Abstract
The sense of causality is something we have inherited from our long-gone ancestors. Today we know that many higher animals, besides Homo sapiens, are capable of causal understanding. In the paper I give some examples of how birds and animals have an embodied insight in causal processes, and I discuss what we can learn from them about our own causal intuitions. Next, I argue that these intuitions determine the criteria by which we are able to decide what counts as causes in physics or biology. Hence I try to give a naturalistic account of our concept of causality. However, when it comes to explanations in the sciences I make a pragmatic distinction between causes and causal processes. I do so by holding that causes are external to a particular system whereas causal processes are internal to a particular system. But at the same time I hold that how we divide between system and sub-system depends on the research problems we are interested in and therefore on the type of explanation-seeking questions we seek to answer. Finally, I discuss emergence in connection with System biology and causation.
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Notes
- 1.
See, for instance, Miller and Matute (1996).
- 2.
See Brown and Cook (2006) and its many references.
- 3.
- 4.
This example is taken from Marzluff and Angell (2012, pp. 75–76). The book describes the intensive research that has been conducted with ravens, crows and magpies and the astonishing results.
- 5.
I discuss this issue further in Faye (2010).
- 6.
- 7.
The role of functional explanation is discussed in my forthcoming book Understanding by Science.
- 8.
Marcel Weber points out to me that molecular biologists also take a functional perspective on molecules (in the sense of biological function), while chemists don’t. I agree, which I hope the present sentence shows.
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Faye, J. (2014). What Counts as Causation in Physics and Biology?. In: Galavotti, M., Dieks, D., Gonzalez, W., Hartmann, S., Uebel, T., Weber, M. (eds) New Directions in the Philosophy of Science. The Philosophy of Science in a European Perspective, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04382-1_12
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