The paper builds on the basically Humean general idea that A is a cause of B iff A and B both occur, A precedes B, and A raises the metaphysical or epistemic status of B given the obtaining circumstances. It argues that in pursuit of a theory of deterministic causation this ‘status raising’ is best explicated not in regularity or counterfactual terms, but in terms of ranking functions. On this ...

We document novel shifts in the lead-lag properties of the US business cycle since the mid-1980s that have gone unnoticed in contemporary research. Specifically, (i) the well-known inverted-leading-indicator-property of real interest rates has completely vanished; (ii) labour productivity switched from leading positively to lagging negatively over the cycle; (iii) Labour input measures shifted ...

The study of causal judgment is dominated by two lines of research. According to one of these, what makes something a cause is that the effect’s occurrence depends on the cause. Some of these theories hold that a cause increases the probability of the effect; others hold that a cause is necessary for the effect. In the second line of research, what makes something a cause is that it has a physi...

Unlike any other monograph on legal liability, Michael S. Moore’s book Causation and Responsibility contains a well-informed and in-depth discussion of the metaphysics of causation. Moore does not share the widespread view that legal scholars should not enter into metaphysical debates about causation.1 He shows respect for the subtleties of philosophical debates on causal relata, identity condi...

A recent paper by David Lewis, “Causation as Influence”, provides a new theory of causation. This paper presents an argument against the theory, using a series of counterexamples that are, I think, of independent interest to philosophers of causation. I argue that (a) the relation asserted by a claim of the form “C was a cause of E” is distinct from the relation of causal influence, (b) the for...

This paper focuses on the second order identifiability problem of blind source separation and its testing. We present first necessary and sufficient conditions for the identifiability and partial identifiability using a finite set of correlation matrices. These conditions depend on the autocorrelation fonction of the unknown sources. However, it is shown here that they can be tested directly fr...

Conditional Causal Probability (CCPR) and Conditional Causal Possibility (CCPO) have been proposed to express exact uncertainties of causalities, and some reasoning methods based on them have been studied to calculate probabilities or possibilities of unknown events under the condition that some events are known. CCPR/CCPO is a conditional probability/possibility of a causation event conditione...

I outline and consider the prospects for an account of causation suitable for a metaphysics of dispositions. Such an account suggests that causes are conditionally sufficient (rather than necessary) for their effects. I consider what semantics for subjunctive and counterfactual conditionals this requires, and examine the consequences for making a distinction between causes and mere conditions a...

X–ray observations indicate that non–gravitational processes play a key role in determining the distribution of the diffuse, X-ray emitting gas in clusters of galaxies (ICM). The effect of non–gravitational processes is imprinted in the ICM as an entropy minimum. Preheating models assume that the entropy minimum is present in the cosmic baryons well before collapse. On the other hand, observati...

Causation is defined recursively: event e is the cause of condition φ in context c iff e is the only sufficient cause of φ in c, and removing e from c either removes φ from c or results in some other event causing φ. A logical language is then defined, in which it is possible to represent and reason about actual and counterfactual events in evolving partial contexts. Axiomatic theories of event...