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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of the FDI decision on domestic investment in the case of Taiwanese manufacturing firms. In addition, we also consider the deferral effect of the FDI decision and the role of firm size. To this end, this paper takes advantage of an endogenous switching model from which consistent estimators are obtained after correcting for the self-selection problem. The empirical results show that the effect of these manufacturing firms’ FDI decisions on domestic investment is significant within the firms. Furthermore, a crowding-out effect of FDI on domestic investment is found when Taiwanese firms engage in defensive FDI. Finally, FDI is found to have a positive influence on the domestic investment of the larger firms, while the influence is negative in the case of the smaller firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper brings together the Sarvāstivāda (a major school of Abhidharma Buddhism) and Miller's (2019) moving spotlight theory to see how presentness is explained in terms of causation. The paper argues that a causal theory of presentness like Miller's encounters a dilemma: causation is either synchronic or diachronic, but neither is safe in the presence of the challenges. On the one hand, if causation is synchronic, how does a causal chain extend over time so that the wave of causation (and hence the spotlight) can move at all? On the other, if causation is diachronic, then a present moment has a temporal extension enough to accommodate a cause and its proximate effect. The paper proposes a synchronic notion of causation that counters the first challenge. This can be done by bringing together the Sarvāstivādin grasp‐production model of causation, some Stoic ideas about causation, and some Armstrong's metaphysics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a system dynamics analysis of the 1992 Westray mine disaster in Nova Scotia, Canada. It examines the causal structure of the Westray system, including relationships that could have led to conditions that caused the fatal explosion at the mine. The value of simulation is its ability to capture a “mental model” of the safety system, which can stimulate discussion among safety experts as to the systemic causes of a disaster. By taking into account feedback loops and non-linear relationships, which is not possible with conventional root-cause analysis, a dynamic model of the system provides insights into the complex web of causes that can lead to disaster and valuable lessons for organizational learning. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: Causality; Urology; observational research; guidelines; reporting EN Causality Urology observational research guidelines reporting 4 8 5 06/23/23 20230701 NES 230701 As statistical editors and reviewers, we have noticed that observational research papers submitted for publication often share a common set of problems with respect to the issue of causality. For instance, it would be hard to draw conclusions about the effects of chemotherapy if all (or almost all) chemotherapy patients were Stage 3 or 4 whereas the patients not receiving chemotherapy were all Stage 1 or 2. To address this in a causal inference framework, we could include obesity as a covariate in a multivariable model testing the association between statin use and overdiagnosis, with an interaction term between statin use and PSA levels. [Extracted from the article]

This paper is about the Causal Theory of Names, as outlined by Kripke in Naming and Necessity. The paper argues that causal chains which connect users in command of a name N with those present at the baptismal event in which N was introduced are branches of networks of 'N‐labelled' entity representations in the minds of past and present users of N. These networks of N‐labelled entity representations are special cases of networks that result in general from the use of referring expressions. Such networks are an important part of the fabric that holds a speech community together and point towards a view of language as a social practice. The theory of networks and chains is developed within MSDRT ('Mental State Discourse Representation Theory'), an extension of DRT designed for the description of utterance contents, propositional attitudes, mental states and the ways in which mental states change in the course of verbal communication. The last section of the paper explores the view of languages as social practices somewhat further in the light of the network theory developed in the sections leading up to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Donald Davidson established causalism, i.e. the view that reasons are causes and that action explanation is causal explanation, as the dominant view within contemporary action theory. According to his "master argument", we must distinguish between reasons the agent merely has and reasons she has and which actually explain what she did, and the only, or at any rate the best, way to make the distinction is by saying that the reasons for which an agent acts are causes of her action. "Davidson's challenge" to non‐causalists is to come up with an alternative, more convincing, way of drawing the distinction. In this paper, I argue that G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright offer such an alternative. Moreover, I argue that Davidson's own account of interpretation makes no use of his causalist claim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary proponents of regularity theories argue that those seemingly fatal problems can be solved and that regularity theories are in fact poised to address recalcitrant problems facing counterfactual accounts, most importantly those involving causal redundancies. It proposes a revised version of Mackie's theory and argues that this revised view solves the problem of joint effects that famously threatens regularity theories like Mackie's. It gives special attention to connections between regularity theories of causation, regularity theories of laws, and the DN model of explanation. [Extracted from the article]

