title: Causation in the sciences: an inferentialist account.
abstract: I present an alternative account of causation in the biomedical and social sciences according to which the meaning of causal claims is given by their inferential relations to other claims. Specifically, I will argue that causal claims are (typically) inferentially related to certain evidential claims as well as claims about explanation, prediction, intervention and responsibility. I explain in some detail what it means for a claim to be inferentially related to another and finally derive some implication of the proposed account for the epistemology, semantics and metaphysics of causation.
authors.affiliation: Erasmus University, PO Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands. reiss@fwb.eur.nl
authors.forename: Julian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Reiss
mesh_terms: D015984:Causality; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D008511:Medicine; D008678:Metaphysics; D012660:Semantics; D012942:Social Sciences