Interventionist counterfactuals on causal teams

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Abstract

We introduce an extension of team semantics which provides a framework for the logic of manipulationist theories of causation based on structural equation models, such as Woodward's and Pearl's; our causal teams incorporate (partial or total) information about functional dependencies that are invariant under interventions. We give a unified treatment of observational and causal aspects of causal models by isolating two operators on causal teams which correspond, respectively, to conditioning and to interventionist counterfactual implication. We then introduce formal languages for deterministic and probabilistic causal discourse, and show how various notions of cause (e.g. direct and total causes) may be defined in them.
Through the tuning of various constraints on structural equations (recursivity, existence and uniqueness of solutions, full or partial definition of the functions), our framework can capture different causal models. We give an overview of the inferential aspects of the recursive, fully defined case; and we dedicate some attention to the recursive, partially defined case, which involves a shift of attention towards nonclassical truth values.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings CREST 2018
Number of pages15
Publication date3 Jan 2019
Pages16-30
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 Jan 2019
MoE publication typeA4 Article in conference proceedings
EventCREST 2018: 3rd Workshop on formal reasoning about Causation, Responsibility, and Explanations in Science and Technology - Thessaloniki, Greece
Duration: 20 Apr 201920 Apr 2019
Conference number: 3

Publication series

NameLogic in Computer Science (cs.LO)
ISSN (Electronic)2075-2180

Bibliographical note

arXiv:1901.00073

Fields of Science

  • 611 Philosophy
  • 113 Computer and information sciences

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