Poetry

Day 3634, Causal Models.

Daily picture, Poetry 
Some shadows 
from memories
are colorized

maybe by the time
past
or the moment

Causal Models (SEP)

Causal models are mathematical models representing causal relationships within an individual system or population. They facilitate inferences about causal relationships from statistical data. They can teach us a good deal about the epistemology of causation, and about the relationship between causation and probability. They have also been applied to topics of interest to philosophers, such as the logic of counterfactuals, decision theory, and the analysis of actual causation.

Causal modeling is an interdisciplinary field that has its origin in the statistical revolution of the 1920s, especially in the work of the American biologist and statistician Sewall Wright (1921). Important contributions have come from computer science, econometrics, epidemiology, philosophy, statistics, and other disciplines. Given the importance of causation to many areas of philosophy, there has been growing philosophical interest in the use of mathematical causal models. Two major works—Spirtes, Glymour, and Scheines 2000 (abbreviated SGS), and Pearl 2009—have been particularly influential.

A causal model makes predictions about the behavior of a system. In particular, a causal model entails the truth value, or the probability, of counterfactual claims about the system; it predicts the effects of interventions; and it entails the probabilistic dependence or independence of variables included in the model. Causal models also facilitate the inverse of these inferences: if we have observed probabilistic correlations among variables, or the outcomes of experimental interventions, we can determine which causal models are consistent with these observations. The discussion will focus on what it is possible to do in “in principle”. For example, we will consider the extent to which we can infer the correct causal structure of a system, given perfect information about the probability distribution over the variables in the system. This ignores the very real problem of inferring the true probabilities from finite sample data. In addition, the entry will discuss the application of causal models to the logic of counterfactuals, the analysis of causation, and decision theory.

Read the rest here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causal-models/

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Day 3630, The Capability Approach.

Poetry

The Capability Approach (SEP)

The capability approach is a theoretical framework that entails two normative claims: first, the claim that the freedom to achieve well-being is of primary moral importance and, second, that well-being should be understood in terms of people’s capabilities and functionings. Capabilities are the doings and beings that people can achieve if they so choose – their opportunity to do or be such things as being well-nourished, getting married, being educated, and travelling; functionings are capabilities that have been realized. Whether someone can convert a set of means – resources and public goods – into a functioning (i.e., whether she has a particular capability) crucially depends on certain personal, sociopolitical, and environmental conditions, which, in the capability literature, are called ‘conversion factors.’ Capabilities have also been referred to as real or substantive freedoms as they denote the freedoms that have been cleared of potential obstacles, in contrast to mere formal rights and primary social goods.

Within philosophy, the capability approach has been employed to the development of several conceptual and normative theories within, most prominently, development ethics, political philosophy, public health ethics, environmental ethics and climate justice, and philosophy of education. This proliferation of capability literature has led to questions concerning what kind of framework it is (section 1); how its core concepts should be defined (section 2); how it can be further specified for particular purposes (section 3); what is needed to develop the capability approach into an account of social and distributive justice (section 4); how it relates to non-Western philosophies (section 5); and how it can be and has been applied in practice (section 6).

Read the rest here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/capability-approach/

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Day 3627, blame.

Poetry

Blame (SEP)

Blame is a common reaction to something of negative normative significance about someone or their behavior. A paradigm case, perhaps, would be when one person wrongs another, and the latter responds with resentment and a verbal rebuke, but of course we also blame others for their attitudes and characters (Eshleman 2004, Smith 2005, Holroyd 2012). Thus blaming scenarios typically involve a wide range of inward and outward responses to a wrongful or bad action, attitude, or character (such responses include: beliefs, desires, expectations, emotions, sanctions, and so on). In theorizing about blame, then, philosophers have typically asked two questions:

  • Which reactions and interactions constitute blame?
  • When is it appropriate to respond in these ways?

