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A definition of causation as probability-raising is threatened by two kinds of counterexample: first, when a cause lowers the probability of its effect; and second, when the probability of an effect is raised by a non-cause. In this paper, I present an account that deals successfully with problem cases of both these kinds. In doing so, I also explore some novel implications of incorporating into the metaphysical investigation considerations of causal psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite recent efforts to improve on counterfactual theories of causation, failures to explain how effects depend on their causes are still manifest in a variety of cases. In particular, theories that do a decent job explaining cases of causal preemption have problems accounting for cases of causal intransitivity. Moreover, the increasing complexity of the counterfactual accounts makes it difficult to see why the concept of causation would be such a central part of our cognition. In this paper, I propose an account of our causal thinking that not only explains the hitherto puzzling variety of causal judgments, but also makes it intelligible why we would employ such an elusive concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I will discuss Kim’s powerful explanatory exclusion argument against the causal efficacy of mental properties. Baker and Burge misconstrue Kim’s challenge if they understand it as being based on a purely metaphysical understanding of causation that has no grounding in an epistemological analysis of our successful scientific practices. As I will show, the emphasis on explanatory practices can only be effective in answering Kim if it is understood as being part of the dual-explanandum strategy. Furthermore, a fundamental problem of the contemporary debate about mental causation consists in the fact that all sides take very different examples to be paradigmatic for the relation between psychological and neurobiological explanations. Even if we should expect some alignment in the explanatory scope of neurobiology and psychology/folk-psychology, there is no reason to expect that all mental explanations are exempted by physical explanations, since they do not in general explain the same phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first section of this paper, I articulate Jaegwon Kim's argument against emergent downward causation. In the second section, I canvas four responses to Kim's argument and argue that each fails. In the third section, I show that emergent downward causation does not, contra Kim, entail overdetermination. I argue that supervenience of emergent upon base properties is not sufficient for nomological causal relations between emergent and base properties. What sustains Kim's argument is rather the claim that emergent properties realized by base properties can have no causal powers distinct from those base properties. I argue that this is false. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are judgements and wishes really brain events (or brain states) which will be affirmed by a completed scientific account of how human behavior is caused? Materialists, other than eliminativists, say Yes. But brain events do not cause muscle contractions, hence bodily movements, directly. They do so, if at all, by triggering intermediate causes, viz. firings in motor nerves. So it is crucial, this paper argues, whether they are characterized as biological events – performances of naturally-selected-for operations – or instead as complex microphysical events. ``A causes B, B causes C, so A causes C'' is defensible for biological brain events, but fails for microphysical ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]