Nature's capacities and their measurement

著者

書誌事項

Nature's capacities and their measurement

Nancy Cartwright

Clarendon Press , Oxford University Press, 1989

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注記

Includes index

内容説明・目次

内容説明

Since David Hume, empiricists have barred powers and capacities from nature. This treatise argues however that capacities are essential in our scientific world and, contrary to empiricist orthodoxy, they can meet sufficiently strict demands for testability. Econometrics is one discipline where probabilities are used to measure causal capacities, and the technology of modern physics also provides several examples of testing capacities, of which lasers are just one instance. The author concludes by applying the lessons of the book about capacities and probabilities to explain the role of causality in quantum mechanics.

目次

  • Part 1 How to get causes from probabilities: determining causal structure
  • inus conditions
  • causes and probabilities in linear models. Part 2 No causes in, no causes out: causes at work in mathematical physics
  • new knowledge requires old knowledge
  • how causal reasoning succeeds
  • discovering causal structure - can the hypothetico-deductive method work? Part 3 Singular causes first: where singular causes enter
  • when causes are probabilistic
  • More in favour of singular causes
  • singular causes in, singular causes out. Part 4 Capacities: why should increases in probability recur?
  • forecasting and the stability of capacities
  • beyond modality
  • Mill in defence of capacities. Part 5 Abstract and concrete: idealization and the need for capacities
  • abstractions versus symbolic representations
  • what do abstract laws say?
  • concreteness and causal structure. Part 6 What econometrics can teach quantum physics - causality and the Bell inequality: Bell's inequality
  • a general common-cause criterion for the EPR experiment
  • quantum realism and the factorizability condition
  • a common-cause model for EPR
  • quantum mechanics and its causal structure
  • factorizability and the propagation of causes. Appendices: a more general common-cause model for EPR
  • do quantum causes propagate?
  • propagation, effect-locality and completeness - a comparison.

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