Probability and Causality

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Prologue

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Dynamic Rationality: Propensity, Probability, and Credence

      • Wesley C. Salmon

      Pages 3-40

3. Probability, Causality, and Modality

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 41-41

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   2. Hume’s Refutation of Inductive Probabilism

      • William Edward Morris

      Pages 43-77

   3. An Adamite Derivation of the Principles of the Calculus of Probability

      • Abner Shimony

      Pages 79-89

   4. Probability, Possibility, and Plenitude

      • Ilkka Niiniluoto

      Pages 91-108

   5. Probabilistic Metaphysics

      • James H. Fetzer

      Pages 109-132

   6. Probabilistic Theories of Causation

      • Wayne A. Davis

      Pages 133-160

   7. Conditional Chance

      • Brian Skyrms

      Pages 161-178

4. Probability, Causality, and Decision

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 179-179

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   2. How to Tell a Common Cause: Generalizations of the Conjunctive Fork Criterion

      • Nancy Cartwright

      Pages 181-188

   3. Probabilistic Causal Interaction and Disjunctive Causal Factors

      • Ellery Eells

      Pages 189-209

   4. The Principle of the Common Cause

      • Elliott Sober

      Pages 211-228

   5. On Raising the Chances of Effects

      • D. H. Mellor

      Pages 229-239

   6. How to Probabilize a Newcomb Problem

      • Richard Jeffrey

      Pages 241-251

   7. Non-Nietzschean Decision Making

      • Paul Humphreys

      Pages 253-268

5. Epilogue

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 269-269

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   2. Publications: An Annotated Bibliography

      • Wesley C. Salmon

      Pages 271-336

6. Back Matter

   Pages 337-362

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The contributions to this special collection concern issues and problems discussed in or related to the work of Wesley C. Salmon. Salmon has long been noted for his important work in the philosophy of science, which has included research on the interpretation of probability, the nature of explanation, the character of reasoning, the justification of induction, the structure of space/time and the paradoxes of Zeno, to mention only some of the most prominent. During a time of increasing preoccupation with historical and sociological approaches to under­ standing science (which characterize scientific developments as though they could be adequately analysed from the perspective of political movements, even mistaking the phenomena of conversion for the rational appraisal of scientific theories), Salmon has remained stead­ fastly devoted to isolating and justifying those normative standards distinguishing science from non-science - especially through the vindi­ cation of general principles of scientific procedure and the validation of specific examples of scientific theories - without which science itself cannot be (even remotely) adequately understood. In this respect, Salmon exemplifies and strengthens a splendid tradi­ tion whose most remarkable representatives include Hans Reichenbach, Rudolf Carnap and Carl G. Hempel, all of whom exerted a profound influence upon his own development.

• David Hume
• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Nietzsche
• bibliography
• calculus of probability
• causality
• conditional
• derivation
• interaction
• metaphysics
• physics
• probability
• subject

• University of Minnesota, Duluth, USA

  James H. Fetzer

Policies and ethics