Evidence and the Assessment of Causal Relations in the Health Sciences

This contribution claims that the two fundamental notions of causation at work in the health sciences are manipulative and mechanistic, and investigates what kinds of evidence matter for the assessment of causal relations. This article is a development of our 2007 article, ‘Plurality of Causality’, where we argue for a pluralistic account of causation with an eye to econometrics and a single medical example. The present contribution has a wider focus, and considers the notion of evidence within a whole range of disciplines belonging to the health sciences. Section 1 addresses the relations between kinds of evidence and causal accounts, and it is shown how different notions of causation can be employed in various medical cases. Section 2 calls attention to issues crucial for any adequate epistemological theory of causation, such as the distinctions between types and tokens, observational and experimental regimes, explanation and prediction. Lastly, the notion of context is articulated, highlighted in its role in the assessment of causal links. All these issues are tackled in the framework of what we label a ‘bottom–up’ epistemology.     

Scepticism About Scepticism or the Very Idea of a Global ‘Vat-Language’

This paper aims to motivate a scepticism about scepticism in contemporary epistemology. I present the sceptic with a dilemma: On one parsing of the BIV (brain-in-a-vat) scenario, the second premise in a closure-based sceptical argument will turn out false, because the scenario is refutable; on another parsing, the scenario collapses into incoherence, because the sceptic cannot even save the appearances. I discuss three different ways of cashing out the BIV scenario: ‘Recent Envatment’ (RE), ‘Lifelong Envatment’ (LE) and ‘Nothing But Envatment’ (NBE). I show that RE scenarios are a kind of ‘local’ sceptical scenario that does not pose a significant threat to the possibility of perceptual knowledge as such. I then go on to consider the more radical (or global) LE and NBE scenarios, which do undermine the possibility of perceptual knowledge of an ‘external’ world by positing that it is conceivable that one has always been envatted and, hence, trapped in a ‘global’ illusion. I start by assuming that we could be in such a scenario (LE or NBE) and then spell out what we would need to presuppose for such scenarios to be capable of being actual. Drawing on some central insights from Wittgenstein’s anti-private language considerations, I show that the truth of a global scepticism would presuppose the possibility of a private ‘vat-language’, a notion that cannot be rendered coherent. But, if so, then neither can the sceptical scenarios that presuppose such a conception.

     

The covering law model of historical explanation

It is often argued (as by Hempel and Nagel) that genuine historical explanations — if these are to be had — must exhibit a connection between events to be explained and universal or probabilistic laws (or ‘hypotheses'). This connection may take either a ‘strong’ or ‘weak’ form. The historian may show that a statement of the event to be explained is a logical consequence of statements of reasonably well‐confirmed universal laws and occurrences linked by the laws to the event to be explained. Or the historian may show that a statement of the event to be explained has high inductive probability conferred upon it given statements of reasonably well‐confirmed probabilistic laws and occurrences so linked by the laws to the type of event to be explained that one finds the occurrence of the particular event likely. This essay focuses on ‘strong’ explanations which meet a ‘deducibility’ requirement (for reasons given in the body of the article). It is argued that explanations in history (at least where it is plausible to construe them as ‘non‐rational') may meet a ‘deducibility’ requirement and count as genuine historical explanations although they do not meet a ‘covering law’ requirement (i. e. none of the premises of these explanations state universal or probabilistic hypotheses). It is required, however, that at least one premise in such explanations assert a reasonably well‐confirmed condition (e. g., a co‐variation) which can be taken as a sign or indication of the presence of laws. Rather than appealing to laws, the historian may appeal to the well‐founded possibility of laws.     

What goes into a Paradigm? Some reflections on gender‐issue ‘differences’ between Sunni law schools,and the problematic of their historical attribution

Traditional Islamic law developed within a number of paradigmatic blueprints that were later ascribed to the ‘founders’ of ‘law schools’. This law was neither code‐driven ‘civil law’ in the sense of the Napoleonic code, nor was it ‘common law’ in the English and American sense. Speaking mainly in the language of traditions, medieval scholars formulated legal rules whose admissibility depended on communal consensus regarding their validity. Many of the rules remained imbedded in ‘examples’, Hadith‐reported case studies, and/or qur'anic exegesis, while the underlying principles formed part of the developing legal tradition. That they were not codified provided the latter with an inherent flexibility, enabling judges and jurisconsults not just to apply, but to develop the law. The following article is a study of a legal concept, tahlil marriage, and the ways in which the four extant Sunni law schools have dealt with this notion, including the development of legal categories that were brought to, and derived from, the concept in question.     

