Introduction
Part 1: Causality and Action
1. An action-related theory of causality
2. General discussion of AIM theories of causality
3. An example from medicine. Koch’s work on bacterial diseases and his postulates
Part 2: Causality and Mechanisms
4. Mechanistic theories of causality and causal theories of Mechanism
5. Types of evidence: (i) evidence of mechanism
6. Types of evidence: (ii) statistical evidence in human populations
7. Combining statistical evidence with evidence of mechanism
8. The Russo-Williamson thesis: (i) effects of smoking on health
9. The Russo-Williamson thesis: (ii) the evaluation of streptomycin and thalidomide
10. Objections to the Russo-Williamson thesis
11. Discovering cures in medicine and seeking for deeper explanations
Part 3: Causality and Probability
12. Indeterministic causality
13. Causal networks
14. How should probabilities be interpreted?
15. Pearl’s alternative approach to linking causality and probability
16. Extension of the action-related theory to the indeterministic case
Appendix 1. Example of a simple medical intervention which is not an intervention in Woodward’s sense
Appendix 2. Mathematical Terminology
Appendix 3. Sudbury’s Theorems
Glossary of Medical Terms
Index
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