Marks and probabilities

two ways to find causal structure

Nancy Cartwright

pp. 113-119

in: Friedrich Stadler (ed), Scientific philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 1993

Abstract

What is commonly called Reichenbach’s “Principle of the Common Cause” is not a general criterion for a common cause, as many philosophers nowadays suppose. Examples include W. Salmon in his accounts of causal processes and Bas van Fraassen in his new book on quantum mechanics, in which he argues that the quantum world has no causal structure.