Troy Blanchard
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 743843 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Troy Blanchard |
| PRENOMES | Troy |
| SOBRENOME | Blanchard |
| ASSINATURA | BLANCHARD T |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Cologne |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5002-7517 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 13 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 29 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 13 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1992 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
Host Specificity in Biological Control
International audience
Causation and the Time-Asymmetry of Knowledge
This paper argues that the knowledge asymmetry (the fact that we know more about the past than the future) can be explained as a consequence of the causal Markov condition. The causal Markov condition implies that causes of a common effect are generally statistically independent, whereas effects of a common cause are generally correlated. I show that together with certain facts about the physics of our world, the statistical independence of cause…
Causal modeling in multilevel settings
An important question for the causal modeling approach is how to integrate non‐causal dependence relations such as asymmetric supervenience into the approach. The most prominent proposal to that effect (due to Gebharter) is to treat those dependence relationships as formally analogous to causal relationships. We argue that this proposal neglects some crucial differences between causal and non‐causal dependencies, and that in the context of causal…
The causal efficacy of composites
This paper argues that the interventionist account of causation faces a dilemma concerning macroscopic causation – i.e., causation by composite objects. Interventionism must either require interventions on a composite object to hold the behavior of its parts fixed, or allow such interventions to vary the behavior of those parts. The first option runs the risk of making wholes causally excluded by their parts, while the second runs the risk of mis…
Experiments on causal exclusion
Intuitions play an important role in the debate on the causal status of high‐level properties. For instance, Kim has claimed that his “exclusion argument” relies on “a perfectly intuitive ... understanding of the causal relation.” We report the results of three experiments examining whether laypeople really have the relevant intuitions. We find little support for Kim's view and the principles on which it relies. Instead, we find that laypeople ar…
Specificity of association in epidemiology
The epidemiologist Bradford Hill famously argued that in epidemiology, specificity of association (roughly, the fact that an environmental or behavioral risk factor is associated with just one or at most a few medical outcomes) is strong evidence of causation. Prominent epidemiologists have dismissed Hill’s claim on the ground that it relies on a dubious `one-cause one effect’ model of disease causation. The paper examines this methodological con…
Explanatory Abstraction and the Goldilocks Problem
Theories of explanation need to account for a puzzling feature of our explanatory practices: the fact that we prefer explanations that are relatively abstract but only moderately so. Contra Franklin-Hall ([2016]), I argue that the interventionist account of explanation provides a natural and elegant explanation of this fact. By striking the right balance between specificity and generality, moderately abstract explanations optimally subserve what …
Bayesianism and Explanatory Unification
Proponents of IBE claim that the ability of a hypothesis to explain a range of phenomena in a unifying way contributes to the hypothesis’s credibility in light of these phenomena. I propose a Bayesian justification of this claim that reveals a hitherto unnoticed role for explanatory unification in evaluating the plausibility of a hypothesis: considerations of explanatory unification enter into the determination of a hypothesis’s prior by affectin…
Physics and Causation
More than a century ago, Russell launched a forceful attack on causation, arguing not only that modern physics has no need for causal notions but also that our belief in causation is a relic of a pre-scientific view of the world. He thereby initiated a debate about the relations between physics and causation that remains very much alive today. While virtually everybody nowadays rejects Russell's causal eliminativism, many philosophers (although b…
Bringing the Congregations Back in
We draw on the organizational ecology tradition to frame the relationship between the religious environment of a community and local religious participation. Prior research linking religious environments to religious participation downplays a key organizational aspect of religion: the congregation. Following the organizational ecology usage of density, we argue that congregational density-the number of congregations per person within a community-…
Pourquoi certains ne migrent pas
