taken for granted in the statistical approaches that process-tracers criticize, such as the one in social science methodology bible . Secondly, notion is arguably more Woodward’s suited to studying causal mechanisms in social science than the energy-transfer notions of causation developed for causal mechanisms in natural sciences like biology. Thirdly, notion has not been widely applied to the social sciences, and therefore this Woodward’s analysis may contribute to the literature in philosophy of causation as well as to philosophy of social science. Arguably, we could get similar results by manipulability accepting Judea Pearl’s framework for causation (). Though there are formal differences between Pearl and notion of an intervention, I believe that my general conclusion in this paper Woodward’s will hold no matter whether the process-tracer commits to Pearl or theory. Woodward’s 3.1 Manipulability theory Let me now outline theory. The focal point of work is his Woodward’s Woodward’s formal set of necessary and sufficient conditions for to be a (type-level) cause of , which form his manipulability theory:
taken for granted in the statistical approaches that process-tracers criticize, such as the one in social science methodology bible . Secondly, Woodward’s notion is arguably more suited to studying causal mechanisms in social science than the energy-transfer notions of causation developed for causal mechanisms in natural sciences like biology. Thirdly, Woodward’s notion has not been widely applied to the social sciences, and therefore this analysis may contribute to the literature in philosophy of causation as well as to philosophy of social science. Arguably, we could get similar results by accepting Judea Pearl’s manipulability framework for causation (). Though there are formal differences between Pearl and Woodward’s notion of an intervention, I believe that my general conclusion in this paper will hold no matter whether the process-tracer commits to Pearl or Woodward’s theory. 3.1 Manipulability theory Let me now outline Woodward’s theory. The focal point of Woodward’s work is his formal set of necessary and sufficient conditions for to be a (type-level) cause of , which form his manipulability theory:
Submitted_paper_A_new_take_on_causal_mechanisms.docx