How Probabilistic Causation Can Account for the Use of Mechanistic Evidence

In a recent article in this journal, Federica Russo and Jon Williamson argue that an analysis of causality in terms of probabilistic relationships does not do justice to the use of mechanistic evidence to support causal claims. I will present Ronald Giere’s theory of probabilistic causation, and show that it can account for the use of mechanistic evidence (both in the health sciences—on which Russo and Williamson focus—and elsewhere). I also review some other probabilistic theories of causation (of Suppes, Eells, and Humphreys) and show that they cannot account for the use of mechanistic evidence. I argue that these theories are also inferior to Giere’s theory in other respects.     

Islamic inheritance in Australia and family provision law: are Sharia wills valid?

This article explains the context of Islamic inheritance and the distinctive nature of what is called in a preliminary sense as ‘Muslim intergenerational property’. The article suggests that a wider view of inheritance should be taken on the basis that inheritance is an intergenerational process that, in the case of Muslims, incorporates religious notions. Secondly, the article describes family provision law and the particular nature of the English transplant of inheritance law into Australia. Thirdly, the article describes the nature of legal services provided to Islamic families and the drafting of Sharia wills. Fourthly, in the light of the law under the State and Federal family provision legislation, the article considers the validity of Islamic wills.     

Reversing the Counterfactual Analysis of Causation

The counterfactual analysis of causation has focused on one particular counterfactual conditional, taking as its starting‐point the suggestion that C causes E iff (～C □→ ～E). In this paper, some consequences are explored of reversing this counterfactual, and developing an account starting with the idea that C causes E iff (～E □→ ～C). This suggestion is discussed in relation to the problem of pre‐emption. It is found that the ‘reversed’ counterfactual analysis can handle even the most difficult cases of pre‐emption with only minimal complications. The paper closes with a discussion of the wider philosophical implications of developing a reversed counterfactual analysis, especially concerning the differentiation of causes from causal conditions, causation by absences, and the extent to which causes suffice for their effects.     

It's Difficult to Explain Away the Appearance That Causation Comes in Degrees: A Reply to Sartorio

Does the relation of (actual) causation admit of degrees? Is it sensible to say, for example, that ‘as compared to his consuming the light beer, Clement's consuming the moonshine was more a cause of his becoming drunk’? Suppose the answer is ‘yes’. Suppose also that country A unjustifiably ignites a lethal war with country B, and you intuit that, while most combatants of A are liable to lethal counterattack, most non-combatants of A aren't similarly liable. Then, you might support your intuition by reasoning as follows. ‘Perhaps most non-combatants of A causally contribute to A's unjust, lethal war effort. However, unlike most combatants of A, their causal contributions are not of such a degree that makes them liable to lethal counterattack’. Such reasoning is rejected by Carolina Sartorio. This is due to the recent revealing of a certain puzzle, one which suggests to Sartorio that causation does not come in degrees. Now, one motivation for Sartorio's reaction to the aforementioned puzzle is her thought that we can, for the most part, ‘explain away’ the ‘illusion’ that causation comes in degrees. I will argue that Sartorio insufficiently supports her foregoing thought. Using Sartorio's resources, we cannot (largely) ‘explain away’ the widespread appearance that causation comes in degrees.     

Being articulate: Rede in Heidegger’s Being and Time

Being and Time’s emphasis on practical activities has attracted much attention as an approach to meaning not modelled exclusively on language. However, understanding this emphasis is made more difficult by Heidegger’s notion of Rede (‘Articulacy’ or ‘Discourse’), which he routinely characterizes as both language-like and basic to all disclosure. This paper assesses whether this notion can be both interpreted coherently and reconciled with Heidegger’s emphasis on intelligent nonlinguistic behaviours. It begins by identifying two functions of Articulacy – the demonstrative and articulatory – and a potential source of incoherence in Heidegger’s analysis. Having reviewed some standard approaches to Heideggerian Articulacy, I show how Heidegger’s discussion of predicative judgements (‘Statements’) implies that language can be linked with different kinds of content. This allows Heidegger’s analysis to be read coherently, provided Articulacy is understood as having distinct purposive and predicative modes. The final section shows how this reading preserves a close connection between Articulacy and language while accommodating intelligent nonlinguistic behaviours.     

At one with our actions,but at two with our bodies

Jennifer Hornsby's account of human action frees us from the temptation to think of the person who acts as ‘doing’ the events that are her actions, and thereby removes much of the allure of ‘agent causation’. But her account is spoiled by the claim that physical actions are ‘tryings’ that cause bodily movements. It would be better to think of physical actions and bodily movements as identical; but Hornsby refuses to do this, seemingly because she thinks that to do so would be to endorse the so–called ‘standard causal story’. But Hornsby misses a possibility here, for we can insist on this identity claim without endorsing the standard story if we embrace an account which parallels the disjunctive account in the philosophy of perception. This will leave us with a picture of physical action that saves the insights of Hornsby's account without succumbing to its distortions.     

