Current Research
My ongoing central projects focus on patterns and pattern identification, mathematical versus causal explanation especially as related to model use, and on implications of the causal nexus from Salmon for pattern ontologies for phenomena. This is a development and extension of the information theoretic account of causation (see Patterns, Information, and Causation, J Phil). This is a multi-year ongoing project, so do feel free to email and ask about the current works in progress.
Selected Papers(2024) "Every View is a View from Somewhere: Pragmatist Laws and Possibility", Theoria.
Humean accounts of laws are often contrasted with governing accounts, and recent developments have added pragmatic versions of Humeanism. This article offers Mitchell’s pragmatist, perspectival account of laws as a third option. The differences between these accounts come down to the role of modality. Mitchell’s bottom-up account allows for subtle gradations of modal content to be conveyed by laws. The perspectival character of laws is not an accident or something to be eventually eliminated – it is part of how this modal content is conveyed. I conclude with a discussion of the metaphysical commitments in Humeanism as requiring a perspectiveless view of the manifold from outside, and how Mitchell’s situated account is better able to account for the substantive notion of possibility involved in scientific laws. (2023) "Running Causation Aground," The Monist, 106(3): 255-69.
The reduction of grounding to causation, or each to a more general relation of which they are species, has sometimes been justified by the impressive inferential capacity of structural equation modelling, causal Bayes nets, and interventionist causal modelling. Many criticisms of this assimilation focus on how causation is inadequate for grounding. Here, I examine the other direction: how treating grounding in the image of causation makes the resulting view worse for causation. The distinctive features of causal modelling that make this connection appealing are distorted beyond use by forcing them to fit onto grounding. The very inferential strength that makes causation attractive is only possible because of a narrow construal of what counts as a causal relation; as soon as that broadens, the inferential capacity markedly diminishes. Making causation suitable for application to grounding spoils what was appealing about causation for this task in the first place. However, grounding need not appeal to causation: causal modelling does not have exclusive claim to structural equation modeling or other formal techniques of modelling structure. I offer a case in favour of a different kind of metaphysical frugality, which tend towards narrow, more restrictive construals of relations like causation or grounding, because then each relation behaves more homogenously. This more homogenous behavior delivers stronger inferential power per relation even though there may be more relations to which one is committed. (2023) "A Values Framework for Evaluating Alienation in Off-Earth Food Systems", with E. Schwartz and T. Soma (SFU Resource and Environmental Management), Food Ethics.
Given the technological constraints of long-duration space travel and planetary settlement, off-Earth humans will likely need to employ food systems very different from their terrestrial counterparts, and newly emerging food technologies are being developed that will shape novel food systems in these off-Earth contexts. Projected off-Earth food systems may therefore potentially “alienate” their users in new ways compared to Earth-based food systems. They will be susceptible to alienation in ways that are similar to such potential on Earth, where there are points of overlap between off-Earth food systems and any of the multitudes of ways in which food systems on Earth are structured. They will also be susceptible to new forms of alienation, as we encounter scenarios that are genuinely structurally novel to humanity. These are especially important to consider since there are comparatively fewer analyses of these food systems where they differ from existing ones. We propose five non-exhaustive sources of value beyond nutrition our individual relationships with a food may possess: gustatory, social, cultural, epistemic, and authorial value. Using these, we offer examples of ways in which an off-Earth food system may exacerbate or alleviate alienation for humans in long-term off-Earth food systems. (2023) "Causation Bridges the Two Times," Timing and Time Perception.
The two-times problem, where time as experienced seems to have distinctive features different than those found in fundamental physics, appears to be more intractable than necessary, I argue, because the two times are marked out from the positions furthest apart: neuroscience and physics. I offer causation as exactly the kind of bridge between these two times that authors like Buonomano and Rovelli (forthcoming) are seeking. It is a historical contingency from philosophical discussions around phenomenology, and a methodological artefact from neuroscience, that most studies of temporal features of experience require subjects to be sufficiently still that their engagement with affordances in the environment can be at best tested in artificial and highly constrained ways. Physics does not offer an account of causation, but accounts of causation are tied to or grounded in physics in ways that can be clearly delineated. Causation then serves as a bridge that coordinates time as experienced, via interaction with affordances in the environment, with time in physics as it constrains causal relationships. I conclude by showing how an information-theoretic account of causation fits neatly into and extends the information gathering and utilizing system (IGUS) of Gruber et al. (Front. Psychol., 13, 718505). (2022) "Hodgson on the relations between Philosophy, Science, and Time," British Journal for the History of Philosophy.
