Browsing by Subject "Causation"
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Item Argument structure and the typology of causatives in Kinyarwanda : explaining the causative-instrumental syncretism(2013-12) Jerro, Kyle Joseph; Beavers, John T.In the Bantu language Kinyarwanda, the morpheme –ish can be used to mark both causation and the instrumental applicative. This report pro- poses an explanation for this causative-instrumental syncretism, arguing that both causation and the introduction of an instrument are—at their core—two outgrowths of the same semantic notion. Fitting with other morphological causatives in Bantu, the causative use of –ish patterns as a lexical causative marker. The analysis presented here captures the lex- ical nature of the causative use of the morpheme by arguing that the new causal link is added sub-lexically, situating Kinyarwanda into a cross- linguistic typology of morphological causatives.Item Building nothing out of something(2011-05) Wright, Briggs Marvin; Sainsbury, R. M. (Richard Mark); Koons, Robert C.; Pautz, Adam; Tye, Michael; Varzi, Achille; Zimmerman, DeanThe notion of absence is pervasive throughout and central to human language and thought. Such thought and talk is often taken quite seriously. Much has been done to motivate treating absences as genuine entities, things as real as the tables and chairs we encounter in everyday life. Unfortunately, not nearly as much attention has been paid to the question of what kinds of things absences could be if indeed there were such things. In this dissertation, I take up the metaphysical question involving the nature of absences, and I also carefully consider the ontological question of whether any kind of case can be made for reifying absences. Along the way, I develop a novel metaphysical account of absences, and examine various considerations from the realms of causation, perception, and truthmaking that putatively support treating absences as bona fide entities.Item Conditions affecting the occurrence of causal attributions in response to a learned helplessness induction(Texas Tech University, 1984-12) Miller, David KirkIn their reformulation of learned helplessness theory, Abramson, Sellgman, and Teasdale (1978) maintained that when humans encounter uncontrollable events, they ask themselves why? The causal attribution made to explain the uncontrollability affects the generality and chroniclty of resulting helplessness deficits, and determines whether or not a loss of self-esteem will occur. One of the weaknesses of this reformulation has been a lack of experimental evidence to support the assumption that people usually make causal attributions in response to uncontrollable outcomes. The present study was designed to test this assumption and to examine some conditions which might affect whether or not such attributions occur. In the present study, 150 college students were randomly assigned to nine experimental groups and one no treatment control group. The two independent variables studied were type of attribution measure (a rating scale questionnaire versus a free response or "no information" questionnaire) and strength of attrlbutlonal cue (strong versus weak external cues). All experimental subjects were given a series of unsolvable concept-formation problems designed to induce learned helplessness After the experimental manipulations, causal attributions were measured and subjects were tested for learned helplessness deficits.Item INUS abnormalism: the semantics of singular causal statements(Texas Tech University, 2004-08) Williams, RobertNot availableItem Is physicalism "really" true?: an empirical argument against the universal construal of physicalism(2009-12) Smith, Paul H., 1952-; Bonevac, Daniel A., 1955-; Juhl, Cory; Kane, Robert; Puthoff, Harold E.; Sosa, David; Utts, JessicaPhysicalism as universally construed is the thesis that everything in the world is either physical or a consequence of physical facts. Certain consequences of physicalism for free will, religion, and so on make it unpalatable to some. Physicalism should not be dismissed merely on its unpalatability. Nonetheless, we should be very sure it is true before accepting it uncritically (as much of science and philosophy now do). Physicalism is a contingent thesis, taken as true on the basis of strong inductive evidence and an inference-to-the-best-explanation that specifies it as the best theory over any of its competitors to provide an ontological account of the universe. So long as there is no contrary evidence to the claims of physicalism, then it stands relatively uncontested. I argue that there is a body of well-attested empirical evidence that falsifies universally-construed physicalism by violating an essential assumption of the theory – causal closure of the physical domain. I present a detailed account of this closure-violating evidence. So that those who are unfamiliar with the body of evidence on offer may judge its validity, I include brief summations of experimental designs, findings, and analyses, plus some controversies pertaining to the data and their resolutions. I then argue why this body of empirical evidence should count against universal physicalism, argue for the evidence’s scientific legitimacy, and discuss criticisms which have been lodged against it, then explain why these criticisms lack force. I conclude that the evidence I present is sufficient to falsify the universal construal of physicalism as supported by today’s and by foreseeable future understandings of the physical world. I acknowledge, though, that nothing can be guaranteed against an indefinite “wait-and-see” argument for some implausible “fully-realized” physics that may be able to reconcile the evidence I propose with such a fully-completed formulation of physicalism. I suggest that if this is the best physicalists can come up with, then their position is weak and the inference-to-the-best-explanation that until now supported universal physicalism should be turned around to tell