Physics and Causation

Jan 1, 2016·
Thomas Blanchard
Thomas Blanchard
· 0 min read
Abstract
More than a century ago, Russell launched a forceful attack on causation. He thereby initiated a debate about the relations between physics and causation that remains very much alive today.
Type
Publication
Philosophy Compass, 11, 256-66
publication
Thomas Blanchard
Authors
Maître de Conférences en Philosophie

I am Associate Professor in the philosophy department at the Université Bordeaux Montaigne. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher in philosophy and psychology in the Concepts and Cognition Lab at UC-Berkeley for the Varieties of Understanding Project, an Assistant Professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and an Akademischer Rat (roughly equivalent to assistant professor) at the University of Cologne. I received my Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 2014.

My research is in the philosophy of science, and focuses mainly on causation, causal modeling and causal explanation. I am interested in a wide variety of issues concerning causation including causal asymmetries, levels of causal explanation, the causal exclusion problem, the epistemology of causal inference, causal cognition, and causal decision theory. My work also investigates the use of certain causal concepts and assumptions in particular sciences such as biology, epidemiology and medicine.