Functional constraints on sentence processing: A cross-linguistic study

English and Italian provide some interesting contrasts that are relevant to a controversial problem in psycholinguistics: the boundary between grammatical and extra-grammatical knowledge in sentence processing. Although both are SVO word order languages without case inflections to indicate basic grammatical relations, Italian permits far more variation in word order for pragmatic purposes. Hence Italians must rely more than English listeners on factors other than word order. In this experiment, Italian and English adults were asked to interpret 81 simple sentences varying word order, animacy contrasts between the two nouns, topicalization and contrastive stress. Italians relied primarily on semantic strategies while the English listeners relied on word order—including a tendency to interpret the second noun as subject in non-canonical word orders (corresponding to word order variations in informal English production). Italians also made greater use of topic and stress information. Finally, Italians were much slower and less consistent in the application of word order strategies even for reversible NVN sentences where there was no conflict between order and semantics. This suggests that Italian is ‘less’ of an SVO language than English. Semantic strategies apparently stand at the ‘core’ of Italian to the same extent that word order stands at the ‘core’ of English. It is suggested that these results pose problems for claims about a ‘universal’ separation between semantics and syntax, and for theories that postulate a ‘universal’ priority of one type of information over another. Results are discussed in the light of the competition model, a functionalist approach to grammar that accounts in a principled way for probabilistic outcomes and differential ‘weights’ among competing and converging sources of information in sentence processing.     

Laws of nature and physical existents

Nominalists, denying the reality of anything over and above concreta, are committed to a reductive account of any law of nature, explaining its necessity—the fact that it not only holds for all actual instances, but would hold for any additional ones—in, for example, epistemic terms (its likelihood/certainty of holding beyond the already observed instances). Nominalists argue that the world would be no different without irreducible modalities. ‘Modal realists’ often object that this parallels a common phenomenalist argument against believing in a mind‐independent external world. However, phenomenalism without translatability into sensory language is incoherent, though any such translation is impossible. The ‘as if philosophy is untenable as well. But it is quite possible to formulate inductive methodology's imperatives in non‐modal terms. Modal realism purports to give a reason against inductive scepticism, but does not go beyond saying that there is one.     

Group identity and peer relations: A longitudinal study of group identity,perceived peer acceptance,and friendships amongst ethnic minority English children

This research examined whether peer relationships amongst ethnic minority status children reflect the social groups to which children belong and the degree to which they identify with these groups. A longitudinal study was conducted to investigate the influence of group identities (i.e., ethnic and national) on children's perceived peer acceptance and preference for same‐ethnic friendships. Measures of ethnic and English identification, perceived peer acceptance, and friendship choice were administered to 207 south‐Asian English children, aged between 5 and 11, at two time points 6 months apart. In line with predictions, longitudinal analysis showed that bicultural identification (i.e., higher ethnic and English identity) was related to higher perceived peer acceptance and less preference for same‐ethnic friendships. Importantly, as hypothesized, this finding was limited to the older children with more advanced social‐cognitive abilities. The results suggest that older children who adopted a bicultural identity were able to strategically ‘flag’ their multiple group identities, within their multicultural peer groups, to obtain acceptance amongst the maximum number of peers and show less preference for same‐ethnic friendships. This study extends previous peer relations research, which has typically focused on individual social deficits or classroom norms, by showing that group identities influence peer relationships amongst ethnic minority status children.     

Archive Fever: ‘Order is no longer assured’

Abstract

This article uses a close reading of Jacques Derrida’s short work Archive fever: A Freudian impression (1996), in order to show the structural impossibility for law and the wider legal system to protect itself from the destabilising effects of deconstruction. It shows law’s inability to stabilise/close the system and hence its inability to ‘assure order’.     