against the theory.Item Kant's response to the problem of induction(2008-08) Sharp, Curtis T.; DiPoppa, Francesca; Kim, SungsuIn this paper, I examine Immanuel Kant’s response to David Hume’s problem of induction. I pay particular attention to Kant’s main writings on causation: the Second Analogy in The Critique of Pure Reason and the Introduction to The Critique of Judgment. I agree with Paul Guyer that Kant does not provide a solution to the problem in the Critique of Reason. I disagree with Guyer, however, that Kant also does not provide a solution in the Critique of Judgment: whereas Guyer concludes that Kant tells us that we merely assume – and cannot prove - that induction is justified, I conclude that Kant argues for an externalist justification of induction.Item MECHANISM, PURPOSE AND AGENCY: the metaphysics of mental causation and free will(2005) Judisch, Neal Damian; Kane, Robert; Koons, Robert C.Item Models of scientific explanation(Texas A&M University, 2005-08-29) Sutton, Peter AndrewEver since Hempel and Oppenheim's development of the Deductive Nomological model of scientific explanation in 1948, a great deal of philosophical energy has been dedicated to constructing a viable model of explanation that concurs both with our intuitions and with the general project of science. Here I critically examine the developments in this field of study over the last half century, and conclude that Humphreys' aleatory model is superior to its competitors. There are, however, some problems with Humphreys' account of the relative quality of an explanation, so in the end I develop and defend a modified version of the aleatory account.Item Normativism and mental causation(2007-05) Tiehen, Justin Thomas, 1977-; Sosa, David, 1966-This dissertation defends a certain view of the mind/body relation, according to which although there is a sense in which everything is physical, there is also a sense in which mental phenomena are irreducible to physical phenomena. The reason for this irreducibility, according to the position defended in this work, is that the mental has a certain normative character which the physical lacks. The central thesis defended in the first part of the work is the claim, advanced by Donald Davidson among others, that the mental realm is governed by constitutive principles of rationality. I both attempt to explain what this means precisely and provide arguments as to why we should think that it is true. Having defended the thesis, I then turn to show that it entails that certain mental phenomena are normative. If the normative is generally irreducible to the non-normative -- as I argue there is good reason to hold -- it then follows as a special case that the mental phenomena in question are irreducible to any (non-normative) physical phenomena. Is this form of antireductionism scientifically respectable? In the second part of the dissertation I attempt to establish that it is by showing that the view can be reconciled with a physicalistically acceptable account of mental causation. Focusing on the causal exclusion problem advanced by Jaegwon Kim among others, I critically discuss both reductive and certain nonreductive solutions to the problem that have been advanced by various philosophers. I then propose my own nonreductive solution to the problem, and attempt to draw out some of the consequences of this solution both for physicalism and for the nature of normativity.Item Refraining, agents, and causation(2013-05) Harrington, Chelsea-Anne Linzee; Dancy, JonathanI consider two versions of an argument against (so-called) negative action, both of which take it that causation is a defining feature of actions. The first asserts that when an agent refrains, her mental states do not cause the absence of an event; as such, the refraining does not qualify as an action. The second asserts that when an agent refrains, she does not cause the apparent results of her refraining, and so again, the refraining does not qualify as an action. The idea motivating the second argument appears to improve on the first, insofar as it allows for the agent to play a role in her actions. I argue that both accounts rely on a narrow conception of causation, framed in terms of a physical connection between cause and effect. This narrow conception does not appear to be justified, and the focus on physical connection causation leads both accounts to misconceive agency. Fortunately, there is available a broader conception of causation, which is both intuitively plausible and better able to capture the phenomenon.Item Resolving the causal paradox(2016-05) Davis, Richard Lawton; Koons, Robert C.; Bonevac, Daniel AThis report begins with a paradox which proceeds from roughly the following premises: (i) that every fact has a cause, (ii) that there is a fact which includes all facts, (iii) that whatever causes a given fact must cause whatever facts that fact includes, and yet (iv) that no fact can cause itself. These premises seem to entail a contradiction, since whatever causes the fact which includes all facts is itself one of the facts which the fact so caused includes, meaning that it must cause itself. Each of the four premises which generate this paradox is intuitively correct. This report resolves the paradox by describing a positive causal model on which all of the four premises have plausible and well-motivated interpretations, at least one such interpretation apiece, which are all consistently true. Much of the discussion is devoted to examining the root logical properties of causation and metaphysical explanation in order to discern which versions of these premises are in fact plausible and well-motivated. The positive model on which these interpretations are reconciled involves an infinite regress of efficient causal facts in which each subsequent fact is embedded as a remainderless proper conjunct of the fact that precedes it.Item Special predication: a naturalistic account of the special sciences(Texas Tech University, 2004-08) Long, Joseph CNot available