ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how specificity in the sense of degree of determination can be defined for many-valued variables. To bring the concept of specificity to bear on the issue of higher-level and downward causation, the chapter shows how it can be used to compare variables characterizing a system by representing properties at different levels. The interventionist analysis of causation makes explicit the experimental strategy used in science for discovering causal relations among variables. It is not intended to provide an analysis of causation as a relation between individual spatio-temporally localized events, but an analysis of causation as a relation among properties of events, which can be represented by variables. Partisans of physicalism are attracted to the view that all causes are physical. According to such a view, causal statements of special sciences that mention non-physical properties are mere simplified ways of speaking, which are ultimately made true by physics.