Shadworth Hodgson offers an account of how philosophy relates to science - both physical and psychological - in which three different conceptions of time can be identified. He distinguishes the methods of philosophy, involving analysis of the contents of immediate consciousness, and of science, which presumes the existence of the world of common sense. Hodgson holds that philosophical analysis of immediate consciousness, or the analysis of a present moment in the experience, provides the ultimate justification for knowledge in science. Time as an object of study in science must be distinguished from the temporal structure of immediate consciousness. Time as a target of scientific study is thus differentiable into time in physical science, and time in psychology, where the temporal characteristics of consciousness can be studied, but only from a perspective external to that consciousness. Each of those scientific conceptions of time still presupposes and are evidentially dependent on the analysis of immediate consciousness, itself already temporal. The result is that time as a fundamental unit of experience could not, even in principle, conflict with time as studied in science, because it is presupposed by and the evidential base for claims about time in science. (2018) "A Pragmatist Challenge to Constraint Laws," Metascience, 27(1) 19-25.
Meta-laws, including conservation laws, are laws about the form of more specific, phenomenological, laws. Lange distinguishes between meta-laws as coincidences, where the meta-law happens to hold because the more specific laws hold, and meta-laws as constraints to which subsumed laws must conform. He defends this distinction as a genuine metaphysical possibility, such that metaphysics alone ought not to rule one way or another, leaving it an open question for physics. Lange’s distinction marks a genuine difference in how a given meta-law can be used in explanations. Yet, I argue, it is not simply an empirical matter as to whether a given conservation law is a constraint or a coincidence. There is no set matter of fact about the world that determines this, and physics alone will not be able to return a determinate verdict on a law-by-law basis, even while there is a genuine difference between any given law as constraint and as coincidence. Rather, the difference marks different ways of treating the same law in a theoretical setting: by shifting the explanatory context, treating the same law as part of a different mathematical structure, it can be a genuine constraint and a genuine coincidence. The difference between constraint and coincidence relates to the way in which we use a law in specific theoretical and explanatory settings. Because the same law can appear in multiple contexts, it can be used in these genuinely different ways, without itself ‘‘really’’ being either one or the other as some atomistic empirical fact. Conservation laws as constraints and conservation laws as coincidences are both genuine theoretical roles that the same law can play. I conclude by considering how this pragmatist construal of constraints versus coincidences reveals how two parts of Lange’s work in this section of the book are unexpectedly independent of one another. (2017) "Patterns, Information, and Causation," Journal of Philosophy, 14(11): 592-622.
This paper articulates an account of causation as a collection of information-theoretic relationships between patterns instantiated in the causal nexus. I draw on Dennett’s account of real patterns to characterize potential causal relata as patterns with specific identification criteria and noise tolerance levels, and actual causal relata as those patterns instantiated at some spatiotemporal location in the rich causal nexus as originally developed by Salmon. I develop a representation framework using phase space to precisely characterize causal relata, including their degree(s) of counterfactual robustness, causal profiles, causal connectivity, and privileged grain size. By doing so, I show how the philosophical notion of causation can be rendered in a format that is amenable for direct application of mathematical techniques from information theory such that the resulting informational measures are causal informational measures. This account provides a metaphysics of causation that supports interventionist semantics and causal modeling and discovery techniques. (2017) "Complements, not competitors: causal and mathematical explanations," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 69(2):485-508.
A finer-grained delineation of a given explanandum reveals a nexus of closely related causal and non- causal explanations, complementing one another in ways that yield further explanatory traction on the phenomenon in question. By taking a narrower construal of what counts as a causal explanation, a new class of distinctively mathematical explanations pops into focus; Lange’s characterization of distinctively mathematical explanations can be extended to cover these. This new class of distinctively mathematical explanations is illustrated with the Lotka-Volterra equations. There are at least two distinct ways those equations might hold of a system, one of which yields straightforwardly causal explanations, but the other of which yields explanations that are distinctively mathematical in terms of nomological strength. In the first, one first picks out a system or class of systems, finds that the equations hold in a causal -explanatory way; in the second, one starts with the equations and explanations that must apply to any system of which the equations hold, and only then turns to the world to see of what, if any, systems it does in fact hold. Using this new way in which a model might hold of a system, I highlight four specific avenues by which causal and non- causal explanations can complement one another. (2016) with Alexander Reutlinger, "Causal Versus Abstract Explanations?" International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 30 (2):129-146.
