Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T06:57:40.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ON FORMALIZING CAUSATION BASED ON CONSTANT CONJUNCTION THEORY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2012

HU LIU  and
XUEFENG WEN
HU LIU*
Affiliation:
Institute of Logic and Cognition, Sun Yat-sen University, China
XUEFENG WEN*
Affiliation:
Institute of Logic and Cognition, Sun Yat-sen University, China
*
*INSTITUTE OF LOGIC AND COGNITION SUN YAT-SEN UNIVERSITY GUANGZHOU 510275, CHINA E-mail: liuhu2@mail.sysu.edu.cn, wxflogic@gmail.com
*INSTITUTE OF LOGIC AND COGNITION SUN YAT-SEN UNIVERSITY GUANGZHOU 510275, CHINA E-mail: liuhu2@mail.sysu.edu.cn, wxflogic@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Constant conjunction theory of causation had been the dominant theory in philosophy for a long time and regained attention recently. This paper gives a logical framework of causation based on the theory. The basic idea is that causal statements are empirical, and are derived from our past experience by observing constant conjunction between objects. The logic is defined on linear time structures. A causal statement is evaluated at time points, such that its value depends on what has been in the past. We first give a semantics that contains basic conditions that, we think, must hold for a concept of causation, on which we define the minimal causal logic. Then we discuss its possible extensions for various concepts of causation. Complete deductive systems are given.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Symbolic Logic , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 160 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Symbolic Logic 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Areces, C., & ten Cate, B. (2006). Hybrid logics. In Blackburn, P., Wolter, F., and van Benthem, J., editors. Handbook of Modal Logic. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier, pp. 821–868.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, M. (2008). Regularity theories reassessed. Philosophia, 36(3), 327–354.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, M. (2009). Uncovering deterministic causal structures: A boolean approach. Synthese, 170(1), 71–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beebee, H. (2006). Does anything hold the universe together? Synthese, 149(3), 509–533.Google Scholar
Belnap, N., & Perloff, M. (1988). Seeing to it that: a canonical form for agentives. Theoria, 54(3), 175–199.Google Scholar
Black, M. (1956). Why cannot an effect precede its cause? Analysis, 16(3), 49–58.Google Scholar
Blackburn, P., De Rijke, M., & Venema, Y. (2001). Modal Logic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dummett, A. E., & Flew, A. (1954). Symposium: Can an effect precede its cause? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 28, 27–62.Google Scholar
Gabbay, D. M., Hodkinson, I., & Reynolds, M. (1994). Temporal Logic: Mathematical Foundations and Computational Aspects, Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Giordano, L., Martelli, A., & Schwind, C. (2000). Ramification and causality in a modal action logic. Journal of Logic and Computation, 10(5), 625–662.Google Scholar
Giordano, L., & Schwind, C. (2004). Conditional logic of actions and causation. Artificial Intelligence, 157(1–2), 239–279.Google Scholar
Graßhoff, G., & May, M. (2001). Causal regularities. In Spohn, W., Ledwig, M., and Esfeld, M., editors. Current Issues in Causation. Paderborn, Germany: Mentis, pp. 85–114.Google Scholar
Hall, N. (2000). Causation and the price of transitivity. The Journal of Philosophy, 97(4), 198–222.Google Scholar
Hall, N. (2004). Two concepts of causation. In Collins, J., Hall, N., and Paul, L. A., editors. Causation and Counterfactuals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 225–276.Google Scholar
Halpern, J. Y., & Pearl, J. (2005). Causes and explanations: A structural-model approach. Part I: Causes. The British Journal for The Philosophy of Science, 56(4), 843–887.Google Scholar
Hanson, N. R. (1958). Patterns of Discovery: An Inquiry into the Conceptual Foundations of Science. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hebb, D. O. (2002). The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hodkinson, I., & Reynolds, M. (2007). Temporal logic. In Blackburn, P., van Benthen, J., and Wolter, F., editors. Handbook of Modal Logic. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier, pp. 655–720.Google Scholar
Hume, D. (2000). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: A Critical Edition, English edition, edited by Beauchamp, T. L.New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1933). Critique of Pure Reason, English edition, 2nd impression, translated by Smith, N. K. Macmillan.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1973a). Causation. The Journal of Philosophy, 70(17), 556–567.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1973b). Counterfactuals. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1986). Events. Philosophical Papers, 2, 241–269.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (2004). Causation as influence. In Collins, J. D., Hall, E. J., and Paul, L. A., editors. Causation and Counterfactuals. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 75–106.Google Scholar
Lin, F. (1996). Embracing causality in specifying the indeterminate effects of actions. In Proceedings of the 13th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence. CA: Morgan Kaufmann, pp. 1985–1991.Google Scholar
Mackie, J. L. (1965). Causes and conditions. American Philosophical Quarterly, 2(4), 245–264.Google Scholar
Mackie, J. L. (1974). The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McCain, N., & Turner, H. (1997). Causal theories of action and change. In Proceedings of the 14th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence. CA: Morgan Kaufmann, pp. 460–465.Google Scholar
Mellor, D. H. (1995). The Facts of Causation. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearl, J. (2000). Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schwind, C. (1999). Causality in action theories. Electronic Articles in Computer and Information Science, 4(4), 27–50.Google Scholar
Sutton, R. S. (2001). Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Thielscher, M. (1997). Ramification and causality. Artificial Intelligence, 89(1–2), 317–364.Google Scholar
Venema, Y. (1993). Derivation rules as anti-axioms in modal logic. The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 58(3), 1003–1034.Google Scholar
von Kutschera, F. (1993). Causation. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 22(6), 563–588.Google Scholar
Williamson, J. (2006). Causality. In Handbook of Philosophical Logic (second edition), Vol. 14. The Netherlands: Springer, pp. 95–126.Google Scholar
Woodward, J. (2003). Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Xu, M. (1997). Causation in branching time (i): Transitions, events and causes. Synthese, 112(2), 137–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, D., & Foo, N. (2001). Epdl: A logic for causal reasoning. In Proceedings of the 17th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. CA: Morgan Kaufmann, pp. 131–136.Google Scholar