Causal Pluralism and Scientific Knowledge: an Underexposed Problem

Abstract

Causal pluralism is currently a hot topic in philosophy. However, the consequences of this view on causation for scientific knowledge and scientific methodology are heavily underexposed in the present debate. My aim in this paper is to argue that an epistemological-methodological point of view should be valued as a line of approach on its own and to demonstrate how epistemological-methodological causal pluralism differs in its scope from conceptual and metaphysical causal pluralism. Further, I defend epistemological-methodological causal pluralism and try to illustrate that scientific practice needs diverse causal concepts in diverse domains, and even diverse causal concepts within singular domains.