Causal and Mechanistic Explanations in Ecology

How are scientific explanations possible in ecology, given that there do not appear to be many-if any-ecological laws? To answer this question, I present and defend an account of scientific causal explanation in which ecological generalizations are explanatory if they are invariant rather than lawlike. An invariant generalization continues to hold or be valid under a special change-called an intervention-that changes the value of its variables. According to this account, causes are difference-makers that can be intervened upon to manipulate or control their effects. I apply the account to ecological generalizations to show that invariance under interventions as a criterion of explanatory relevance provides interesting interpretations for the explanatory status of many ecological generalizations. Thus, I argue that there could be causal explanations in ecology by generalizations that are not, in a strict sense, laws. I also address the issue of mechanistic explanations in ecology by arguing that invariance and modularity constitute such explanations.     

Reflections on the meanings of dreams prompted by reading Stekel.

What does it mean to interpret a dream? While reading Stekel, an underappreciated but fascinating author, I was struck both by his keen insights as well as his interpretive limitations. This led to broader questions concerning the polyvocal concept of “meaning” in the interpretation of dreams. This article suggests the meaning of dreams can include wish fulfillments, univocal translations, clarifying the life context, morphological equivalences, associations, and personal history. Stepping back, even the question of “interpretation” versus “appreciation” reminds us that the need, if any, for interpretation will vary depending on who is asking the question. Indeed, reflections on the “who” or ego in the dream leads beyond dreaming to ultimate questions concerning the reality of ego and meditative reflections on what it means to truly be awake and aware of life as it is. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The dream world in Dominica.

To the natives of the Caribbean island of Dominica, the dream is proclaimed la konpanyi la nuit (the companion of the night). Belief in dreams is grounded in diverse cultural influences, including those of the French, West African, British, and the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. In this richly imaginative dream world, myths and truths are finely interwoven to create an unwritten glossary of dream symbol interpretation. Although these interpretations have not enjoyed scientific validation, practical, historical, and psychological data are found to resonate with these traditional Dominican interpretations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causal (mis)understanding and the search for scientific explanations: a case study from the history of medicine

In 1747, James Lind carried out an experiment which proved the usefulness of citrus fruit as a cure for scurvy. Nonetheless, he rejected the earlier hypothesis of Bachstrom that the absence of fresh fruit and vegetables was the only cause of the disease. I explain why it was rational for James Lind not to accept Bachstrom's explanation. I argue that it was the urge for scientific understanding that guided Lind in his rejection and in the development of his alternative theory that humidity was the primary cause of the disease. Central in this process was the search for causal mechanisms which could provide understanding of how the disease developed and which fitted in with the knowledge of the time. Given that the relevant background knowledge and statistical methods were not yet available to Lind, he was right to prefer his own explanation to that of Bachstrom. Although his explanation turned out to be wrong, and Bachstrom's right, from a historical point of view it offered deeper causal understanding of both the development of the disease and the preventive and curative effects of fresh vegetable food. This case study illustrates how the search for causal mechanisms can not only be enlightening, but also very misleading.     

Predictors of Outcome of Dream Interpretation Sessions: Volunteer Client Characteristics, Dream Characteristics, and Type of Interpretation

105 volunteer clients completed single sessions of dream interpretation using the Hill (1996) model, with half randomly assigned to waking life interpretation and the other half to parts of self interpretation in the insight stage of the Hill model. No differences were found between waking life and parts of self interpretations, suggesting that therapists can use either type of dream interpretation. Volunteer clients who had positive attitudes toward dreams and presented pleasant dreams had better session outcome; in addition, volunteer clients who had pleasant dreams gained more insight into their dreams. Results suggest that therapists doing single sessions of dream interpretation need to be cautious about working with dreams when volunteer clients have negative attitudes toward dreams and present unpleasant dreams.     

Psychoanalysis as functionalist social science: the legacy of Freud's 'Project for a scientific psychology'

The paper links Freud's early work in the 'Project for a scientific psychology' with the psychoanalytic psychology of Kleinian object relations theory now current. Freud is often accused of introducing mechanism into his psychology and installing at its core an irreconcilable dichotomy of two disparate ways of explaining human behaviour. I suggest that Freud's early mechanistic thinking is an attempt at what he only partly achieves, a functional account of the 'mental apparatus'. I consider whether this way of conceptualising the mind in functional terms is methodologically relevant to psychoanalytic investigation or whether it is at best heuristically useful. From a brief consideration of Kleinian object relations theory, illustrated by case material, I conclude that there are grounds for accepting the first of these alternatives.     

What is the story telling? Examining discovery with the storytelling method (TSM) and testing with a control group.

