Title:
New Conceptual and Formal Approaches to Causation
Guest editors:
Mateusz Chwastyk (Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences), Łukasz Mikulski (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland), Michał Oleksowicz (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland)
Topical Collection Description:
One of the great merits of the mechanistic philosophy is that it has revived philosophical interest in the problem of causation. However, the conceptual tools proposed so far tend to proliferate and to even exclude or contradict one another, which is a highly unwelcome outcome. This is one of the main reasons why an appropriate conceptual and formal framework is needed for the contemporary approach to causation – one that defines, for instance, mechanisms and causal relations together with their properties, and that formulates an adequate logical calculus with a suitable interpretation.
The above ideas are meant to pave the way for future work on the theoretical connections between causes, explanations, and mechanisms. Such work must take into account at least three important factors: the limits of purely conceptual approaches, new formal insights into the modelling of causal relations, and the crucial importance of idealizations in empirically driven causal explanations.
This topical collection addresses these concerns by fostering a productive dialogue between the various strands of formal and philosophical inquiry into causation. The outcome of such a conversation may have far-reaching implications, either fostering a more unified philosophical framework or revealing that different approaches to causation address distinct aspects of it, thereby justifying independent research programs.
Website: https://link.springer.com/collections/ggdcigcida
Appropriate topics for submission include, among others:
* causality and mechanisms
* causal relations at multiple abstraction levels
* causal models
* causal inference
* the role of idealizations in causal modelling and causal explanation
* semantics for causation
For further information, please contact the guest editors: michaloleksowicz@umk.pl
The deadline for submission is: 28 February 2027
Submissions via: https://www.editorialmanager.com/synt/default.aspx