This article explores the theology of original sin and the different approaches taken by modern Catholic theologians. The papers in this issue of The Heythrop Journal were presented at a seminar at the University of Oxford and highlight the diversity of perspectives on this topic. The article discusses the challenges of understanding original sin, particularly in relation to baptism and the innocence of infants. It also examines the transmission of original sin and the debate between propagation and imitation. The authors present various perspectives, including the significance of grace, the role of Christ's offer of new life, and the communal dimensions of sin. The text focuses on the work of Bernard Lonergan and Karl Rahner, who offer different insights into the theology of original sin. Lonergan's analysis of authenticity and unauthenticity is applied to personal dynamics and social and cultural history, while Rahner emphasizes the offer of divine grace and the universal human experience of concupiscence. The text also explores the role of baptism in relation to original sin and the teachings of Augustine. Overall, the article provides a comprehensive overview of the theology of original sin and its theological implications. [Extracted from the article]

Agent causation, roughly stated, is the view that an agent can stand in direct causal relation to (at least some subset of) her actions. Although agent causation has had a patchy reputation throughout much of contemporary analytic philosophy, it is now considered by many to be a viable theoretical option in various domains in action theory. That said, agent‐causalists continue to grapple with a number of important issues. This paper focuses on one such issue—namely, how to integrate motivating reasons into a picture of agent causation. More specifically, I canvass a number of options for the agent‐causalist, focusing in particular on various causalist accounts, and flagging various problems along the way. I conclude with some brief considerations about how to move forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does one's causal responsibility increase the degree of one's moral responsibility? The proponents of resultant moral luck hold that it does. Until quite recently, the causation literature has almost exclusively been interested in the binary question of whether one factor is a cause of an outcome. Naturally, the debate over resultant moral luck also revolved around this binary question. However, we have seen an increased interest in the question of degrees of causation in recent years. And some philosophers have already explored various implications of a graded notion of causation on resultant moral luck. In this paper, I will do the same. But the implications that I will draw attention to are bad news for resultant moral luck. I will show that resultant moral luck entails some implausible results that leave resultant moral luck more indefensible than it was previously thought be. I will also show that what is typically taken to be the positive argument in favor of resultant moral luck fails. I will conclude that we should reject resultant moral luck. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including discussions on incommensurability and incomparability; similarities of incommensurability to vagueness; and facts about moral responsibility and causation.

The issue of whether and how we have the control necessary for freedom and moral responsibility is central to all control accounts of freedom and moral responsibility. The problem of luck for libertarians aims to show that indeterministic agents are ill‐equipped with the control required for freedom and moral responsibility. In view of this, we must either endorse scepticism about the possibility of free and morally responsible agents, or make some form of, possibly revisionary, compatibilism work. In this paper, I shall offer a new solution to the problem of luck for libertarians. After outlining the problem of luck, I shall argue that, given a particular approach to mental causation, indeterminism can be viewed as an essential requirement of free and morally responsible action. After this, I shall distinguish between different types of inability and show how this provides us with a solution to the problem of luck. Finally, I shall consider some advantages and objections to the proposed solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a substantial literature on the link between finance and growth. Empirical evidence remains inconclusive and the debate continues. In this paper, we adopt the research strategy of focusing on a narrower underlying issue that remains at the core of most macroeconomic theories, namely the interest rate thesis (that lower rates result in higher growth and vice versa). If there are problems with this relationship, this could explain the lack of consensus on the finance‐growth nexus. The question is also of practical relevance: Central banks have been focusing on interest rate policy on the assumption that the interest rate thesis holds. There are theoretical reasons why this may not be the case. We conduct an analysis of time‐varying dynamic conditional correlation in a GARCH model and of the direction of statistical causation between nominal interest rates and real