Causes and Explanations: A Structural-Model Approach. Part I: Causes

We propose a new definition of actual causes, using structural equations to model counterfactuals. We show that the definition yields a plausible and elegant account of causation that handles well examples which have caused problems for other definitions and resolves major difficulties in the tradit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The British journal for the philosophy of science 2005-12, Vol.56 (4), p.843-887
Main Authors: Halpern, Joseph Y., Pearl, Judea
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
20th century
Arson
Bottles
Causality
Causation
Contrafactuals
Forest fires
History
History of science and technology
Oxygen
Philosophy
Physical sciences and techniques
Random variables
Science
Structural firefighting
Tinder
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Summary:We propose a new definition of actual causes, using structural equations to model counterfactuals. We show that the definition yields a plausible and elegant account of causation that handles well examples which have caused problems for other definitions and resolves major difficulties in the traditional account. IntroductionCausal models: a review 2.1 Causal models2.2 Syntax and semanticsThe definition of causeExamplesA more refined definitionDiscussion AAppendix: Some Technical Issues A.1 The active causal processA.2 A closer look at AC2(b)A.3 Causality with infinitely many variablesA.4 Causality in nonrecursive models
ISSN:0007-0882
1464-3537
DOI:10.1093/bjps/axi147