PHI403 Lecture 03 — Evidence Based on What?

Articulates a distinction that runs through the whole course: causation as an ontological matter (what causation is) versus causation as an epistemological matter (how we discover it). Confusing the two is the operationalisation fallacy — Berkeley identifying material objects with perceptions, Hume identifying causation with constant conjunction.

Scientific methods each pick out a different symptom of causation: regularities, difference-makers, probability raisers, manipulability, tendencies, mechanisms. None is identical to causation, and none is immune to counterexamples. Therefore causal evidence is not the same as causation, and choice of method implicitly commits one to a particular ontology of causation.

The lecture's ontology-first prescription: what causation is should inform our choice of method, not the reverse. This sets up the methodological-pluralism argument of lecture 20.

Connections

Back-link: sources/2023-anjum-rocca-phi403-causation-in-science. Concepts: concepts/causation · concepts/philosophical-bias · concepts/methodological-pluralism.