Team semantics for causal dependence and interventionist counterfactuals

Description

Talk for the "Research Seminar in Logic and Philosophy of Mathematics (FTY-911) 2017/2018"

Abstract: Hodges' team semantics, which evaluates formulas on sets of assignments, has been a key instrument for the logical investigation of data-driven notions of dependence (database dependencies, probabilistic dependencies and more). There are instead notions of dependence that cannot be reduced to mere properties of collections of data; examples of this kind are the notions of causal dependence and (interventionist) counterfactual dependence which arise from manipulationist theories of causation (Pearl, Woodward and others). In spite of this state of affairs, it is not unusual that the literature on causation mixes causal, observational and probabilistic ingredients in its statements and notations. I will present a hybrid semantical system (developed in collaboration with G. Sandu) that encompasses all these kinds of discourses, in particular assigning a meaning to interventionist counterfactuals over sets of assignments. I will then analyze some of the (old and new) logical aspects of this causal team semantics.

Period	26 Jan 2018
Held at	Department of Philosophy, History and Art Studies