PROBABILISTIC CAUSALITY AND IDEALIZATION

The main aim of this paper is to provide some probabilistic notions on causality proposed to be applied to the nomic statements which intend to give account of the indeterministic processes within the domain of a scientific theory. In general, such statements are, in more or less extent, idealized s...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: José Luis Rolleri
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2017
País:México
Institución:Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro
Repositorio:Redalyc-UAQ
OAI Identifier:oai:redalyc.org:209054628003
Acceso en línea:https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=209054628003
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Filosofía
idealized laws
concretization
Probabilistic causality
indeterministic process
probabilistic explanation
Descripción
Sumario:The main aim of this paper is to provide some probabilistic notions on causality proposed to be applied to the nomic statements which intend to give account of the indeterministic processes within the domain of a scientific theory. In general, such statements are, in more or less extent, idealized statements which rest on a variety of unrealistic suppositions. I try to show how the probability distribution over the final states of an indeterministic process changes accordingly as the nomic statement in question is de- idealized by means of addition of the causally relevant factors. In order to illustrate the study I take few nomic statements from population genetics. Besides, in the course, I attempt to contrast the ideas embraced here with some of the notions of Humphreys ́ ontic conceptions of causality and explanation, which are contrary to the epistemic view adopted here about those subjects.