It is common to approach these questions with a larger theoretical agenda in mind: for example, in an effort to understand the conditions of moral responsibility and the nature of freedom. But the questions are interesting in their own right, especially since blame is such a common feature of our lives. This entry will critically discuss the answers that have been offered in response to the above questions concerning blame, with the aim of shedding some light on blame’s nature, ethics, and significance. (It is blame, rather than praise, that has received the lion’s share of attention from philosophers in recent years, despite the fact that they are a natural pair. Though that is perhaps beginning to change—see King 2023, Lippert-Rasmussen 2024, and Shoemaker 2024 for book-length treatments of blame that also pay serious attention to praise.)

Read the rest here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/blame/

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Day 3601, A Priori Justification and Knowledge.

Poetry

At first, this problem was somewhat hard to pinpoint, but after reading the following example on Gettier’s own Wikipage I get it (not proven). 

I am watching the men’s Wimbledon Final, and John McEnroe is playing Jimmy Connors, it is match point, and McEnroe wins. I say to myself: “John McEnroe is this year’s men’s champion at Wimbledon”. Unbeknownst to me, however, the BBC were experiencing a broadcasting fault and so had broadcast a tape of last year’s final, when McEnroe also beat Connors. I had been watching last year’s Wimbledon final, so I believed that McEnroe had bested Connors. But at that same time, in real life, McEnroe was repeating last year’s victory and besting Connors! So my belief that McEnroe bested Connors to become this year’s Wimbledon champion is true, and I had good reason to believe so (my belief was justified) — and yet, there is a sense in which I could not really have claimed to “know” that McEnroe had bested Connors because I was only accidentally right that McEnroe beat Connors — my belief was not based on the right kind of justification. 

A Priori Justification and Knowledge (SEP)

A priori justification is a type of epistemic justification that is, in some sense, independent of experience. Gettier examples have led most philosophers to think that having a justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge and the examples there), but many still believe that it is necessary. In this entry, it will be assumed, for the most part, that even though justification is not sufficient for knowledge it is necessary and that a priori knowledge is knowledge based on a priori justification. So much of the discussion will focus on a priori justification.

There are a variety of views about whether a priori justification requires some sort of evidence or whether, instead, some propositions can be “default reasonable”, or that a person can be entitled to accept certain propositions independent of any evidence, perhaps because they are reasonable presuppositions of some area of inquiry. Philosophers who think that a priori justification requires evidence differ about the details. Some think that a priori evidence can be defeated (overridden or undercut) by other evidence, including evidence from sensory observations. There are a variety of views about whether a priori justification, and knowledge, must be only of propositions about what is possible or necessary, and if necessary, only of analytic propositions, that is, propositions that are in some sense “true in virtue of their meaning”. Those who think that a priori justification requires evidence often think that the evidence is provided by rational intuitions or insights, but there is disagreement about the nature of those intuitions or insights, and critics deny that they really do constitute evidence.

Read the rest here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/apriori/

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Day 3584, ABSURD.

Daily picture, Definitions, Poetry 
Do you lift a roof over your head
or is the lifting
roof enough?

Do any of them keep the rain out?

The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 1995

ABSURD, THE. A term used by existentialists to describe that which one might have thought to be amenable to reason but which turns out to be beyond the limits of rationality. For example, in Sartre’s philosophy the ‘original choice’ of one’s fundamental project is said to be ‘absurd’, since, although choices are normally made for reasons, this choice lies beyond reason because all reasons for choice are supposed to be grounded in one’s fundamental
project. Arguably, this case in fact shows that Sartre is mistaken in supposing that reasons for choice are themselves grounded in a choice; and one can argue that other cases which are supposed to involve experience of the ‘absurd’ are in fact a *reductio ad absurdum of the assumptions which produce this conclusion. The ‘absurd’ does not in fact play an essential role within existentialist philosophy; but it is an important aspect of the broader cultural context of existentialism, for example in the ‘theatre of the absurd’, as exemplified by the plays of Samuel Beckett.

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