(2016) with Maya Gislason (SFU Health Sciences), "The interacting axes of environmental, health, and social justice cumulative impacts: A case study of the Blueberry River First Nations," Healthcare 4(4), 78.
We consider the case of intensive resource extractive projects in the Blueberry River First Nations in Northern British Columbia, Canada, as a case study. Drawing on the parallels between concepts of cumulative environmental and cumulative health impacts, we highlight three axes along which to gauge the effects of intensive extraction projects. These are environmental, health, and social justice axes. Using an intersectional analysis highlights the way in which using individual indicators to measure impact, rather than considering cumulative effects, hides the full extent by which the affected First Nations communities are impacted by intensive extraction projects. We use the case study to contemplate several mechanisms at the intersection of these axes whereby the negative effects of each not only add but also amplify through their interactions. For example, direct impact along the environmental axis indirectly amplifies other health and social justice impacts separately from the direct impacts on those axes. We conclude there is significant work still to be done to use cumulative indicators to study the impacts of extractive industry projects-like liquefied natural gas-on peoples, environments, and health. (2014) "A field guide to mechanisms: Part I," Philosophy Compass 9(4): 274-283
In this field guide, I distinguish five separate senses with which the term ‘mechanism’ is used in contemporary philosophy of science. Many of these senses have overlapping areas of application but involve distinct philosophical claims and characterize the target mechanisms in relevantly different ways. This field guide will clarify the key features of each sense and introduce some main debates, distinguishing those that transpire within a given sense from those that are best understood as concerning distinct senses. The ‘new mechanisms’ sense is at the center of most of these contemporary debates and will be treated at greater length; subsequent senses of mechanism will be primarily distinguished from this one. In part I of this paper, I distinguish two senses of the term ‘mechanism’, both of which are explicitly hierarchical and nested in character, such that any given mechanism is comprised of smaller sub-mechanisms, in turn comprised of yet smaller sub-sub-mechanisms and so on. While both of the senses discussed here are anti-reductive, they differ in their focus on scientific practice versus metaphysics, in the degree of regularity they attribute to mechanisms, and in terms of their relationships to the discussions of mechanisms in the history of philosophy and science. (2014) "A field guide to mechanisms: Part II," Philosophy Compass 9(4): 284-293.
In this field guide, I distinguish five separate senses with which the term ‘mechanism’ is used in contemporary philosophy of science. Many of these senses have overlapping areas of application but involve distinct philosophical claims and characterize the target mechanisms in relevantly different ways. This field guide will clarify the key features of each sense and introduce some main debates, distinguishing those that transpire within a given sense from those that are best understood as concerning two distinct senses. The ‘new mechanisms’ sense is the primary sense from which other senses will be distinguished. In part II of this field guide, I consider three further senses of the term that are ontologically ‘flat’ or at least not explicitly hierarchical in character: equations in structural equation models of causation, causal-physical processes, and information-theoretic constraints on states available to systems. After characterizing each sense, I clarify its ontological commitments, its methodological implications, how it figures in explanations, its implications for reduction, and the key manners in which it differs from other senses of mechanism. I conclude that there is no substantive core meaning shared by all senses, and that debates in contemporary philosophy of science can benefit from clarification regarding precisely which sense of mechanism is at stake. (2013) "When to expect violations of causal faithfulness and why it matters," Philosophy of Science S(5): 672-683.
I present three reasons why philosophers of science should be more concerned about violations of causal faithfulness (CF). In complex evolved systems, mechanisms for maintaining various equilibrium states are highly likely to violate CF. Even when such systems do not precisely violate CF, they may nevertheless generate precisely the same problems for inferring causal structure from probabilistic relationships in data as do genuine CF-violations. Thus, potential CF-violations are particularly germane to experimental science when we rely on probabilistic information to uncover the DAG, rather than already knowing the DAG from which we could predict the right experiments to ‘catch out’ the hidden causal relationships. (2012) "Mechanisms: what are they evidence for in evidence-based medicine," Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18(5): 992-999.
