Subproject B: Grounding and Causality

It is widely accepted today that most scientific explanations proceed by citing the causes and/or mechanisms on which an event or a series of events depend. While there exists a plethora of highly elaborate accounts of the causal relation and of mechanisms, there are a number of important metaphysical issues that have hardly bee addressed in the literature on scientific explanation. In particular, such accounts are typically not very clear about what exactly grounds causal relations in the world (assuming that causation is objective).

The principal goal of this subproject is to explore the extent to which the concept of metaphysical grounding (as it is being developed in the other subprojects) provides a useful way of thinking about causation. The project will start by examining existing accounts of causation and of causal explanation, including the currently popular interventionist and mechanistic accounts. We will try to gain more clarity as to what grounds causal facts as they are construed in these accounts. In a second phase of the project, we aim at developing a new conception, namely an essentialist one. Such an account takes as a starting point an existing theory of causation, namely the interventionist account, which is taken to be correct as far as it goes and which reveals grounds for causation that are not fundamental and thus have further grounds. Then, it will be investigated if those grounds may be found in the essence of things.

In particular, we aim to shed light on (1) how mathematical facts (nomologically) ground empirical facts, (2) how entities and activities (constitutionally) ground biological mechanisms, and (3) how sets of capacities (essentially) ground biological functions.

Marcel

Philosophie

grounding, causality, constitution, functions, mechanisms

10/2013

Lorenzo Casini, postdoctoral fellow

Pablo Carnino, PhD candidate