La plupart des travaux sur les migrations américaines reposent sur des explications de la mobilité au niveau individuel. Notre étude va plus loin en examinant l’effet du contexte local sur les probabilités de ne pas migrer entre 1985 et 1990. En utilisant les données individuelles extraites des bulletins complets du recensement de 1990, nous rattachons les adultes recensés en 1990 à leur comté de résidence en 1985. Ensuite, en exploitant les cara…
Suburban Sprawl, Regional Diffusion, and the Fate of Small Retailers in a Large Retail Environment, 1977–1996
Research on the decline of public life in the United States has largely overlooked the role of Main Street retailers that provide public spaces for the maintenance of informal social ties. A central factor shaping the viability of small retailers is the development of big box chain stores that offer one-stop shopping and price out smaller competitors. Although prior studies have considered the transition from small to large retailers as a nationa…
Shaping Invention
Suburban Sprawl, Regional Diffusion, and the Fate of Small Retailers in a Large Retail Environment, 1977–1996
Research on the decline of public life in the United States has largely overlooked the role of Main Street retailers that provide public spaces for the maintenance of informal social ties. A central factor shaping the viability of small retailers is the development of big box chain stores that offer one-stop shopping and price out smaller competitors. Although prior studies have considered the transition from small to large retailers as a nationa…
Bringing the Congregations Back in
We draw on the organizational ecology tradition to frame the relationship between the religious environment of a community and local religious participation. Prior research linking religious environments to religious participation downplays a key organizational aspect of religion: the congregation. Following the organizational ecology usage of density, we argue that congregational density-the number of congregations per person within a community-…
Pourquoi certains ne migrent pas
La plupart des travaux sur les migrations américaines reposent sur des explications de la mobilité au niveau individuel. Notre étude va plus loin en examinant l’effet du contexte local sur les probabilités de ne pas migrer entre 1985 et 1990. En utilisant les données individuelles extraites des bulletins complets du recensement de 1990, nous rattachons les adultes recensés en 1990 à leur comté de résidence en 1985. Ensuite, en exploitant les cara…
Explanatory Abstraction and the Goldilocks Problem
Theories of explanation need to account for a puzzling feature of our explanatory practices: the fact that we prefer explanations that are relatively abstract but only moderately so. Contra Franklin-Hall ([2016]), I argue that the interventionist account of explanation provides a natural and elegant explanation of this fact. By striking the right balance between specificity and generality, moderately abstract explanations optimally subserve what …
Bayesianism and Explanatory Unification
Proponents of IBE claim that the ability of a hypothesis to explain a range of phenomena in a unifying way contributes to the hypothesis’s credibility in light of these phenomena. I propose a Bayesian justification of this claim that reveals a hitherto unnoticed role for explanatory unification in evaluating the plausibility of a hypothesis: considerations of explanatory unification enter into the determination of a hypothesis’s prior by affectin…
Shaping Invention
Physics and Causation
More than a century ago, Russell launched a forceful attack on causation, arguing not only that modern physics has no need for causal notions but also that our belief in causation is a relic of a pre-scientific view of the world. He thereby initiated a debate about the relations between physics and causation that remains very much alive today. While virtually everybody nowadays rejects Russell's causal eliminativism, many philosophers (although b…
Host Specificity in Biological Control
International audience
Causal modeling in multilevel settings
An important question for the causal modeling approach is how to integrate non‐causal dependence relations such as asymmetric supervenience into the approach. The most prominent proposal to that effect (due to Gebharter) is to treat those dependence relationships as formally analogous to causal relationships. We argue that this proposal neglects some crucial differences between causal and non‐causal dependencies, and that in the context of causal…
Shaping Invention
Suburban Sprawl, Regional Diffusion, and the Fate of Small Retailers in a Large Retail Environment, 1977–1996
Research on the decline of public life in the United States has largely overlooked the role of Main Street retailers that provide public spaces for the maintenance of informal social ties. A central factor shaping the viability of small retailers is the development of big box chain stores that offer one-stop shopping and price out smaller competitors. Although prior studies have considered the transition from small to large retailers as a nationa…
Pourquoi certains ne migrent pas
