Are Causal Facts Really Explanatorily Emergent? Ladyman and Ross on Higher-level Causal Facts and Renormalization Group Explanation

Reutlinger, Alexander (2014): Are Causal Facts Really Explanatorily Emergent? Ladyman and Ross on Higher-level Causal Facts and Renormalization Group Explanation. In: Synthese

Abstract

In their Every Thing Must Go, Ladyman and Ross defend a novel version of Neo-Russellian metaphysics of causation, which falls into three claims: (1) there are no fundamental physical causal facts (orthodox Russellian claim), (2) there are higher-level causal facts of the special sciences, and (3) higher-level causal facts are explanatorily emergent. While accepting claims (1) and (2), I attack claim (3). Ladyman and Ross argue that higher-level causal facts are explanatorily emergent, because (a) certain aspects of these higher-level facts (their universality) can be captured by renormalization group (RG) explanations, and (b) RG explanations are not reductive explanations. However, I argue that RG explanation should be understood as reductive explanations. This result undermines Ladyman and Ross's RG-based argument for the explanatory emergence of higher-level causal facts.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Keywords: Emergence Causation Structural Realism Renormalization Group Explanation Special Sciences Russell
• Fakultät: Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Religionswissenschaft > Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP) ; Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Religionswissenschaft > Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP) > Philosophy of Science ; Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Religionswissenschaft > Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP) > Philosophy of Physics
• Themengebiete: 100 Philosophie und Psychologie > 100 Philosophie
• ISSN: 0039-7857
• Sprache: Englisch