Causal mechanisms

Key question

What makes one thing cause another?

Check your understanding

Find an example, an application and a limit. Explain the concept without using its name, then compare your explanation with a primary source.

Claims to examine

• Observational association alone is insufficient to identify an intervention effect without assumptions.

  Editorial claim · contestedExamine the source →

Follow a learning route

• What makes one thing cause another?

  Move from Hume’s problem to counterfactuals, interventions and causal models, keeping inference distinct from metaphysics.

Reading connections

• The Book of Why

  Judea Pearl · Dana Mackenzie

• Causal Inference: What If

  Hernán · Robins

• Nature's Capacities and Their Measurement

  Nancy Cartwright

• The Cement of the Universe

  J. L. Mackie

• Elements of Causal Inference

  Peters, Janzing · Schölkopf