This research tested the storytelling method of dream interpretation (TSM), which expands on previously established methods of interpretation by adding an additional step that involves creating a story after word association is completed. Two studies tested the method, the efficacy of the method, and assessed dreamer discovery. Study 1 revealed a significant relationship between word association and discovery and between the story that was created and discovery. Furthermore, word association significantly predicted discovery in Block 1, but the story added to the prediction of discovery, above word association alone, in Block 2. When testing with a control group, there was a significant difference between the group who interpreted a dream with TSM and those who used the method with association alone. Results reveal a significant difference between the groups, indicating that discovery, insight, and bridging to waking-day circumstances was more likely with TSM when participants used their own dream rather than a dream that was not their own. These findings extend previous research and show that TSM is a brief, effective dream technique that shows therapeutic promise. Limitations and future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response to William Domhoff's comments on "Meteorite or gemstone?…".

My paper, “Meteorite or Gemstone…” is not trying to divide dream theories into two categories as Dr. Domhoff appears to believe. Rather, it is an effort to nudge dream theory and dream work into new directions. I review many reasons why we often consider dreams “totally different” from daydreams, fantasies, etc. (the meteorite position). For each reason, I show that there is actually considerable overlap, and that the forms of mental functioning are best considered as a continuum. I point out that many dream researchers, from different perspectives, are taking the “totally different” (meteorite position) even though they may not explicitly endorse it. For instance those who insist that dreams are meaningless are taking the meteorite position since they obviously do not consider daydreams and fantasies meaningless. Very different researchers, including Dr. Domhoff's group, spend thousands of hours doing detailed analyses of dreams, counting number of words, number of characters, number of interactions, etc. I consider them too to be taking the meteorite position since they almost never analyze daydreams, fantasies, etc. in this way. I compare their efforts to spectroanalysis, which is worthwhile when studying a meteorite (but not a gemstone), since it may yield secrets about the world the meteorite came from. I am not criticizing these researchers, who have made some important discoveries, but rather trying to nudge them toward noticing the continuum, and perhaps broadening their studies to include daydreams, fantasies, and other forms of mental functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The causal structure of mechanisms

Recently, a number of philosophers of science have claimed that much explanation in the sciences, especially in the biomedical and social sciences, is mechanistic explanation. I argue the account of mechanistic explanation provided in this tradition has not been entirely satisfactory, as it has neglected to describe in complete detail the crucial causal structure of mechanistic explanation. I show how the interventionist approach to causation, especially within a structural equations framework, provides a simple and elegant account of the causal structure of mechanisms. This account explains the many useful insights of traditional accounts of mechanism, such as Carl Craver’s account in his book Explaining the Brain (2007), but also helps to correct the omissions of such accounts. One of these omissions is the failure to provide an explicit formulation of a modularity constraint that plays a significant role in mechanistic explanation. One virtue of the interventionist/structural equations framework is that it allows for a simple formulation of a modularity constraint on mechanistic explanation. I illustrate the role of this constraint in the last section of the paper, which describes the form that mechanistic explanation takes in the computational, information-processing paradigm of cognitive psychology.     

Explanatory unification and natural selection explanations

The debate between the dynamical and the statistical interpretations of natural selection is centred on the question of whether all explanations that employ the concepts of natural selection and drift are reducible to causal explanations. The proponents of the statistical interpretation answer negatively, but insist on the fact that selection/drift arguments are explanatory. However, they remain unclear on where the explanatory power comes from. The proponents of the dynamical interpretation answer positively and try to reduce selection/drift arguments to some of the most prominent accounts of causal explanation. In turn, they face the criticism raised by statisticalists that current accounts of causation have to be violated in some of their core conditions or otherwise used in a very loose manner in order to account for selection/drift explanations. We propose a reconciliation of both interpretations by conveying evolutionary explanations within the unificationist model of scientific explanation. Therefore, we argue that the explanatory power in natural selection arguments is a result of successful unification of individual- and population-level facts. A short case study based on research on sympatric speciation will be presented as an example of how population- and individual-level facts are unified to explain the morphological mosaic of bill shape in island scrub jays (Aphelocoma insularis).     

Dream Interpretation with Heterosexual Dating Couples

We examined the effectiveness of the Hill cognitive–experiential model of dream interpretation for working with male and female partners in heterosexual dating couples. Results showed that female partners who received dream interpretation (N = 20) had greater improvements in relationship well-being, insight, and gains from dream interpretation than female partners in the wait-list control group (N = 20). However, male partners who received dream interpretation (N = 20) did not make significant improvements as compared to male partners who did not receive dream interpretation (N = 20). Hence, couples dream interpretation may be more helpful for women than men. Greater effort may be needed to involve men in couples dream sessions in hopes that they will show more gains in relationship well-being and insight.     