La plupart des travaux sur les migrations américaines reposent sur des explications de la mobilité au niveau individuel. Notre étude va plus loin en examinant l’effet du contexte local sur les probabilités de ne pas migrer entre 1985 et 1990. En utilisant les données individuelles extraites des bulletins complets du recensement de 1990, nous rattachons les adultes recensés en 1990 à leur comté de résidence en 1985. Ensuite, en exploitant les cara…
Bringing the Congregations Back in
We draw on the organizational ecology tradition to frame the relationship between the religious environment of a community and local religious participation. Prior research linking religious environments to religious participation downplays a key organizational aspect of religion: the congregation. Following the organizational ecology usage of density, we argue that congregational density-the number of congregations per person within a community-…
Physics and Causation
More than a century ago, Russell launched a forceful attack on causation, arguing not only that modern physics has no need for causal notions but also that our belief in causation is a relic of a pre-scientific view of the world. He thereby initiated a debate about the relations between physics and causation that remains very much alive today. While virtually everybody nowadays rejects Russell's causal eliminativism, many philosophers (although b…
Bayesianism and Explanatory Unification
Proponents of IBE claim that the ability of a hypothesis to explain a range of phenomena in a unifying way contributes to the hypothesis’s credibility in light of these phenomena. I propose a Bayesian justification of this claim that reveals a hitherto unnoticed role for explanatory unification in evaluating the plausibility of a hypothesis: considerations of explanatory unification enter into the determination of a hypothesis’s prior by affectin…
Explanatory Abstraction and the Goldilocks Problem
Theories of explanation need to account for a puzzling feature of our explanatory practices: the fact that we prefer explanations that are relatively abstract but only moderately so. Contra Franklin-Hall ([2016]), I argue that the interventionist account of explanation provides a natural and elegant explanation of this fact. By striking the right balance between specificity and generality, moderately abstract explanations optimally subserve what …
Experiments on causal exclusion
Intuitions play an important role in the debate on the causal status of high‐level properties. For instance, Kim has claimed that his “exclusion argument” relies on “a perfectly intuitive ... understanding of the causal relation.” We report the results of three experiments examining whether laypeople really have the relevant intuitions. We find little support for Kim's view and the principles on which it relies. Instead, we find that laypeople ar…
Specificity of association in epidemiology
The epidemiologist Bradford Hill famously argued that in epidemiology, specificity of association (roughly, the fact that an environmental or behavioral risk factor is associated with just one or at most a few medical outcomes) is strong evidence of causation. Prominent epidemiologists have dismissed Hill’s claim on the ground that it relies on a dubious `one-cause one effect’ model of disease causation. The paper examines this methodological con…
The causal efficacy of composites
This paper argues that the interventionist account of causation faces a dilemma concerning macroscopic causation – i.e., causation by composite objects. Interventionism must either require interventions on a composite object to hold the behavior of its parts fixed, or allow such interventions to vary the behavior of those parts. The first option runs the risk of making wholes causally excluded by their parts, while the second runs the risk of mis…
Causation and the Time-Asymmetry of Knowledge
This paper argues that the knowledge asymmetry (the fact that we know more about the past than the future) can be explained as a consequence of the causal Markov condition. The causal Markov condition implies that causes of a common effect are generally statistically independent, whereas effects of a common cause are generally correlated. I show that together with certain facts about the physics of our world, the statistical independence of cause…
Causal modeling in multilevel settings
An important question for the causal modeling approach is how to integrate non‐causal dependence relations such as asymmetric supervenience into the approach. The most prominent proposal to that effect (due to Gebharter) is to treat those dependence relationships as formally analogous to causal relationships. We argue that this proposal neglects some crucial differences between causal and non‐causal dependencies, and that in the context of causal…
Host Specificity in Biological Control
International audience
Philosophy (10 obras) · Epistemology (9 obras) · Philosophy and History of Science (7 obras) · Political science (5 obras) · Causation (4 obras) · Computer Science (4 obras) · Law (4 obras) · Metaphysics (4 obras) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (4 obras) · Psychology (4 obras)