Even though the evidence‐based medicine movement (EBM) labels mechanisms a low quality form of evidence, consideration of the mechanisms on which medicine relies, and the distinct roles that mechanisms might play in clinical practice, offers a number of insights into EBM itself. In this paper, I examine the connections between EBM and mechanisms from several angles. I diagnose what went wrong in two examples where mechanistic reasoning failed to generate accurate predictions for how a dysfunctional mechanism would respond to intervention. I then use these examples to explain why we should expect this kind of mechanistic reasoning to fail in systematic ways, by situating these failures in terms of evolved complexity of the causal system(s) in question. I argue that there is still a different role in which mechanisms continue to figure as evidence in EBM: namely, in guiding the application of population‐level recommendations to individual patients. Thus, even though the evidence‐based movement rejects one role in which mechanistic reasoning serves as evidence, there are other evidentiary roles for mechanistic reasoning. This renders plausible the claims of some critics of evidencebased medicine who point to the ineliminable role of clinical experience. Clearly specifying the ways in which mechanisms and mechanistic reasoning can be involved in clinical practice frames the discussion about EBM and clinical experience in more fruitful terms. (2012) "The Case for Regularity in Mechanistic Causal Explanation," Synthese 189(3): 415-432.
How regular do mechanisms need to be, in order to count as mechanisms? This paper addresses two arguments for dropping the requirement of regularity from the definition of a mechanism, one motivated by examples from the sciences and the other motivated by metaphysical considerations regarding causation. I defend a broadened regularity requirement on mechanisms that takes the form of a taxonomy of kinds of regularity that mechanisms may exhibit. This taxonomy allows precise explication of the degree and location of regular operation within a mechanism, and highlights the role that various kinds of regularity play in scientific explanation. I defend this regularity requirement in terms of regularity's role in individuating mechanisms against a background of other causal processes, and by prioritizing mechanisms' ability to serve as a model of scientific explanation, rather than as a metaphysical account of causation. It is because mechanisms are regular, in the expanded sense described here, that they are capable of supporting the kinds of generalizations that figure prominently in scientific explanations. (2011) "Mechanisms, Laws, and Regularities," Philosophy of Science 78(2): 325-331.
Leuridan argued that mechanisms cannot provide a genuine alternative to laws of nature as a model of explanation in the sciences, and he advocates Mitchell’s pragmatic account of laws. I first demonstrate that Leuridan gets the order of priority wrong among mechanisms, regularity, and laws, and then make some clarifying remarks about how laws and mechanisms relate to regularities. Mechanisms are not an explanatory alternative to regularities; they are an alternative to laws. The existence of stable regularities in nature is necessary for either model of explanation: regularities are what laws describe and what mechanisms explain. (2009) with Rick Grush, “A Brief History of Time Consciousness: Historical Precursors to James and Husserl,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 47(2): 277-307.
William James’ Principles of Psychology, in which he made famous the ‘specious present’ doctrine of temporal experience, and Edmund Husserl’s Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins, were giant strides in the philosophical investigation of the temporality of experience. However, an important set of precursors to these works has not been adequately investigated. In this article, we undertake this investigation. Beginning with Reid’s essay ‘Memory’ in Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, we trace out a line of development of ideas about the temporality of experience that runs through Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown, William Hamilton, and finally the work of Shadworth Hodgson and Robert Kelly, both of whom were immediate influences on James (though James pseudonymously cites the latter as ‘E.R. Clay’). Furthermore, we argue that Hodgson, especially his Metaphysic of Experience (1898), was a significant influence on Husserl. |
Selected Presentations (Invited unless otherwise noted)(upcoming 2025) Invited speaker, of 6, to "Pragmatism and Scientific Inquiry," organized by K. Staley, with associated special issue of Res Philosophica, St. Louis.
