Towards A Logic For Causal Reasoning
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Abstract:
Causality has recently entered, in one way or the other, a number of different theories of actions and change. It proved a very useful tool when addressing specific representation problems in this area. However, none of these ad hoc notions of causality provide a uniform platform for causal reasoning. The purpose of this paper is to make a first step towards a pure logic of causal statements and commonsense reasoning about them. Our basic theory allows a uniform representation of causal knowledge of direct, indirect, and delayed effects of events. The syntax supports the crucial distinction between a cause from a mere context, and it allows to formulate events to which common sense does not attribute a cause at all (such as entirely volitional actions or recurring `natural' events). The semantics of a causal theory is given in terms of causally valid evolutions of the world. With respect to this concept, we prove for a restricted class of theories that they always admit a meaningful interpretation.
Citations
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