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What is Causal Specificity About, and What is it Good for in Philosophy of Biology?
The concept of causal specificity is drawing considerable attention from philosophers of biology. It became the rationale for rejecting (and occasionally, accepting) a thesis of causal parity of developmental factors. This literature assumes that attributing specificity to causal relations is at lea...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Springer Netherlands
2021
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8592965/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34251563 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10441-021-09419-x |
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author | Ferreira Ruiz, María |
author_facet | Ferreira Ruiz, María |
author_sort | Ferreira Ruiz, María |
collection | PubMed |
description | The concept of causal specificity is drawing considerable attention from philosophers of biology. It became the rationale for rejecting (and occasionally, accepting) a thesis of causal parity of developmental factors. This literature assumes that attributing specificity to causal relations is at least in principle a straightforward (if not systematic) task. However, the parity debate in philosophy of biology seems to be stuck at a point where it is not the biological details that will help move forward. In this paper, I take a step back to reexamine the very idea of causal specificity and its intended role in the parity dispute in philosophy of biology. I contend that the idea of causal specificity across variations as currently discussed in the literature is irreducibly twofold in nature: it is about two independent components that are not mutually entailed. I show this to be the source of prior complications with the notion of specificity itself that ultimately affect the purposes for which it is often invoked, notably to settle the parity dispute. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8592965 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Springer Netherlands |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-85929652021-11-19 What is Causal Specificity About, and What is it Good for in Philosophy of Biology? Ferreira Ruiz, María Acta Biotheor Regular Article The concept of causal specificity is drawing considerable attention from philosophers of biology. It became the rationale for rejecting (and occasionally, accepting) a thesis of causal parity of developmental factors. This literature assumes that attributing specificity to causal relations is at least in principle a straightforward (if not systematic) task. However, the parity debate in philosophy of biology seems to be stuck at a point where it is not the biological details that will help move forward. In this paper, I take a step back to reexamine the very idea of causal specificity and its intended role in the parity dispute in philosophy of biology. I contend that the idea of causal specificity across variations as currently discussed in the literature is irreducibly twofold in nature: it is about two independent components that are not mutually entailed. I show this to be the source of prior complications with the notion of specificity itself that ultimately affect the purposes for which it is often invoked, notably to settle the parity dispute. Springer Netherlands 2021-07-12 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8592965/ /pubmed/34251563 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10441-021-09419-x Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Regular Article Ferreira Ruiz, María What is Causal Specificity About, and What is it Good for in Philosophy of Biology? |
title | What is Causal Specificity About, and What is it Good for in Philosophy of Biology? |
title_full | What is Causal Specificity About, and What is it Good for in Philosophy of Biology? |
title_fullStr | What is Causal Specificity About, and What is it Good for in Philosophy of Biology? |
title_full_unstemmed | What is Causal Specificity About, and What is it Good for in Philosophy of Biology? |
title_short | What is Causal Specificity About, and What is it Good for in Philosophy of Biology? |
title_sort | what is causal specificity about, and what is it good for in philosophy of biology? |
topic | Regular Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8592965/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34251563 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10441-021-09419-x |
work_keys_str_mv | AT ferreiraruizmaria whatiscausalspecificityaboutandwhatisitgoodforinphilosophyofbiology |