(upcoming 2025) Introduction and moderation, "Pragmatist Philosophy of Science and Measurement" workshop, Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, organized by S. Mitchell, H. Andersen, and D. Mathiessen. (upcoming 2024) Speaker, Presidential Plenary Symposium, Philosophy of Science Association Biennial meeting, New Orleans. Organized by PSA President M. Massimi and C. Kendig. (upcoming 2024) "Pragmatist constraints for causal modeling to guide ecological decision-making," in Philosophy of Science Association Symposium "Pragmatist or merely pragmatic? Using pragmatism in biological practice", with S.D. Mitchell, C. Kendig, J. Suárez, and Z. Mayne. [refereed] (upcoming 2024) Invited Speaker at "Philosophy of Science: Past, Present, and Future," celebrating the 75th and 50th anniversaries of the Vienna Circle Institute and Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science [as a 'Present' speaker], University of Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, organized by A. Love and S. Verhaegh. (upcoming 2024) Invited Speaker at "Pragmatism in Philosophy of Science" conference, organized by C. Smeenk, Western University. (upcoming 2024) Co-presenter and instructor, with S.D. Mitchell, of two-day intensive summer school session on pragmatist metaphysics, for Society for the Metaphysics of Science. (2024) "Directionality and Pragmatist Explanation," Session on Scientific Explanation, Pacific Divisional meeting, American Philosophical Association. (2023) "Lebesgue Necessity and its connection to measurement" at "Discreteness and Precision in Physics" workshop, Paris IHPST, organized by M. Miller and V. Ardourel. (2023) "Knowledge Restoration in Átl’ḵa7tsem/Howe Sound" with Erica Olson (Marine Stewardship Initiative), for "Ocean and Us", Royal Society of Edinburgh, organized by M. Massimi, A. Brown, and M. Jaspars. (2023) "Pragmatist Explanation" at SFU workshop on Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science (with K. Elliott and M. Balageur; organized by J. Wang) (2023) Speaker on laws and regularities, one week Summer Seminar, SET Foundations project with Templeton Foundation, organized by M. Page and J. Jhun. Also involved preparing three 1 hour videos in advance for participants, available on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNR18r_6hHxRdeZK5EW3Mcg (2023) "Starting Points in Ohio: a pragmatist account of the asymmetry of explanation," Annual Lecture Series at the Center for the Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh. (2022) Commentator at workshop on Laws of Nature, Explanation, and Understanding, North Carolina State University. (2022) "Mathematizing temporal experience," at "The Character of Temporal Experience" conference, organized by Torrengo, Merlo, Teroni, and Hoerl, University of Geneva [refereed] (2022) Critic for the Author Meets Critic symposium on Woodward’s Causation with a Human Face, Pacific APA. (2022) "Patterns and the Density of Causal Structure", Santa Fe Institute Workshop on Patterns, https://www.santafe.edu/events/real-patterns-science-and-cognition. (2021) APA Panel on Applying for Ph.D. Programs in Philosophy. (2021) "Distinctness and Extensional Independence," Contributed paper, Philosophy of Science Association Biennial Meeting. [refereed] (2021) “Hodgson on time as an object of scientific investigation,” Workshop on “Invention of Time at the Turn of the 20th Century”, organized by E. Thomas and M. Moravec, Durham. (2021) “Causation is to Information as Work is to Energy”, Harvard Mini-Workshop on Foundations of Thermodynamics, organized by . (2020) Talk on changing sports team names, word meaning, race and exploitation in college sports, Siena Heights University. (2020) "Lebesgue Necessity", Metaphysics of Modality research group, University of Birminghan, organized by Al Wilson. (2020) "Lebesgue Necessity," Workshop on Modality, Laws, and Causation, organized by J. Wang and H.K. Andersen, Simon Fraser University. (2020) (Cancelled due to COVID) Workshop on Information and Abstraction in Causal Modelling, Santa Fe Institute, with D. Kinney, F. Eberhardt, N. Weinberger, J. Burston, and S. Beckers. (2019) Talk on pragmatist approaches to biological individuality, in “Unculturable Organisms in the Era of Big Data” session with Anders K. Krabberød and Kathleen Creel, International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB), Oslo. (2019) Talk at Science Studies Colloquium Series, "Patterns and the Data-Phenomena Distinction," University of Oslo. (2019) Symposium on Causation with J. Woodward, L. Ross, and F. Eberhardt, American Philosophical Association Pacific Division meeting. (2019) Keynote speaker, Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology Annual Research day, Simon Fraser University. (2019) "Nonconservation of causation as transfer of conserved quantities," Balter Distinguished Lecture, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. (2018) “Defining Patterns,” Colloquium Talk, University of Toronto. (2018) Talk on patterns and pattern recognition, University of British Columbia Workshop