causality and weighted explanations in history
Teppo
Issues of causality are critical to science, and org theory obviously is no exception. Most any research project needs to appropriately think through issues of causality and correlation, proximate versus ultimate causes, causal chains, etc.
The most recent issue of Philosophy in the Social Sciences has a nice piece titled “Weighted Explanations in History” (link is to author working paper version). The article wrestles with many key issues on causality, specifically as causality relates to historical explanation.
Two other sources on causality and history:
-
Tolstoy, like a good philosopher, carefully wrestles with various issues around causality in his epilogue to War and Peace (see part II). Very interesting.
-
David Lewis (specifically, see his 1986 collected papers book) is also elightening:
Any particular event that we might wish to explain stands at the end of a long and complicated causal history. We might imagine a world where causal histories are short and simple; but in the world as we know it, the only question is whether they are infinite or merely enormous (Lewis, 1986: 214).
Here’s the abstract for the PSS piece:
Weighted explanations, whereby some causes are deemed more important than others, are ubiquitous in historical studies. Drawing from influential recent work on causation, I develop a definition of causal-explanatory strength. This makes clear exactly which aspects of explanatory weighting are subjective and which objective. It also sheds new light on several traditional issues, showing for instance that: underlying causes need not be more important than proximate ones; several different causes can each be responsible for most of an effect; small causes need not be less important than big ones; and non-additive interactive effects between causes present no particular difficulty.
Key Words: causation • explanation • history • interaction • proximate • underlying
A quick addendum:
I don’t know about that David Lewis quote (even though I also use it in a recent paper). That is, it might be used as a potential reason to make explanation unnecessarily complex even though theoretical explanation in fact ought to be the complete opposite, namely, parsimonious. In other words, I have seen rather promising theoretical efforts get challenged by this type of infinite regress logic. While the logic makes sense and is true, nonetheless if taken to its logical conclusion it makes explanation and theorizing extremely difficult, perhaps even impossible.
tf
March 11, 2008 at 8:25 pm
That is, it might be used as a potential reason to make explanation unnecessarily complex even though theoretical explanation in fact ought to be the complete opposite, namely, parsimonious
I don’t think there’s an “infinite regress logic” of the sort you have in mind in Lewis’s view. Indeed, the point of the paper is to discuss what a causal explanation is in a world — such as ours — where the causal chains leading up to particular events are always gigantic or infinite. Lewis is pragmatic, suggesting that different parts of the causal history will be more or less salient for different varieties of inquiry. Section V of the paper rejects the idea, by the way, that some particular criterion, like parsimony, should rule our choice of explanation:
Kieran
March 11, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Right, I wasn’t blaming Lewis (though, it does sound like it above, doesn’t it?), rather, simply noting that I have seen an infinite regress-type logic (which the quote alone, without reference to the rest of his work, suggests) used to try to stimy efforts to theorize and explain events and phenomena.
On a related note — I frankly think that we have lots of pushing for ultimate, ultimate causes going on: some of the evolutionary psych stuff for example tries to explain everything via such ultimate, ultimate causes as to make the explanation in part uninteresting and lame (we do something b/c of a traits that evolved from our ancestors who lived on the savanna — ok, I am exaggerating). But, on the other hand, I am also not convinced by very proximate explanations (networks definitely have that feel to me), it seems we need to push to something more ultimate (origins of network nested in the node) — if that makes sense. So, a need to understand “intermediate” causes, whatever those are. I suppose its hard, in the abstract, to specify the appropriate limits to the causal chain — where one ought to focus in the ultimate, ultimate versus proximate continuum — when explaining something. I guess various theories have their rough, unstated norms when it comes to this, and as you suggest — different disciplines maybe “own” different parts of the chain.
tf
March 11, 2008 at 11:22 pm
By the way — an interesting book on causality is Stephen Kern’s A Cultural History of Causality (Princeton). In the book he traces how murder is explained in various novels throughout time, very interesting! He shows how the explanation in essence is culturally and temporally contingent.
tf
March 11, 2008 at 11:39 pm
speaking of causality in history, this new NBER paper argues that successful assassinations of dictators (but not failed attempts on dictators or successful attempts on elected leaders) do change history. by inference this implies that dictators have a personal influence on history.
http://papers.nber.org/papers/W13102
gabrielrossman
March 12, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Interesting, that’s precisely what Tolstoy was reacting to: a Carlyle-like ‘great man’ view of history.
tf
March 12, 2008 at 2:08 pm