Understanding Counterfactuals, Understanding Causation

Issues in Philosophy and Psychology
Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-0-19-969513-3
Verlag: OUP UK

Buch, Englisch, 288 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 430 g

Reihe: Consciousness & Self-Consciousness Series

How are causal judgements such as 'The ice on the road caused the traffic accident' connected with counterfactual judgements such as 'If there had not been any ice on the road, the traffic accident would not have happened'? This volume throws new light on this question by uniting, for the first time, psychological and philosophical approaches to causation and counterfactuals. Traditionally, philosophers have primarily been interested in connections between causal and counterfactual claims on the level of meaning or truth-conditions. More recently, however, they have also increasingly turned their attention to psychological connections between causal and counterfactual understanding or reasoning. At the same time, there has been a surge in interest in empirical work on causal and counterfactual cognition amongst developmental, cognitive, and social psychologists--much of it inspired by work in philosophy. In this volume, twelve original contributions from leading philosophers and psychologists explore in detail what bearing empirical findings might have on philosophical concerns about counterfactuals and causation, and how, in turn, work in philosophy might help clarify the issues at stake in empirical work on the cognitive underpinnings of, and relationships between, causal and counterfactual thought.

Zielgruppe

Philosophers and psychologists

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hoerl, Christoph

McCormack, Teresa

Beck, Sarah R.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Philosophie des Geistes, Neurophilosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Allgemeine Psychologie Kognitionspsychologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Allgemeine Psychologie Sozialpsychologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Allgemeine Psychologie Entwicklungspsychologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Erkenntnistheorie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1: Christoph Hoerl, Teresa McCormack, Sarah Beck: Introduction: Understanding Counterfactuals and Causation
2: James Woodward: Psychological Studies of Causal and Counterfactual Reasoning
3: Teresa McCormack, Caren Frosch, Patrick Burns: The Relationship between Children's Causal and Counterfactual Judgments
4: Johannes Roessler: Perceptual Causality, Counterfactuals, and Special Causal Concepts
5: Josef Perner and Eva Rafetseder: Counterfactual and Other Forms of Conditional Reasoning: Children Lost in the Nearest Possible World
6: Sarah Beck, Kevin Riggs, Patrick Burns: Multiple Developments in Counterfactual Thinking
7: David Sobel: Domain-Specific Causal Knowledge and Children's Reasoning about Possibility
8: David Mandel: Mental Simulation and the Nexus of Causal and Counterfactual Explanation
9: Christopher Hitchcock: Counterfactual Availability and Causal Judgement
10: Peter Menzies: The Role of Counterfactual Dependence in Causal Judgements
11: Ruth Byrne: Counterfactual and Causal Thoughts about Exceptional Events
12: Dorothy Edgington: Causation First: Why Causation is Prior to Counterfactuals
13: Aidan Feeney and Simon Handley: Suppositions, Conditionals, and Causal Claims

Über Autor(innen)

Hoerl, Christoph
Christoph Hoerl is Associate Professor (Reader) in Philosophy at the University of Warwick. Between 2004 and 2008, he was co-director (with Teresa McCormack and Johannes Roessler) of the interdisciplinary AHRC Research Project 'Causal Understanding: Empirical and Theoretical Foundations for a New Approach'. With Teresa McCormack and Stephen Butterfill, he is co-editor of Tool Use and Causal Understanding (OUP, forthcoming).

Beck, Sarah R.
Sarah Beck studied Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Oxford and gained her PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Birmingham, where she is currently a Senior Lecturer. Her research is concerned with children's and adults' thinking about time and knowledge, with particular interest in the cognitive processes involved in the development of counterfactual thinking.

McCormack, Teresa
Teresa McCormack is Professor of Developmental Psychology at the School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast. She was co-director of the AHRC-funded project on Causal Understanding based at the University of Warwick. Her research primarily addresses issues concerning children's temporal and causal cognition. She has published two co-edited interdisciplinary books: Time and Memory: Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychology (OUP, 2001), with C. Hoerl, and Joint Attention and Communication (OUP, 2005), with N. Eilan, C. Hoerl, and J. Roessler. A further volume entitled Tool Use and Causal Cognition, co-edited with C. Hoerl and S. Butterfill is forthcoming with OUP.

Christoph Hoerl is Associate Professor (Reader) in Philosophy at the University of Warwick. Between 2004 and 2008, he was co-director (with Teresa McCormack and Johannes Roessler) of the interdisciplinary AHRC Research Project 'Causal Understanding: Empirical and Theoretical Foundations for a New Approach'. With Teresa McCormack and Stephen Butterfill, he is co-editor of Tool Use and Causal Understanding (OUP, forthcoming).

Teresa McCormack is Professor of Developmental Psychology at the School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast. She was co-director of the AHRC-funded project on Causal Understanding based at the University of Warwick. Her research primarily addresses issues concerning children's temporal and causal cognition. She has published two co-edited interdisciplinary books: Time and Memory: Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychology (OUP, 2001), with C. Hoerl, and Joint Attention and Communication (OUP, 2005), with N. Eilan, C. Hoerl, and J. Roessler. A further volume entitled Tool Use and Causal Cognition, co-edited with C. Hoerl and S. Butterfill is forthcoming with OUP.

Sarah Beck studied Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Oxford and gained her PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Birmingham, where she is currently a Senior Lecturer. Her research is concerned with children's and adults' thinking about time and knowledge, with particular interest in the cognitive processes involved in the development of counterfactual thinking.