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HEIndividual fellowship2023–2025

POCAM · A Powers Ontology for Causal Models

Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2023-09-04 → 2025-09-03
EU contribution
€189,687
Participants
1
Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

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Results in brief

A Powers Ontology for Causal Models

POCAM aims to provide for the first time a unified ontology, within the framework of a powers metaphysics, for explaining the success of three kinds of causal modelling technique: Structural Equations Models, Fault Tree Analyses, and Petri Nets. While these techniques are both diverse and pervasive in the applied sciences, no attempt has been made to draw a connection between them all and an underlying metaphysics of causal relations. Dr Toby Friend’s expertise in the metaphysics of causation and background in engineering will enable the innovation of a novel ontology within the powers framework which can fill this lacuna. In developing the new ontology, Dr Friend will bring philosophical scrutiny to the causal modelling techniques thereby illuminating what it is in the world which unifies and explains their practical success. POCAM will also facilitate a better translation between the ‘scientific image’ of causation explicated in these highly formal techniques and the ‘manifest image’ of causation we engage with as human agents. This ground-breaking research will be carried out at Freie Universität Berlin under the supervision of Professor Dr Barbara Vetter, a world-leader in powers metaphysics. The research will also receive the advice of Professor Dr Katinka Wolter, an expert on Petri Nets and Fault Tree Analysis, and Professor Dr Beate Krickel, an expert on philosophical applications of Structural Equations Models. With this research Dr Friend will also establish himself as a promising candidate for permanent academic roles in Europe.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Multiple causal modelling techniques are employed in the applied sciences. For instance, Structural Equations Models (SEMs) are employed in genetics, econometrics and psychology; Fault Tree Analyses (FTAs) are employed in aerospace and nuclear engineering; Petri Nets are used in traffic control and integrated computational systems. Each technique has a unique way of representing causal phenomena, drawing on different data and background information. But what is it about the world that allows each of these techniques to work? And what makes each technique a representation of causal phenomena specifically? POCAM will break new ground answering these questions by determining a single, underlying causal ontology within the powers metaphysics framework. In doing so, POCAM will provide an explanation of why such varied causal modelling practices are so successful, thereby helping practitioners better conceptualise the connections among different modelling formalisms and with our pre-scientific understanding of causation in everyday life. While there have been attempts to determine an underlying ontology for SEMs there has yet to be any philosophical engagement with FTAs or Petri Nets, despite their pervasiveness in science. Moreover, current ontologies for causal models in metaphysics fail to be adequately reductive, preventing them from being truly explanatory. POCAM will therefore be pioneering in its attempt to provide a single reductive ontology of all three modelling techniques. To do so, POCAM will draw on the scientific credentials of the powers metaphysics framework. The nature of powers and their role in causation is increasingly well understood but has yet to be brought into sustained theoretical engagement with the casual modelling literature. Dr Friends unique expertise, as a philosopher of science and trained engineer, will enable him, aided by expert scientific advice and supervision, to carry out this inter-disciplinary research.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • FREIE UNIVERSITAET BERLIN · BerlinCoordinatorGermany

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union