Penelope as Dreamer: A Reading of Book 19 of The Odyssey

This essay reexamines the encounter between Odysseus and Penelope in Book 19 of Homer's epic poem The Odyssey, focusing particular attention on the dream of the 20 geese Penelope describes during that encounter. Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, says the dream is a favorable omen which indicates the real Odysseus will return soon to rid his palace of the hated suitors who have occupied it in his long absence. Although generations of scholars have agreed with the hero's interpretation, the present essay offers a different understanding: Penelope, having recognized who this beggar really is, has fabricated her dream of the 20 geese to test her husband and determine whether he is more interested in renewing their marriage or satisfying his vengeance against the suitors. The essay offers an appreciation of Penelope as one of our earliest and wisest dreamers, who understood how easily people's wishes and desires could lead them to misinterpret their own dreams and the dreams of others.     

An Attempt to Target Anxiety Sensitivity via Cognitive Bias Modification

Our goals in the present study were to test an adaptation of a Cognitive Bias Modification program to reduce anxiety sensitivity, and to evaluate the causal relationships between interpretation bias of physiological cues, anxiety sensitivity, and anxiety and avoidance associated with interoceptive exposures. Participants with elevated anxiety sensitivity who endorsed having a panic attack or limited symptom attack were randomly assigned to either an Interpretation Modification Program (IMP; n = 33) or a Control (n = 32) condition. During interpretation modification training (via the Word Sentence Association Paradigm), participants read short sentences describing ambiguous panic-relevant physiological and cognitive symptoms and were trained to endorse benign interpretations and reject threatening interpretations associated with these cues. Compared to the Control condition, IMP training successfully increased endorsements of benign interpretations and decreased endorsements of threatening interpretations at visit 2. Although self-reported anxiety sensitivity decreased from pre-selection to visit 1 and from visit 1 to visit 2, the reduction was not larger for the experimental versus control condition. Further, participants in IMP (vs. Control) training did not experience less anxiety and avoidance associated with interoceptive exposures. In fact, there was some evidence that those in the Control condition experienced less avoidance following training. Potential explanations for the null findings, including problems with the benign panic-relevant stimuli and limitations with the control condition, are discussed.     

RESPECT FOR PERSONS PERMITS PRIORITIZING TREATMENT FOR HIV/AIDS

I defend a certain claim about rationing in the context of HIV/AIDS, namely, the 'priority thesis' that the state of a developing country with a high rate of HIV should provide highly active anti-retroviral treatment (HAART) to those who would die without it, even if doing so would require not treating most other life-threatening diseases. More specifically, I defend the priority thesis in a negative way, by refuting two influential and important arguments against it inspired by the Kantian principle of respect for persons. The 'equality argument' more or less maintains that prioritizing treatment for HIV/AIDS would objectionably treat those who suffer from it as more important than those who do not. The 'responsibility argument' says, roughly, that to ration life-saving treatment by prioritizing those with HIV would wrongly fail to hold people responsible for their actions, since most people infected with HIV could have avoided the foreseeable harm of infection. While it appears that a Kantian must think that one of these two arguments is sound, I maintain that, in fact, respect for persons grounds neither the equality nor responsibility argument against prioritizing HAART and hence at least permits doing so. If this negative defence of the priority thesis succeeds, then conceptual space is opened up for the possibility that respect for persons requires prioritizing HAART, which argument I sketch in the conclusion as something to articulate and defend in future work.     

The Goldwyn diary of November and December 1960, at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital, Lambaréné, Gabon

Through unexpected circumstances, I went to Lambaréné, in Gabon, to be Dr. Albert Schweitzer's surgeon for 2 months, November and December of 1960.This diary I can honestly say I never thought would become public. The years have passed; I am now 77. I realize that not many of those who served in a medical capacity at his hospital are still alive and not everyone will share his or her experiences.I want to make clear that I was with Dr. Schweitzer only 2 months. I would not want anyone to think that I played a strategic role at the hospital. I did not, but I helped as best I could.Although I have traveled throughout the world and have been a surgeon in many out-of-the-way places, I have not returned to Lambaréné. The reason, I confess, is that I wanted it to remain in my mind as it was. For Dr. Schweitzer and those who served there, his hospital was a way of life. It was a world of its own and, though small, it came into being because of the arching ideals and unflagging dedication of a remarkable man. His example should inspire us to enlarge our personal horizons, not just to recognize the less fortunate but to act without delay on their behalf. For each of us, there is an Ogowe waiting to be crossed.     