economic activity in 19 industrialized and emerging economies. We find evidence that interest rates are not negatively correlated with economic growth and do not cause growth. Instead, we find evidence that the relationship may be the opposite in both dimensions. This adds to recent doubts about the prevailing conduct of monetary policy and common theoretical models. Specifically, lowering interest rates may be counter‐productive when trying to stimulate the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophers have recently highlighted substantial affinities between causation and grounding, which have inclined some to import the conceptual and formal resources of causal interventionism into the metaphysics of grounding. The prospect of grounding interventionism raises two important questions: What exactly are grounding interventions, and why should we think they enable knowledge of grounding? This paper approaches these questions by examining how causal interventionists have addressed (or might address) analogous questions and then comparing the available options for grounding interventionism. The paper argues that grounding interventions must be understood in worldly terms, as adding something to or deleting something from the roster of entities, or making some fact obtain or fail to obtain. It considers three bases for counterfactual assessment: imagination, structural equation models, and background theory. The paper concludes that grounding interventionism requires firmer epistemological foundations, without which the interventionist's epistemology of grounding is incomplete and ineffectually rationalist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the historical‐causal picture of reference Kripke sketches in Naming and Necessity is highly influential, Kripke in fact says very little about what reference is and how it comes about. In this paper I point out that the possibility of asking WH‐questions (i.e. 'what?', 'who?', 'which?') about a sound or inscription pattern (e.g., what does that refer to?) shows that in case of names especially, their reference, if there is one, will be preserved by a causal‐historical chain constituted by transmissions of the (physical) patterns themselves, even in absence of language users or any linguistic intentions. I sketch out a causal‐informational theory of reference, that holds that the causal aspect of refence transmission is due to two‐factors. On the other hand there are informational chains constituted by data transmissions, on the other, also communicational rules by which speakers can interpret the data as information of something are needed. In most part the causal‐informational theory sketched in the paper can be viewed as complementing Kripke's original causal picture. However, I will argue that Kripke's account of fixing the reference of proper names in 'initial baptisms' is inadequate. I will argue that most cases of seemingly fixing the reference via use of a definite description (e.g., the naming of Neptune) in fact presuppose a prior causal‐informational connection to the named object, thus essentially fixing the reference in the same way as in cases of baptism by ostension. I will further argue that in the cases that do not fall into the previous category, the baptism by definite description simply fail to fix any reference. I thus conclude that there is no such thing as fixing the reference of a proper name by definite description. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of what constitutes an apt interpreted model for the purpose of analyzing causation. I first collect universally adopted aptness principles into a basic account, flagging open questions and choice points along the way. I then explore various additional aptness principles that have been proposed in the literature but have not been widely adopted, the motivations behind their proposals, and the concerns with each that stand in the way of universal adoption. I conclude that the remaining work of articulating aptness for a SEM analysis of causation is tied up with issues to do with modality, ontology, and mereology. Continuing this work is therefore likely to shed light on the relationship between these areas and causation more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Price claims that the agency theory of causation could be understood as a sophisticated form of either realism or empiricism (but not a simple‐minded form of any of them). In this paper, I argue that the agency theory could find a more congenial ally in constructive empiricism (rather than realism) and show that this new alliance would be profitable to both constructive empiricism and the agency theory of causation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a general introduction to the use of causal models in the metaphysics of causation, specifically structural equation models and directed acyclic graphs. It reviews the formal framework, lays out a method of interpretation capable of representing different underlying metaphysical relations, and describes the use of these models in analyzing causation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This tribute to Howard Rachlin speculates about scholarly work that might have been. It explores how behavioral data might bear on philosophical issues, with examples that might be called case studies in experimental philosophy. In 1964, an issue of the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society served a similar function. It was entitled "Psychology: A Behavioral Interpretation"; the papers included "Will," "Experience," "Appetite," "Humors," "Anxiety," and "Man." This presentation imagines what a contemporary project devoted to philosophical and behavior