1 History and Philosophy of The Life Sciences, 27(2005), pp. 381-393 . CAUSALITY AND METHODOLOGY. NOTES ON THANATOCHRONOLOGICAL ESTIMATIONS Giovanni Boniolo*, Mirella Libero + , Anna Aprile # * Department of Philosophy - University of Padova - Piazza Capitaniato 3 – 35139 Padova – Italy; giovanni.boniolo@unipd.it + Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health - Section of Legal Medicine - University of Padova - 35100 Padova – Italy; mirella.libero@unipd.it # Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health - Section of Legal Medicine - University of Padova - 35100 Padova – Italy; anna.aprile@unipd.it Abstract The authors propose some methodological considerations on thanatochronological estimations. They first consider the problem of the definition of death, and then they deal with the issue of the estimations of death time, that is, with the Post-Mortem Interval (PMI). As regards the first question, they note it does not concern only the definition of death, but also the choice of a particular kind of definition of definition. With reference to the second question, the authors suggest a causal model showing that the presence of many causal chains must be taken into consideration. Finally they discuss what “most convenient and reliable causal chain” means for a thanatochronologist. Keywords death, forensic methodology, post-mortem interval, thanatochronological estimation. 1. Introduction For a working forensic scientist, thanatochronology concerns mainly the empirical problems regarding the estimation of time since death or, said differently, with the timing of death, or the determination of the Post-Mortem Interval (since now on, PMI) (cf. Hensshe et al. 2002). Nevertheless, also for a forensic scientist could be interesting to reflect methodologically upon the core question of his discipline: what does “estimation of PMI” mean? It would seem to answer such a question does not improve the forensic scientist’s technical skill in performing his job. Probably it is true, but it contributes in a relevant way to the methodological awareness on what performing such a job involves. Every day he must furnish an estimation of PMI as precise and accurate as he can, and as the technologies he uses can permit him. Of course he should be aware of the civil (for examples, in cases of simultaneous death and predecease), and criminal (for example, in cases of homicide) relevance of the results of his analyses. Therefore why should he not