Post‐trial obligations in the Declaration of Helsinki 2013: classification,reconstruction and interpretation

The general aim of this article is to give a critical interpretation of post‐trial obligations towards individual research participants in the Declaration of Helsinki 2013. Transitioning research participants to the appropriate health care when a research study ends is a global problem. The publication of a new version of the Declaration of Helsinki is a great opportunity to discuss it. In my view, the Declaration of Helsinki 2013 identifies at least two clearly different types of post‐trial obligations, specifically, access to care after research and access to information after research. The agents entitled to receive post‐trial access are the individual participants in research studies. The Declaration identifies the sponsors, researchers and host country governments as the main agents responsible for complying with the post‐trial obligations mentioned above. To justify this interpretation of post‐trial obligations, I first introduce a classification of post‐trial obligations and illustrate its application with examples from post‐trial ethics literature. I then make a brief reconstruction of the formulations of post‐trial obligations of the Declaration of Helsinki from 2000 to 2008 to correlate the changes with some of the most salient ethical arguments. Finally I advance a critical interpretation of the latest formulation of post‐trial obligations. I defend the view that paragraph 34 of ‘Post‐trial provisions’ is an improved formulation by comparison with earlier versions, especially for identifying responsible agents and abandoning ambiguous ‘fair benefit’ language. However, I criticize the disappearance of ‘access to other appropriate care’ present in the Declaration since 2004 and the narrow scope given to obligations of access to information after research.     

Rational versus anti-rational interpretations of science: an ape-language case-study

Robert Nola (2003) has argued that anti-rationalist interpretations of science fail to adequately explain the process of science, since objective reasons can be causal factors in belief formation. While I agree with Nola that objective reasons can be a cause of belief, in this paper I present a version of the strong programme in the sociology of knowledge, the Interests Thesis, and argue that the Interests Thesis provides a plausible explanation of an episode in the history of ape-language research. Specifically, I examine Terrace, Petitto, Sandess, & Bever (1979, 1980) illegitimate comparison of the signing of their chimpanzee, Nim, with data from human early childhood language development, and argue that Terrace et al.'s interests played a causal role in determining their sceptical beliefs concerning ape linguistic abilities. However, I go on to argue that Terrace et al.'s interests are not the only causal factors in determining their beliefs: objective reasons, associated with the institution of new methodologies, were also causally determinative of Terrace et al.'s sceptical beliefs. Consequently, I argue that belief formation in science is a multi-factorial affair wherein both interests and objective reasons have causal roles. I finish the paper with two conjectures concerning the proper locus of scientific rationality.     

The epiglottis in antiquity in medicine and philosophy

In Antiquity, the epiglottis and the related question whether drink enters the lung is a problem embracing both differently organized philosophical strategies and differently developed medical competences. Over the centuries, the history of a physiological question gradually turns into a debate where we find philosophers disagreeing with philosophers and physicians with physicians. A peculiar feature of this debate is that from a certain time on it involves a division between those who defend Plato's view on the subject and those who (philosophers as well as physicians) criticize it. Plato, Aristotle and Chrysippus, the Hippocratic authors and Erasistratus in the testimony of Aulus Gellius, Plutarch and indirectly also of Cicero, and then Galen and Macrobius have a special place in the development of this topic.     

John Rex's main mistake

Science progresses by the discovery and correction of mistakes in the interpretation of data. John Rex sought ‘to distinguish among the various studies made by sociologists those which are distinguishable as race relations studies’. He examined them from the standpoint of classical sociological theory. His main mistake was his continued but unsuccessful attempt to synthesize two quite different kinds of sociological knowledge. He underestimated the importance of differences in the criteria for the validation of causal explanation and for the projection of historical trends.     

Mechanical explanation of nature and its limits in Kant's Critique of judgment

In this paper I discuss two questions. What does Kant understand by mechanical explanation in the Critique of judgment? And why does he think that mechanical explanation is the only type of the explanation of nature available to us? According to the interpretation proposed, mechanical explanations in the Critique of judgment refer to a particular species of empirical causal laws. Mechanical laws aim to explain nature by reference to the causal interaction between the forces of the parts of matter and the way in which they form into complex material wholes. Just like any other empirical causal law, however, mechanical laws can never be known with full certainty. The conception according to which we can explain all of nature by means of mechanical laws, it turns out, is based on what Kant calls 'regulative' or 'reflective' considerations about nature. Nothing in Kant's Critique of judgment suggests that these considerations can ever be justified by reference to how the natural world really is. I suggest that what, upon first consideration, appears to be a thoroughly mechanistic conception of nature in Kant is much more limited than one might have expected.