analytic perspectives on the topics of causation, freedom and volition, good and evil, time, words, and mind might have looked like. Along the way it notes how the project would have benefitted from Howard Rachlin's seminal contributions to both behavior analysis and philosophy. If ever such a project comes to pass, it will inevitably bear the stamp of his contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of what we know results from information sources on which we epistemically rely. This fact about epistemic reliance, however, stands in tension with a very powerful intuition governing knowledge, an intuition that Pritchard (e.g., 2010) has termed the "ability intuition," the idea that a believer's "reliable cognitive faculties are the most salient part of the total set of causal factors that give rise to [their] believing the truth" (Vaesen, 2011, p. 518; compare Greco, 2003; 2009; 2010). In this paper I suggest that this tension may indeed be ineliminable. I proceed by canvassing some representative attempts to reconcile epistemic reliance and the ability intuition. In doing so, I suggest that all of these attempts founder on one or the other of two elements of what I've previously described (Shieber, 2013, 2015) as a "personalist presumption" in discussions of social epistemology: an excessive focus on (i) reliability filters within the persons who are the recipients of information or (ii) on reliable truth‐tracking and ‐conveying abilities in the persons who are the transmitters of information. In conclusion, I suggest how best to resolve the tension: by abandoning the ability intuition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How is grounding related to metaphysical explanation? The standard view is that the former somehow "backs", "undergirds" or "underlies" the latter. This view fits into a general picture of explanation, according to which explanations in general hold in virtue of a certain elite group of "explanatory relations" or "determinative relations" that back them. This paper turns the standard view on its head: grounding doesn't "back" metaphysical explanation but is in an important sense downstream from it. I call this view "grounding idealism", since it structurally resembles an analogous view about causation that is known as "causal idealism" and has been endorsed by philosophers like Michael Scriven and Philip Kitcher. I formulate a specific version of grounding idealism, Metaphysical Explanation‐First Idealism (MEFI), according to which the semantic value of 'grounding' is an abundant, gerrymandered relation settled by the metaphysical explanation facts. Then I offer some theoretical considerations that support MEFI over rival accounts of the relation between grounding and metaphysical explanation. Finally, I address the question of what role is left for grounding to play, if not that of "backing" metaphysical explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To uncover pathways for understanding and alleviating poverty, this paper offers an alternative approach for examining the real and unseen processes of destitution and in‐work poverty which shape the lives of consumers. We apply a critical realist paradigm structured around three core tenets—stratified realities, complex causations and generative structures—to surface the nuanced complexities of these issues. A critical realist lens encourages impact by focusing on the deep causes of enduring social problems and provides transformative consumer research scholars with an integrative way to work toward transformative policy action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles S. Peirce's realism has been neglected by pragmatists and critical realists alike in the current debate over metatheoretical realism in sociology. This paper introduces Peirce's view of what is at stake in the question of realism, specifically regarding causation. Leveraging current interest in Peirce's conception of abduction, I show how realism about causation is implicit therein. I present a genealogy of the concept of real causation Peirce embraces. I explicate Peirce's view of the scientific significance of realism about causation, and why he finds it compelling. Finally, I argue that Peirce would intervene in the current debate by saying that those committed to abductive theorizing and causal explanation are implicitly realist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, critical realists have increasingly engaged with the thought of Charles S. Peirce (1839‐1914), the founder of the American pragmatist tradition. But the engagement has been mostly narrow in focus and at times misinformed. This paper examines points of continuity between Peircean thought and critical realism with respect to causation, ontology, and truth. Its purpose is to lay the groundwork for further and more fruitful engagement between the traditions by bringing attention to some things critical realists may not have known, and to correct some inaccurate things they thought they knew, about Peirce's philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For some of us, the attraction of cybernetics is the very idea of it, the idea that the search for transdisciplinary truths is both possible and valuable. Many would accept that cybernetics has helped unify the first-order study of observed systems. In this paper, I explore ways in which second-order cybernetics may unify debates and discussions in the vast range of disciplines concerned with the observer, his experiences and his accounts of those experiences. The first part of the paper is deliberately first person and anecdotal, in the spirit of von Foerster's dictum, 'life is studied in vivo not in vitro'. The second part re-examines