作者简介

Stephen Mumford is Professor of Metaphysics at the Department of Philosophy, University of Nottingham, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts. He has written several books on this topic, including Dispositions (OUP, 1998), Laws in Nature (Routledge, 2004), Getting Causes from Powers (with Rani Lill Anjum, OUP, 2011), and Metaphysics: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2012).
Rani Lill Anjum is Research Fellow at the Norwegian University of Life Science where she leads the Causation in Science research project (CauSci). CauSci is a global network for those interested in a scientifically informed philosophy of causation. She has written many popular articles in magazines and newspapers and delivered numerous talks for non-specialist audiences. She is the co-author of Getting Causes from Powers (OUP, 2011).

内容简介

Causation is the most fundamental connection in the universe. Without it, there would be no science or technology. There would be no moral responsibility either, as none of our thoughts would be connected with our actions and none of our actions with any consequences. Nor would we have a system of law because blame resides only in someone having caused injury or damage.

Any intervention we make in the world around us is premised on there being causal connections that are, to a degree, predictable. It is causation that is at the basis of prediction and also explanation. This Very Short Introduction introduces the key theories of causation and also the surrounding debates and controversies. Do causes produce their effects by guaranteeing them? Do causes have to precede their effects? Can causation be reduced to the forces of physics? And are we right to think of causation as one single thing at all?


Stephen Mumford is Professor of Metaphysics at the Department of Philosophy, University of Nottingham, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts. He has written several books on this topic, including Dispositions (OUP, 1998), Laws in Nature (Routledge, 2004), Getting Causes from Powers (with Rani Lill Anjum, OUP, 2011), and Metaphysics: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2012).

Rani Lill An...

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豆瓣评论

  • 泥豆尼痘昵
    这本书就是告诉你因果关系有多复杂,如果这的确是作者的目的,那么他做到了,但除了展现因果关系远超常人想象的复杂性之外,看不出有什么其它内容。休谟的因果哲学、counterfactuals概念、因果的物理学原理、多重因果和主因果等等内容无论哪一个都无法囊括所有事例与解释所有现象,你在阅读过程中几乎无限体验一种循环:先给你看一个有趣的概念,很有道理吧,越想越有道理,啪的一个反例打脸,怎么办,换另一个有趣的概念。于是读完此书你还是给不出任何唯一答案,倒是会对感到更多的恐惧,因为你正在为手头上的活寻求因果关系,那么百分百无法满足所有相关理论,必须选边站且最好把选边的理由讲清楚,而这本书完全不告诉你如何进行具体实践,即便有毫无存在感的最后一章。要学习因果关系,还是请读偏数学向的读物,比如Pearl的书。01-25
  • athanos
    思辨性很强,主题也很有趣重要。浏览了各家学说和各自的局限、反例;叙述的顺序也是层层递进,各家你方唱罢我登场,非常利于读者登堂入室。哲学书就该这样有趣又有启发性。里面的一些涉及科学理论的东西有点幼稚外行,这恐怕是其唯一的缺点吧。02-03
  • 斯宾诺莎的镜片
    读了知乎友人的翻译版,总体上一直在提问题。算是做了个粗略的地图概览吧。主要讨论了本体论意义上的“因果性是什么?”02-04
  • ripley
    怎么还会有人用manual的标准来要求introduction呢... 神奇04-18
  • 项平
    作为通识读物已经很棒了。前五章大致是休谟对causation的还原处理及反对立场,就此铺开地图。章六说emergentism原则上强调lower-level physical things的低解释力,但这一导读似乎太笼统而过时了,例如忽略了group dynamics的强涌生性与世纪末一众批判实在论者对decomposition的重视(R. Collins,2004;P. S. Gorski,2003)。第七章狠批多元论,直接以推论主义为anti-realism about causation而急需事实之于推论的效力,继而指出多元论的涣散,只能失败。如果只写到这,那多少不太讨喜,但本书迅速把这一话题引申到了身心关系与主体间性,这就令视野豁然开朗(或者说瞬间复杂了几倍)。可惜没咋展开前沿研究。08-30

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