Proportionality and the Effect-of-Cause Question
Professor Jiji Zhang from the Chinese University of Hong Kong will give a guest lecture on the problem of determining the appropriate level to model an effect.
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Jiji Zhang (CUHK)
August 8, 10-12h, Seminarroom, 1st floor, Sydnesplassen 12-13
Proportionality and the Effect-of-Cause Question
Abstract
One of the most influential accounts of high-level causation appeals to a notion of proportionality, which aims to identify the cause (variable) at an appropriate level given an effect (variable) of interest. Here we ask the dual question: Given a cause (variable) of interest, what is an appropriate level to model the effect? We argue that this question is not yet settled by the proportionality account and develop a natural counterpart to the proportionality account for this question. We also discuss several challenges for the effect-of-cause question that do not have an analog in the cause-of-effect question.