serve those ends. Invoking only a minimalist metaphysics of interventions, Woodward weaves many threads into a convincing whole. The book should be a touchstone for those in philosophy, psychology and computer science who think about causality. * Clark Glymour * James Woodward revolutionized the philosophical discussion of causation. In his new book he elucidates the deep relationships between the psychology of causal understanding and philosophical questions. The book is lucid, thoughtful, knowledgeable and careful and at the same time brimming over with remarkable new ideas and insights - a must read for both philosophers and cognitive scientists. * Alison Gopnik, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley * James Woodward's 2003 book Making Things Happen about causal explanation was arguably the most important philosophical book about causation to appear in decades. This eagerly awaited new book is an expansive study of causation and causal reasoning that challenges received ideas about the relationship between theoretical and normative, between science and philosophy, and between metaphysics and psychology. Enormous in scope—spanning philosophy, psychology, statistics and machine learning—it will set the agenda for discussions of causation for years to come. * Jenann Ismael, Department of Philosophy, Columbia University * What renders this book a must-read, and an exceptional one of its kind, is primarily the enlightening and multi-faceted way in which Woodward proceeds in actually implementing these novel ideas; in short, his method. * Violetta Manola, Stathis Psillos, The Metascience * The book's appeal to the purposes of causal reasoning gives important guidance for addressing both theoretical and empirical questions and shows how such questions can fruitfully interact with each other. * Journal for General Philosophy of Science *

Author Information

James Woodward is Distinguished Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, and the J.O. and Juliette Koepfli Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as President of the Philosophy of Science Association from 2010-2012.

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