Counterfactuals and Causation: Preferences on Belief Sets
نویسنده
چکیده
A modal language called hypothetical logic is presented in which the semantics of counterfactuals is captured by a new syntactic version of belief updating that incorporates reason maintenance; the latter is claimed necessary for a theory of counterfactuals. The logic is then applied to problems in causation. Unlike other systems for information change, events and time in this framework are represented at the object level so that causal connections expressed between complex event descriptions may be analyzed. The inclusion of time and events requires a treatment of the frame problem which is dealt with by way of the same principle of minimal change that is made use of in the updating operation. Within this language, a number of preferences on belief sets are then explored; these are chosen so that the coun-terfactual inferences which follow satisfy our pre-theoretic intuitions involving causal connections.
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