Speaker
Prof. Christopher Hitchcock
Christopher Hitchcock, J. O. and Juliette Koepfli Professor of Philosophy, Caltech, is a philosopher of science whose research explores the variety of causal concepts that are deployed in the sciences, law, and everyday life. Hitchcock has worked on a number of other topics in philosophy including philosophy of biology, formal epistemology, experimental philosophy, and philosophy of language. His research is interdisciplinary, and he has published work in computer science, law, linguistics, and psychology.
Before joining Caltech, Hitchcock was on the faculty at Rice University from 1993 to 1998. He’s had three articles selected by The Philosopher’s Annual as among the year’s 10 best in the field of philosophy (in 1995, 2001, and 2003). He has also received the Recent Ph.D. Essay Award from the Philosophy of Science Association, given for the best paper by a recent Ph.D. (in 1997–1998). He served on the governing board of the Philosophy of Science Association from 2002 to 2005 and was the president of the Society for Exact Philosophy from 2012 to 2014.
Event Details
Public Lecture: Causation Science and Everyday Life
Abstract:
Causation is a concept that plays a central role in the sciences, in law, in ethics, and in everyday life. Philosophers have been trying to offer analyses of the concept of causation for hundreds of years. In this talk, I want to highlight a particular challenge for this project. One the one hand, we investigate causal relationships using scientific methods—controlled experiments, mathematical modeling, statistical analysis, etc.—and incorporate them into our scientific image of the world. On the other hand, empirical evidence from psychology shows that when people make causal judgments, they are influenced by things like expectations, moral values, social rules, actors’ intentions, and other subjective and pragmatic factors. This raises the question of how one concept can answer to both descriptions: How can it be an objective part of the world described by science and also dependent on norms and expectations? I resolve this tension by showing how ordinary causal ascriptions serve a function such as an executive summary or an index (such as the consumer price index).
Enquires
philosophy@cuhk.edu.hk
