Abstract
Philosophical works on actual causation make wide use of thought experiments. The principal aim of this paper is to show how thought experiments are used in the contemporary debate over actual causation and to discuss their role in relation to formal approaches in terms of causal models. I claim that a recourse to thought experiments is not something old fashioned or superseded by abstract models, but it is useful to interpret abstract models themselves and to use our intuitions to judge the results of the model. Recent research on actual causation has stressed the importance of integrating formal models with some notion of normality; I suggest that thought experiments can be useful in eliciting intuitions where normality is not intended in a statistical sense. The first expository part (1–3) gives a short presentation of the notion of actual causation, summarising some typical problems of counterfactual approaches and how they are treated in causal and structural models. The second part (4–7) focuses on the problems of model isomorphism and criticises some radical ideas opposing the role of thought experiments, claiming that they may also be of use in evaluating formal models.
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Notes
Halpern and Pearl (2001/2005) call these kinds of situations ‘disjunctive scenarios’, in contrast with ‘conjunctive scenarios’, where both factors are necessary to bring about the effect.
Although there is causal dependence on their union.
Thanks to an anonymous referee for pointing this out.
But see Reiss (2003) on the complementary and auxiliary role of thought experiments with respect to mathematical models.
The link between actual causation and deviation from normality belongs to the philosophical tradition starting at least with Hart and Honoré (1959). Menzies (2004, 2007) proposes a further integration with Lewis semantics for counterfactuals based on similarity relations between possible worlds. On the other hand, the literature on artificial intelligence offers interesting works, like Kraus et al. (1990) and Pearl (1990), tackling the problem of providing a satisfactory metric for measuring degrees of normality and ordering worlds.
This definition has recently undergone various changes and technical complications, but we think that this version is sufficient to give a flavour of the on-going research.
On contextual dependence about causality, see also Benzi (2007).
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A short version of this paper has been presented at SIFA Conference in Padua 2010. I wish to thank people who commented then. Warm thanks to Donald A. Gillies for discussing a previous version of the paper at UCL, London. Many thanks also to the editors and to the two anonymous referees for their very detailed comments on the last version of the paper.
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Benzi, M. Thought Experiments and Actual Causation. Topoi 38, 835–843 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9427-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9427-7