the classic cybernetic concepts of 'self-organization' and 'circular causality' from the perspective of the constructivist epistemology of second order cybernetics and, by making the metaphorical status of the concepts explicit, shows how second order cybernetics may serve as a methodology for exploring modes of being. A major aim of the paper is to seek ways of navigating or building bridges between the praxes of rational science and the discourses of phenomenology and poetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is natural to think of causes as difference‐makers. What exact difference causes make, however, is an open question. In this paper, I argue that the right way of understanding difference‐making is in terms of causal processes: causes make a difference to a causal process that leads to the effect. I will show that this way of understanding difference‐making nicely captures the distinction between causing an outcome and helping determine how the outcome happens and, thus, explains why causation is not transitive. Moreover, the theory handles tricky cases that are problematic for competing accounts of difference‐making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a systematic and suggestive analogy between grounding and causation. In my view, this analogy is no coincidence. Grounding and causation are alike because grounding is a type of causation: metaphysical causation. In this paper I defend the identification of grounding with metaphysical causation, drawing on the causation literature to explore systematic connections between grounding and metaphysical dependence counterfactuals, and I outline a non‐reductive counterfactual theory of grounding along interventionist lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sometimes we start with the immediate causes of an event and we march backwards, by looking for the causes of those causes, and the causes of those causes, and so on, until we get to the more remote causes. So, in order for B Blameworthiness & Causation b to entail that Bystander is blameworthy for D, Bystander must be blameworthy for trying to bring about D by means of C. However, I submit that Bystander is I not i blameworthy for trying to bring about D by means of C. For what I think is clear about this case is that Bystander is blameworthy for trying to bring about the final outcome E (in fact, this was premise 2 in my main argument from the last section). Arguably, then, if Bystander I is i blameworthy for disabling Assassin 1, it's only because she took that to be a way of causally contributing to Victim's death (event E), not because she took that to be a way of causing another assassin to shoot. Bystander's wearing her red hat caused Assassin 1 to shoot at Victim, and Assassin 1's shooting in turn caused Victim's death. [Extracted from the article]

Causal process tracing ( CPT) has emerged as an important method of causal inference in qualitative social science research, most notably in case study research designs. There is now a considerable literature on the aims, philosophical groundings, and methods of process tracing. This paper reviews the CPT literature to assess what new directions it may suggest for policy studies. The first part of the paper sets out the methodological advantages CPT offers in building and testing theories of policy change, most notably in supporting a theoretical pluralism to address the problem of complexity in policy studies. Building on recent scholarship across the social sciences, the second part examines step by step the recently minted 'best practice' for undertaking CPT in policy studies. This part includes discussion of the possible pitfalls of CPT as a method; common errors involved in its use are set out and minimization strategies offered. In particular, while acknowledging the usefulness of Bayesian tests for causality as heuristic devices, we emphasize the limitations of applying such tests in practice. Possible correctives are suggested. The final part of the paper speculates more generally on the potential of CPT to improve our investigation of patterns of policy change over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the author's reply to the discussions on his paper "Subjective Probability and Causality Assessment." The author says he wants to thank the three discussants for their thoughtful and stimulating comments on the two papers. He says all three have themselves made important contributions to the theory and design of formal inference systems. He further says it is a pleasure to see his own work reflected in the light of their experience. He begins his reply by focusing on three issues raised by statistician A.P. Dempster.

Causation is a central issue in Early Modern metaphysical debates and it was widely assumed (although there were exceptions, such as Leibniz) that the mind and body causally interact with one another. Walsh contrasts this reading of Amo with a "Leibnizian" reading where, like Leibniz, Amo is said to have denied that there is any genuine interaction between mind and body. Here, Elisabeth challenges Descartes to explain how his "substance dualism" (his view that mind and body are two radically different substances) can make sense of mind-body interaction. [Extracted from the article]

Criticizes the papers of Elja Arjas and Donald Rubin about the statistical theory of causality. Focus of Rubin's paper on the concept of potential outcome that are partly unobserved; Need for detailed analysis with actual data and subjective prior distributions in Arja's paper to show the asserted superiority of the Bayesian approach of causality; Inability of both papers to emphasize the true role of statistics in causality research.

