Editing Causality (section)

==== Epistemology ====
Since causality is a subtle metaphysical notion, considerable intellectual effort, along with exhibition of evidence, is needed to establish knowledge of it in particular empirical circumstances. According to [[David Hume]], the human mind is unable to perceive causal relations directly. On this ground, the scholar distinguished between the regularity view of causality and the counterfactual notion.<ref name=Hume>{{Cite book|last=Hume|first=David|title=A Treatise on Human Nature|url=https://archive.org/details/atreatiseofhuman00humeuoft|publisher=Clarendon Press|year=1888|location=Oxford}}</ref> According to the [[Counterfactual conditional|counterfactual view]], ''X'' causes ''Y'' if and only if, without ''X, Y'' would not exist. Hume interpreted the latter as an ontological view, i.e., as a description of the nature of causality but, given the limitations of the human mind, advised using the former (stating, roughly, that ''X'' causes ''Y'' if and only if the two events are spatiotemporally conjoined, and ''X'' precedes ''Y'') as an epistemic definition of causality. We need an epistemic concept of causality in order to distinguish between causal and noncausal relations. The contemporary philosophical literature on causality can be divided into five big approaches to causality. These include the (mentioned above) regularity, [[Probabilistic causation|probabilistic]], counterfactual, [[Mechanism (philosophy)|mechanistic]], and manipulationist views. The five approaches can be shown to be reductive, i.e., define causality in terms of relations of other types.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Maziarz|first=Mariusz|title=The Philosophy of Causality in Economics: Causal Inferences and Policy Proposals.|publisher=Routledge.|year=2020|location=New York & London}}</ref> According to this reading, they define causality in terms of, respectively, empirical regularities (constant conjunctions of events), changes in [[conditional probability|conditional probabilities]], counterfactual conditions, mechanisms underlying causal relations, and invariance under intervention.