Disentangling Causal Pluralism

Causal pluralism is increasingly gaining interest as a promising alternative for monistic approaches toward causation. However, although the debate is scarcely out of the egg, the term ‘causal pluralism’ already covers diverse meanings. This creates confusion, and to remedy that confusion, it is necessary to discern different kinds of pluralistic approaches to causation and different possible positions within them. In this paper, I argue for a general distinction between conceptual causal pluralism, metaphysical causal pluralism and epistemological-methodological causal pluralism. I mainly focus on metaphysical approaches to causation and discern herein four possible positions: metaphysical causal constructivism, metaphysical causal monism, weak metaphysical causal pluralism, and strong metaphysical causal pluralism. Each of these positions are further related to their most obvious conceptual counterpart, specifically conceptual causal monism or conceptual causal pluralism

Causation in perspective: are all causal claims equally warranted?

In a paper ‘Causation in Context’ (2007) Peter Menzies has argued that the truth value of causal judgments is perspective-relative (i.e. their truth value does not depend entirely on mind-independent structures). His arguments are confined to causation as difference making (a term he uses to cover probabilistic, counterfactual and regularity views of causation). In this paper we first briefly present Menzies’ arguments. Then we show that perspective-relativity also holds for causation in the sense of process theories. These parts of the paper prepare the ground for the topic we really want to investigate: we want to find out whether this perspective-relativity leads to an epistemic predicament with respect to causal claims. The potential epistemic predicament we consider is that all causal claims would be equally warranted

Causal pluralism and scientific knowledge: an underexposed problem

Causal pluralism is currently a hot topic in philosophy. However, the consequences of this view on causation for scientific knowledge and scientific methodology is heavily underexposed in the present debate. My aim in this paper is to argue that an epistemological-methodological point of view should be valued as a line of approach on its own and to demonstrate how epistemological- methodological causal pluralism differs in its scope from conceptual and metaphysical causal pluralism. Further, I defend epistemological- methodological causal pluralism and try to illustrate that scientific practice needs diverse causal concepts in diverse domains, and even diverse causal concepts within singular domains

Indispensability arguments in favour of reductive explanations

Instances of explanatory reduction are often advocated on metaphysical grounds; given that the only real things in the world are subatomic particles and their interaction, we have to try to explain everything in terms of the laws of physics. In this paper, we show that explanatory reduction cannot be defended on metaphysical grounds. Nevertheless, indispensability arguments for reductive explanations can be developed, taking into account actual scientific practice and the role of epistemic interests. Reductive explanations might be indispensable to address some epistemic interest answering a specific explanation-seeking question in the most accurate, adequate and efficient way. Just like explanatory pluralists often advocate the indispensability of higher levels of explanation pointing at the pragmatic value of the explanatory information obtained on these higher levels, we argue that explanatory reduction – traditionally understood as the contender of pluralism – can be defended in a similar way. The pragmatic value reductionist, lower level explanations might have in the biomedical sciences and the social sciences is illustrated by some case studies

Van Emil Kraepelin tot DSM-5 : zoeken naar de ware aard van mentale ziekten

In 1899 Emil Kraepelin published the sixth and final edition of his hand-book Psychiatrie, in which he proposed a classification of mental disorders which would form the basis for the later editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association (from the 3rdedition onwards). This manual is often called “the bible of psychiatry”. In this paper we discuss the ongoing struggle of psychiatry to understand the causes of mental disorders and to come up with a scientifically grounded classification. We will show the parallel between Emil Kraepelin’s personal struggle with the matter – and his provisional solution – and the current tensions and opposing opinions in the debates surrounding the latest edition of the manual (DSM-5) and its possible future. It brings us to the question whether mental disorders are natural kinds, and whether or not a more theoretical (instead of descriptive) approach of psychiatric classification is possible after all. We will analyze the current philosophical debate on these topics and will come to the conclusion that the matter is still unresolvable, and that the situation has in that sense not much changed since the time in which Emil Kraepelin proposed his classification