1. There are multiple tools for scientific inference that seem rarely used in research examining the effects of stressors on rivers caused by human impacts. Very few of these scientific tools are ‘new’. While foundational to scientific methods, they seem to have been overlooked or forgotten. The thesis of this paper is that, by looking back to what used to be considered basic knowledge about scientific methods and the discipline of ecology, we may re-learn some useful ways of improving survey designs and re-framing scientific questions. 2. Two common barriers to strong inference are examined in detail in this paper: disentangling the effects of different stressors, so that we can confidently infer which ones are the causes of unacceptable environmental changes; and dealing with high variability among replicate observations. Poor information about causality means managers cannot know what rehabilitation or amelioration should be attempted. Poor fits of models to data lower confidence in inference. Commonly proffered solutions, which include large sample sizes; choosing ‘representative reaches’; or using complex multivariate statistics, do not solve these problems. 3. The solutions lie within the basic components of good experimental design, which apply as much to surveys as they do to experiments. Several pieces of practical advice are offered and explained, which include (i) the necessity to specify a precise mechanism of cause and effect in hypotheses, and what changes to common approaches this entails; (ii) some difficulties caused by scale-ups that are implicit in the selection and measurement of variables, which necessitate changes to some standard protocols; (iii) the value of planned comparisons in surveys as ways of strengthening inference and employing approaches, like control species, where other forms of controls cannot be gained; (iv) the necessity to view random sampling as essential to the selection of sites, which means we should abandon the notion of ‘representative’ reaches; (v) to use sample compositing and sub-sampling to optimise sampling effort at those replicates that provide degrees of freedom for hypothesis tests while cutting costs (vi) to be open to new forms of analysis, like quantile regression, which tests non-traditional hypotheses about constraints, rather than mean or central responses, and which deals much better with sorting between the effects of multiple stressors. 4. Thematic implications: sorting between the effects of multiple stressors caused by human impacts needs the best possible scientific inference we can apply. Common forms of studies in the modern stream literature suggest we collectively know less now than we did 40–50 years ago because some fundamental aspects of strong inference and basic knowledge in ecology seem to have been forgotten or lost. This raises questions about the quality of ecological training provided at universities. Although some aspects of good design are seen as ‘too expensive’, cost per se is relative. A well-designed programme that has been optimised for the funds available is far cheaper than the costs of poorly designed surveys that provide inaccurate information and predictions, which are more likely to lead to poor management decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Pierre Hadot's philosophy as a way of life in the context of race. I argue that a "way of life" approach to philosophy renders intelligible how antiracist confrontation of racist ideas and institutionalized white complicity is a properly philosophical way of life requiring regulated reflection on habits—particularly, habits of whiteness. I first rehearse some of Hadot's analysis of the "way of life" orientation in philosophy, in which philosophical wisdom is understood as cultivated by actions which result in the creation of wise habits. I analyze a phenomenological claim about the nature of habit implied by the "way of life" approach, namely, that habits can be both the cause and the effect of action. This point is central to the "way of life" philosophy, I claim, in that it makes possible the intelligent redirection of habits, in which wise habits are more the effect than simply the cause of action. Lastly, I illustrate the "way of life" approach in the context of anti‐racism by turning to Linda Martín Alcoff's whiteness antieliminativism, which outlines a morally defensible transformation of the habits of whiteness. I argue that anti‐racism provides an intelligible context for modern day forms of what Hadot calls "spiritual exercises" insofar as the "way of life" philosophy is embodied in the practice of whites seeing themselves seeing as white and seeing themselves being seen as white. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the notion that people who believe in psychic ability possess various psychological attributes that increase the likelihood of them misattributing paranormal causation to experiences that have a normal explanation. The paper discusses the structure and measurement of belief in psychic ability, then reviews the considerable body of work exploring the relationship between belief in psychic ability, and academic performance, intelligence, critical thinking, probability misjudgement and reasoning, measures of fantasy proneness and the propensity to find correspondences in distantly related material. Finally, the paper proposes several possible directions for future research, including: the need to build a multi-causal model of belief; to address the issue of correlation versus causation; to resolve the inconsistent pattern of findings present in many areas; and to develop a more valid, reliable and fine-grained measure of belief in psychic ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criticizes the paper of Donald Rubin about estimating causal effects of treatments in randomized and non-randomized studies. Focus of the paper on the use of potential responses in contrast to graphical models; Manifestation of different formalisms as different languages; Disputability of Rubin's statement that graphical models tend to bury essential scientific and design issues.

