Because of recent scientific developments, philosophers of science have become increasingly interested in the ideas of probabilistic causation and explanation. This contrasts with deterministic causation, in which causes are conceived as necessitating their effects, and with theories of explanation in which explanatory data are required logically to imply that the relevant phenomenon occurs. Under a previous NSF grant, Dr. Eells wrote a book, Probabilistic Causality, where he distinguished type level causation (about causal relations in general between factors or properties) from token level causation (about causal relations between actual, concrete events), and he developed a new probabilistic theory for the token level. The primary aim of this new project is to apply the token level theory of Probabilistic Causality to the proper understanding of explanation of particular events. The idea of causation is integral to the theory of explanation, but the extension of a theory of causation to a theory of explanation is intricate. Because of analogies between Dr. Eells' token level theory of causation and Professor Salmon's theory of causal process presented in 1984, it seems that Dr. Eells theories developed in his book can be extended in ways that can improve upon Salmon's ideas involving causation in the theory of explanation. Under this grant, Dr. Eells is carrying out the work of making this extension from the theory of causation to a probabilistic theory of explanation.