on Causation and Counterfactuals. (2018) "Defining and Finding Patterns," Leibniz University, Hannover. (2018) Commentary on Bernstein's "Might a Middle Level be Fundamental?" Workshop on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, Simon Fraser University. (2018) “The Agential Present,” session on temporal experience and neurophilosophy, Science of Consciousness conference, Arizona. (2018) Colloquium talk at Reed College, Portland, Oregon. (2018) "Who gets to decide what words mean? SFU's Clan: History, Intent, and Meaning in Sports Teams Names." Black History Month Speaker series, Kwantlen Polytechnic. (2018) “Using Patterns and Information for Causal Modelling,” Colloquium talk at Simon Fraser University Cognitive Science Interdisciplinary Program. (2017) “A Pragmatist Challenge to Constraints and Humeanism,” Workshop on Causal and Noncausal Explanation, Paris. Organized by Phillipe Huneman and Daniel Kostic. (2017) Third PragMaPS workshop, University of Pittsburgh Center for Philosophy of Science. (2017) University of Pittsburgh History and Philosophy of Science Annual Alumni Lecture, Center for Philosophy of Science. (2017) “The Agential Present,” Invited Symposium on Ancient and Contemporary Notions of Time, Central APA. With Ned Markosian, Barbara Sattler, and Sarah Brodie. (2016) “Causation, Information, and Laplace’s Pattern,” Colloquium talk, University of Pennsylvania. (2016) "Patterns, Information, and Causation," Contributed paper talk, Philosophy of Science Association, Atlanta, Georgia, Nov. 2-4, 2016. [refereed] (2016) “The Agential Present”, Workshop on temporal awareness in thought and perception, Thought and Sense project, organized by Sebastian Watzl, University of Oslo. (2016) “A new place for action explanation in scientific causal explanation,” Plenary keynote speaker, Causality in the Sciences conference, University of Aarhus. (2016) “Local knowledge and mechanisms in land management,” Bay area Academy of the Sciences monthly meeting. (2015) “The Last British Empiricist: Shadworth Hodgson and temporal experience” Pacific Regional History and Philosophy of Science Workshop, University of Washington. (2015) “Managing Mechanisms: Ecosystems, land management, and grafting mechanisms,” International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB), Montreal, Canada. (2015) “Opening the door to the Metaphysics room: a philosophy of science take on Sider’s Writing the Book of the World,” for PragMaPS workshop, University of Oslo, organized by H.K. Andersen and S.D. Mitchell. (2015) “Causation as a set of relationships between patterns in the causal nexus,” Colloquium talk at the University of Victoria, Dept. of Philosophy. (2014) “Causal versus noncausal explanations: competitors or complements?” Symposium on Noncausal Explanation with Alexander Reutlinger, Lawrence Shapiro, and Marc Lange. Philosophy of Science Association biennial meeting, Chicago. [refereed] (2014) “Information as a tool to model causal complexity,” Causality and Complexity in the Sciences, University of Koln. [refereed] (2014) “Why pragmatism can offer philosophers of science what we wanted from logical empiricism,” Workshop on New Directions in Pragmatic Metaphysics for Philosophy of Science, SFU Harbour Centre, Vancouver. (2014) “Patterns, Information, Causation,” Colloquium talk, University of British Columbia. (2013) “A metaphysics for causation, and why we should be talking about causal metaphysics,” Working group on Causation, organized by Frederick Eberhardt, Carnegie Mellon University. (2013) “Patterns, Information, Causation,” American Philosophical Association, Pacific division annual meeting, Metaphysics of Science society session organized by Cory Wright, San Francisco. (2012) “When to expect violations of causal faithfulness and why it matters,” Philosophy of Science Association biennial meeting, San Diego [refereed]. (2012) “Violations of Causal Faithfulness,” Invited talk, Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota. (2012) with Kathleen Creel, “Is Integrated Information Enough?” at Western Canadian Philosophical Association annual meeting, Victoria, BC. [refereed] (2011) “Why we should be more worried about violations of Causal Faithfulness,” Causality in the Sciences, University of Ghent, Belgium. [refereed] (2011) “The Case for Regularity in Mechanistic Causal Explanation,” Mechanisms: Les Mécaniciens: Salon des Refusés conference, University of Pittsburgh Center for Philosophy of Science. (2010) “Mechanisms and Evidence-Based Medicine: An Epistemic Quandary,” Causality in the Biomedical and Social Sciences, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands. [refereed] (2010) “The Role of Regularity in Mechanistic Causation,” Joint Philosophy of Science Seminar workshop, organized by M. Schabas, University of British Columbia. (2009) “The Micromanagement Model of Conscious Agency,” given at Georgetown University; Tufts University; University of California, Santa Cruz; Montana State University; Simon Fraser University; Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature, Oslo. |