A recent paper by David Lewis, "Causation as Influence", provides a new theory of causation. This paper presents an argument against the theory, using a series of counterexamples that are, I think, of independent interest to philosophers of causation. I argue that (a) the relation asserted by a claim of the form "C was a cause of E" is distinct from the relation of causal influence, (b) the former relation depends very much, contra Lewis, on the individuation conditions for the event E, and (c) Lewis's account is unsatisfactory as an analysis of either kind of relation. The counterexamples presented in this paper provide, I suggest, some insight into the reasons for the failure of counterfactual accounts of causal relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Causation is still poorly understood in strategy research, and confusion prevails around key concepts such as competitive advantage. In this paper, we define epistemological conditions that help dispel some of this confusion and provide a basis for more developed approaches. In particular, we argue that a counterfactual approach—one that builds on a systematic analysis of ‘what-if’ questions—can advance our understanding of key causal mechanisms in strategy research. We offer two concrete methodologies—counterfactual history and causal modeling—as useful solutions. We also show that these methodologies open up new avenues in research on competitive advantage. Counterfactual history can add to our understanding of the context-specific construction of resource-based competitive advantage and path dependence, and causal modeling can help to reconceptualize the relationships between resources and performance. In particular, resource properties can be regarded as mediating mechanisms in these causal relationships. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a theory to manage the uneasy relation between strategic choice, chance, and determinism (or inevitability). To do so, we locate arguments in intellectual history that have a clear bearing on this relation. We introduce and defend four conjectures that outline the relationship between each of them and their comparative significance. The paper thus aims at achieving three objectives: (a) to articulate a philosophically sustainable theory of strategic choice that corroborates experience (without being induced by it); (b) to synthesize what remains one of the most sustained debates in strategy, namely the nature, role, and relation of choice, chance and determinism; and (c) to contribute to developing a foundation for multilevel research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates whether causation is extrinsic in Humean Supervenience ( HS) in the sense that being caused by is an intrinsic relation between token causes and effects. The underlying goal is to test whether causality is extrinsic for Humeans and intrinsic for anti-Humeans in this sense. I argue that causation is typically extrinsic in HS, but it is intrinsic to event pairs that collectively exhaust almost the whole of history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obsessions play an important role in strategic management: this paper shows how they establish causality between intention and action. Following 1 month of continuous, direct observation of CEOs at work, strategies were revealed to be intentional: by their activities the CEOs generated a strategic core consistent with their preoccupations. The Magnificent Obsessions latent in their preoccupations appeared as a common element in all their activities and served as a key to understanding their compulsion to address certain issues over others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the relationships between corporate earnings and investment. In particular, the study investigates whether knowledge of past investments improves the prediction of future earnings beyond predictions that are based on past earnings alone. Similarly, it investigates whether knowledge of past earnings improves the prediction of future investments beyond knowledge of past investments alone. This is the empirical definition of Granger causality. The empirical results show that the bivariate past series of earnings and investments is superior to the univariate series in predicting future investments but not in predicting future earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first instalment of a two-part paper on the counterfactual theory of causation. It is well known that this theory is ridden with counterexamples. Specifically, the following four features of the theory suffer from problems: it understands causation as a relation between events;, counterfactual dependence is understood using a metric of similarity among possible worlds;, it defines a non-discriminatory concept of causation; and, it understands causation as transitive., A number of philosophers have recently proposed that causation is contrastive because making contrasts explicit defuses counterexamples. A contrastive causal claim has the following form: C rather than C* causes E rather than E*, where C* and E* are alternative or contrast events. In this paper, I show that making contrasts explicit does indeed defuse some counterexamples. However, I also argue that the examples discussed in the literature all share a common feature, viz. that the original causal judgement is ambiguous in one way or another. Contrasting does not help with counterexamples that do not have this feature. Part II of this paper then takes up the hard cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: It is often natural to compare two events by describing one as ‘more of a cause’ of some effect than the other. But what do such comparisons amount to, exactly? This paper aims to provide a guided tour of the recent literature on ‘degrees of causation’. Section 2 looks at what I call ‘dependence