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Concrete Causation

by Roland Pöllinger

In his study of causation J. L. Mackie once referred back to David Hume, who listed causation among one of the principles that are TO US THE CEMENT OF THE UNIVERSE and thus OF VAST CONSEQUENCE IN THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE (David Hume, AN ABSTRACT OF A “TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE”). Yet for example the early endeavours of the developers of the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) framework, which aimed at embedding causal meaning into the formal treatment, seem to be neglected, and David Lewis' counterfactual analysis of causation based on his possible worlds semantics does not come very handy for application. As Judea Pearl summarises: WE ARE WITNESSING ONE OF THE MOST BIZARRE CIRCLES IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE: CAUSALITY IN SEARCH OF A LANGUAGE AND, SIMULTANEOUSLY, THE LANGUAGE OF CAUSALITY IN SEARCH OF ITS MEANING (Judea Pearl, CAUSALITY, 2000). Borrowing mathematical rigour from statistics, one of the most prominent areas of causal modelling today sounds out the interaction of probabi

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Episodes

  1. Probabilistic Causal Inference from Heterogeneous Evidence

    Roland Poellinger (MCMP/LMU) gives a talk at the workshop on "Mechanisms in Medicine" (3-5 July, 2017) titled "Probabilistic Causal Inference from Heterogeneous Evidence" (based on joint work with Barbara Osimani and Jürgen Landes). Abstract: Current methods for the purpose of causal inference…

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  2. Unifying Causal and Non-Causal Knowledge

    Michael Strevens (NYU) meets Roland Poellinger (MCMP/LMU) in a joint session on "Unifying Causal and Non-Causal Knowledge" at the MCMP workshop "Bridges 2014" (2 and 3 Sept, 2014, German House, New York City). The 2-day trans-continental meeting in mathematical philosophy focused on...

  3. The Mind-Brain Entanglement

    Roland Poellinger (MCMP/LMU) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (14 May, 2014) titled "The Mind-Brain Entanglement". Abstract: Listing "The Nonreductivist’s Troubles with Mental Causation" (1993) Jaegwon Kim suggested that the only remaining alternatives are the eliminativist’s standpoint or…

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  4. Disentangling Nets for Causal Inference

    As part of the MCMP group presentation at the DGPhil XXII Workshop on Mathematical Philosophy Roland Poellinger (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy/LMU Munich) gives a mini presentation titled "Disentangling Nets for Causal Inference", in which he motivates an extension of standard Bayes…

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  5. Computing Non-Causal Knowledge for Causal Reasoning

    Roland Poellinger (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy/LMU Munich) gives a talk at the MCMP Workshop on Computational Metaphysics titled "Computing Non-Causal Knowledge for Causal Reasoning". Abstract: We use logical and mathematical knowledge to generate causal claims. Inter-definitions or...

  6. Modelling Experimental Interventions: Results and Challenges

    In this talk at the LMU workshop "Concrete Causation" (9 July, 2010) Jan-Willem Romeijn (Groningen) discusses probabilistic models of experimental intervention, and shows that such models elucidate the intuition that observations following intervention are more informative than observations per…

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  7. Graphs as Models of Interventions

    In this talk Roland Poellinger (Munich) gives an outline of Judea Pearl's deterministic approach towards causation (workshop "Concrete Causation", 9 July, 2010). The title of the talk is taken from the programmatic section 2.2 of Pearl's paper "Causal Diagrams for Empirical Research" (Biometrika,...

  8. Causation in Physics

    In this talk Mathias Frisch (University of Maryland and Humboldt scholar at LMU Munich) critically examines a range of general arguments for the view that causal notions have an important place in the special sciences and discusses a case of causal modeling in physics - linear response theory...

  9. Welcome Address (Audio Excerpt)

    Professor C. Ulises Moulines (LMU Munich, Seminar for Philosophy, Logic and Philosophy of Science) opens the LMU workshop "Concrete Causation" (9 July, 2010) with his Welcome Address to an audience of various disciplines; this is an audio excerpt - download the full welcome address as a PDF from...

  10. The Causal Chain Problem

    In this talk at the LMU workshop "Concrete Causation" (9 July, 2010) Michael Baumgartner (Konstanz) discusses "The Causal Chain Problem"

  11. Causality and Observational Equivalence of Deterministic and Indeterministic Descriptions

    Charlotte Werndl (Oxford) presents her results on "Causality and Observational Equivalence of Deterministic and Indeterministic Descriptions" (workshoo "Concrete Causation", 9 July 2010).

  12. A Ranking-theoretic Account of Causation

    Professor Wolfgang Spohn (Konstanz) presents his ranking-theoretic account of causation as keynote speaker at the LMU workshop "Concrete Causation" (9 July, 2010). [Due to technical problems the recording begins with the second slide.]

  13. Workshop Concrete Causation: Programme

    The poster of the workshop "Concrete Causation" (9 July, 2010) with all speakers, times, chairs, and breaks

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TOPICS IN THIS SHOW

Academic Podcast Causation Epistemology Hume Mackie Metaphysics Philosophical Podcast Philosophy

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ABOUT THIS SHOW

In his study of causation J. L. Mackie once referred back to David Hume, who listed causation among one of the principles that are TO US THE CEMENT OF THE UNIVERSE and thus OF VAST CONSEQUENCE IN THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE (David Hume, AN ABSTRACT OF A “TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE”). Yet for example the early endeavours of the developers of the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) framework, which aimed at embedding causal meaning into the formal treatment, seem to be neglected, and David Lewis' counterfactual analysis of causation based on his possible worlds semantics does not come very handy for application. As Judea Pearl summarises: WE ARE WITNESSING ONE OF THE MOST BIZARRE CIRCLES IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE: CAUSALITY IN SEARCH OF A LANGUAGE AND, SIMULTANEOUSLY, THE LANGUAGE OF CAUSALITY IN SEARCH OF ITS MEANING (Judea Pearl, CAUSALITY, 2000). Borrowing mathematical rigour from statistics, one of the most prominent areas of causal modelling today sounds out the interaction of probabi

HOSTED BY

Roland Pöllinger

Produced by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich

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Concrete Causation currently has 13 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.

What is Concrete Causation about?

In his study of causation J. L. Mackie once referred back to David Hume, who listed causation among one of the principles that are TO US THE CEMENT OF THE UNIVERSE and thus OF VAST CONSEQUENCE IN THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE (David Hume, AN ABSTRACT OF A “TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE”). Yet for example...

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Concrete Causation has 13 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.

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Concrete Causation is created and hosted by Roland Pöllinger.
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