Review of True Competition: A Guide to Pursuing Excellence in Sport and Society

Stephens and Feezell argue, in ‘The Ideal of the Stoic Sportsman’ (2004), that ‘one need not be a scholar of ancient Greek philosophy to refer to “stoic” conduct or a “stoic” approach to certain matters, because the vocabulary related to this apparently antiquarian view of life has seeped into our common language’. Nonetheless, Stephens and Feezell go on to give a scholarly account of Stoicism as it relates to athletic participation. Their account, in part, takes the form of a distinction between ‘simple Stoicism’ and ‘sophisticated Stoicism’– the former being a common, contemporary grasp of Stoic moral psychology; the latter being a more sophisticated and historically accurate grasp of Stoic moral psychology. In fleshing out their more sophisticated account, they disclose a paradox. Given the Stoic sufficiency thesis – i.e., that the sole (Stoic) good is virtue – the Stoic sportsman must be indifferent to failure or winning. Yet the Stoic sportsman must be sufficiently attached to the athletic experience to use it as a means of developing virtuous states of character. That they dub the paradox the ‘paradox of Stoic detachment’. ‘Curiosity? Paradox? Or psychological incoherence?’ they ask. The aim of the present undertaking is a ‘soft’ critique of Stephens and Feezell – soft, because the critique is not so much a critical rejection of the authors' view tout court. Instead, I aim to point out deficiencies with their account and expand on other points not fully elucidated in it. The most salient point I make is that what they deem paradoxical is not really paradoxical, once there is a more thorough account and clearer grasp of Stoic ‘detachment’.     

In Defense of Hiya as a Filipino Virtue

The Filipino concept of hiya, often translated as ‘shame’ or ‘embarrassment’, has often received ambivalent or negative interpretations. In this article I make an important distinction between two kinds of hiya: (1) the hiya that is suffered as shame or embarrassment (a passion) and (2) the hiya that is an active and sacrificial self-control of one’s individual wants for the sake of other people (a virtue). I borrow and reappropriate this distinction from Aquinas’ virtue ethics. This distinction not only leads to a more positive appraisal of hiya, it also leads to a new understanding of associated concepts that are often confused with hiya such as amor propio, pakikisama and the infamous ‘crab mentality’. Defending hiya as a virtue is part of an even wider philosophical project, the move from ‘Filipino values’ to a ‘Filipino virtue ethics’, which I already introduced in a previous article in this journal.     

Time processing impairments in preschoolers at risk of developing difficulties in mathematics

The occurrence of time processing problems in individuals with Development Dyscalculia (DD) has favored the view of a general magnitude system devoted to both numerical and temporal information. Yet, this scenario has been partially challenged by studies indicating that time difficulties can be attributed to poor calculation or counting skills, which can support reasoning on time in school‐aged children and adults. Here, we tackle this debate by exploring the performance of young children before they fully develop the symbolic number system. Preschoolers at risk of developing DD were compared with typically developing children in a series of tasks investigating time processing and in their ‘sense of time’, evaluated by parents and teachers. Results yielded a poorer performance in time reproduction of 5‐second intervals and in time discrimination, as well as a weaker ‘sense of time’, in children at risk of DD. These findings provide evidence of a common magnitude system that would be responsible for deficits in both numerical and temporal domains, already at early stages of life.     

Melancholy and happiness

This paper explores an under-theorised phenomenon – the experience of melancholy as an enhancer of happiness. Drawing from philosophy and literature, I define melancholy as an experience that combines the pleasure of feeling sad with sober self-reflection. Despite expectations to the contrary, two potentially positive outcomes of melancholy are identified – insightful pensiveness, and emotional connectedness with loss and pain. These outcomes can enhance happiness as understood in key texts of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, and, consistent with findings in psychology, also have important implications for wider debates in social policy and welfare practice. First, the pensiveness associated with melancholy can make unique contributions to personal insights, and help develop and fulfill ‘authentic happiness’ and ‘informed desires’. These contributions oppose hedonist accounts of happiness, but are conducive to enhancing happiness properly understood. Second, melancholy can also provide a psychologically safe arena for experiencing loss and pain, where a person can more positively accept the limits of the human condition. This acceptance enhances her happiness, as she is better able to live ‘in the moment’ and so derive satisfaction from her presently-orientated activities and commitments.     

Regulating damage claims for emotional injuries before the First World War

During the late 19th century, as a result of litigation following railway accidents, damage claims for emotional injuries became a medico-legal issue. Efforts to find fair and socially acceptable means of settling such claims involved an interaction between medical theory and legal rules. Between 1866 and 1890 doctors debated the significance of ‘nervous’ symptoms, which resulted from accidents in which Little or no physical damage occurred. They rejected a strictly somatic interpretation of these symptoms and replaced it with a psychosomatic interpretation. Hoping to prevent a fiood of ‘false claims’, Anglo-American courts initially rejected this psychosomatic interpretation, and ruled against damages in cases where fear without physical impact was the cause of the plaintiffs symptoms. Later, common law courts accepted the psychosomatic perspective and granted damages for physical illnesses in which fear was ‘one link in the chain of causation’. While early appeals under workers' compensation laws followed these later courts, worries about the social consequences ofthese rulings were also evident in the years before the First World War.