Challenges to characterizing the notion of causation across disciplinary boundaries

comment on faye

Jan Baedke

pp. 191-201

in: Dennis Dieks, Stephan Hartmann, Thomas Uebel, Marcel Weber, Maria C. Galavotti (eds), New directions in the philosophy of science, Berlin, Springer, 2014

Abstract

This paper comments on Jan Faye's metadisciplinary characterization of the notion of causation. I will argue that his understanding of a causal factor as a difference-maker can be specified by relating it to similarity considerations and analogical reasoning about causal dependencies. At the same time, however, his notion of a difference-maker does not capture what is understood as a cause in many biological and biophysical investigations of robustness of living systems (e.g. in systems biology). Finally, I will show that Faye ignores crucial differences between causal processes and causal mechanisms.

Cited authors

Faye Jan