Causation with a Human Face

The writing is clear, precise, and thorough. Woodward's powerful syntheses of ideas from philosophy, psychology, statistics, and computer science mark this work as a major advance in understanding of causality. * L. C. Archie, Lander University, CHOICE *
For anyone who is interested in how we humans come to understand the causal world as we do, Woodward's astonishingly broad and deep assessment of both the philosophy and cognition literatures will offer a rewarding read. This book will arm you with insights and findings that may completely change how you think about causation and the mind's role in an 'objective' understanding of it. * Patricia Cheng, Department of Psychology, UCLA *
James Woodward's new book is a compelling synthesis of what is known about human causal judgement, its purposes, and how the norms of causal reasoning serve those ends. Invoking only a minimalist metaphysics of interventions, Woodward weaves many threads into a convincing whole. The book should be a touchstone for those in philosophy, psychology and computer science who think about causality. * Clark Glymour *
James Woodward revolutionized the philosophical discussion of causation. In his new book he elucidates the deep relationships between the psychology of causal understanding and philosophical questions. The book is lucid, thoughtful, knowledgeable and careful and at the same time brimming over with remarkable new ideas and insights - a must read for both philosophers and cognitive scientists. * Alison Gopnik, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley *
James Woodward's 2003 book Making Things Happen about causal explanation was arguably the most important philosophical book about causation to appear in decades.This eagerly awaited new book is an expansive study of causation and causal reasoning that challenges received ideas about the relationship between theoretical and normative, between science and philosophy, and between metaphysics and psychology. Enormous in scope—spanning philosophy, psychology, statistics and machine learning—it will set the agenda for discussions of causation for years to come. * Jenann Ismael, Department of Philosophy, Columbia University *
What renders this book a must-read, and an exceptional one of its kind, is primarily the enlightening and multi-faceted way in which Woodward proceeds in actually implementing these novel ideas; in short, his method. * Violetta Manola, Stathis Psillos, The Metascience *
The book's appeal to the purposes of causal reasoning gives important guidance for addressing both theoretical and empirical questions and shows how such questions can fruitfully interact with each other. * Journal for General Philosophy of Science *