measures’, which arise from thinking of causes as difference‐makers. Section 3 looks at what I call ‘production measures’, which arise from thinking of causes as jointly sufficient for their effects. Finally, section 4 examines the important question of whether there is any sense in which an agent is more responsible for an outcome in virtue of her action being more of a cause of it. I describe a puzzle that emerges from this question, and explore various strategies for resolving it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper argues that God's immanent causation and Spinoza's account of activity as adequate causation (of finite modes) do not always go together in Spinoza's thought. We show that there is good reason to doubt that this is the case in Spinoza's early Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well‐being. In the Short Treatise, Spinoza defends an account of God's immanent causation without fully endorsing the account of activity as adequate causation that he will later introduce in the Ethics (E3def2). We turn to an examination of how God's immanent causation relates to the activity of finite things in the Ethics. We consider two ways to think about the link between God, seen as immanent cause, and the activity of finite things: namely, in terms of entailment and in terms of production. We argue that the productive model is most promising for understanding the way in which the activity of finite things and God's immanent causality are connected in Spinoza's (mature) philosophy [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we distinguish between cause and effect? The main argument of this paper is that if a realist account of the meaning of causal statements is adopted, then two clear distinctions between cause and effect emerge. By realist account is meant conceiving a cause as something with a power to act. Since a realist approach to causality is not widely accepted among philosophers, two arguments against a realist approach to causality are countered. The asymmetry of causality is defended against the claim that physics, in the main, describes a symmetrical universe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fundamental physics makes no clear use of causal notions; it uses laws that operate in relevant respects in both temporal directions and that relate whole systems across times. But by relating causation to evidence, we can explain how causation fits in to a physical picture of the world and explain its temporal asymmetry. This paper takes up a deliberative approach to causation, according to which causal relations correspond to the evidential relations we need when we decide on one thing in order to achieve another. Tamsin's taking her umbrella is a cause of her staying dry, for example, if and only if her deciding to take her umbrella for the sake of staying dry is adequate grounds for believing she'll stay dry. This correspondence explains why causation matters: knowledge of causal structure helps us make decisions that are evidence of outcomes we seek. The account also explains why we can control the future and not the past, and why causes come before their effects. When agents properly deliberate, their decisions can never count as evidence for any outcomes they may seek in the past. From this it follows that causal relations don't run backwards. This deliberative asymmetry is itself traced back to asymmetries of evidence and entropy, providing a new way of deriving causal asymmetry from temporally symmetric laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I distinguish two often-conflated theses-the thesis that all dispositions are intrinsic properties and the thesis that the causal bases of all dispositions are intrinsic properties-and argue that the falsity of the former does not entail the falsity of the latter. In particular, I argue that extrinsic dispositions are a counterexample to first thesis but not necessarily to the second thesis, because an extrinsic disposition does not need to include any extrinsic property in its causal basis. I conclude by drawing some general lessons about the nature of dispositions and their relation to their causal bases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth using data for 17 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis is conducted using panel cointegration and causality tests which take account of heterogeneity between countries which arises as a result of different country intercepts and varying regression coefficients slopes across countries. The results show that there is homogenous bi-directional causality between financial development and economic growth. This result is robust to alternative measures of financial development and implies that for these Sub-Saharan African countries, both the real and financial sectors are complementary to each other and their simultaneous development should be encouraged. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Throughout the 1990s, four global waves of financial turmoil occurred. The beginning of the 21st century has also suffered from several crisis episodes, including the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. However, to date, the forecasting results are still disappointing. This paper examines whether new insights can be gained from the application of the self-organizing map (SOM) - a non-parametric neural-network-based visualization tool. We develop a SOM-based model for prediction of currency crises. We evaluate the predictive power of the model and compare it with that of a classical probit model. The results indicate that the SOM-based model is a feasible tool for predicting currency crises. Moreover, its visual capabilities facilitate the understanding of the factors and conditions that contribute to the emergence of currency crises. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]