Causation is everywhere in the world: it features in every science and technology. But how much do we truly understand it? Do we know what it means to say that one thing is a cause of another and do we understand what in the world drives causation? Getting Causes from Powers develops a new and original theory of causation based on an ontology of real powers or dispositions. Others have already suggested that this ought to be possible, but no one has yet performed the detailed work. Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum argue here that the completed theory will not look exactly as anyone has yet anticipated, and that a thoroughly dispositional theory of causation has some surprising features, for instance with respect to modality. The book is not restricted to the metaphysics of causation, but treats a variety of topics such as explanation, perception, modelling, the logic of causal claims, transitivity, and nonlinearity, and the empirical credentials of the theory are tested with reference to biology.

About the Author
Stephen Mumford is Professor of Metaphysics and Head of the School of Humanities at the University of Nottingham. He gained his PhD from Leeds in 1994 and then wroteDispositions (OUP 1998), Laws in Nature (Routledge 2004), and David Armstrong (Acumen 2007), as well as editing Russell on Metaphysics (Routledge 2003) and George Molnar's Powers (OUP 2003). He was co-investigator in the AHRC-funded project Metaphysics of Science and has been Chair of the British Philosophy of Sport Association. He is currently writing a book on sport: Watching Sport: Aesthetics, Ethics and Emotions. Rani Lill Anjum is an Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. She received her doctorate from the University of Tromso, funded by the FRIHUM program at the Norwegian Research Council (NFR). Anjum has recently finished a three-year postdoctoral project at Tromso and Nottingham on causation and dispositions (also funded by FRIHUM).

Reviews
...their book is still the kind of book I would like to have written, and certainly a book I would urge everyone who cares to read. * Boris Hennig, Philosophical Quarterly *
brimming with innovation and insight * Troy Cross, Dialectica *
Anyone who believes in dispositions, or is interested in their connection to causation, should find herself well disposed to read this ambitious and provocative book, and to manifest a great deal of insight thereby. * Anjan Chakravartty, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198709626
Author Stephen Mumford
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 139mm * 17mm