Causes and Explanations: A Structural-Model Approach: Part 1: Causes

Abstract

We propose a new definition of actual causes, using structural equations to model counterfactuals.We show that the definitions yield a plausible and elegant account ofcausation that handles well examples which have caused problems forother definitions and resolves major difficulties in the traditionalaccount. In a companion paper, we show how the definition of causality can beused to give an elegant definition of (causal) explanation.

Cite

Text

Halpern and Pearl. "Causes and Explanations: A Structural-Model Approach: Part 1: Causes." Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, 2001.

Markdown

[Halpern and Pearl. "Causes and Explanations: A Structural-Model Approach: Part 1: Causes." Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, 2001.](https://mlanthology.org/uai/2001/halpern2001uai-causes/)

BibTeX

@inproceedings{halpern2001uai-causes,
  title     = {{Causes and Explanations: A Structural-Model Approach: Part 1: Causes}},
  author    = {Halpern, Joseph Y. and Pearl, Judea},
  booktitle = {Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence},
  year      = {2001},
  pages     = {194-202},
  url       = {https://mlanthology.org/uai/2001/halpern2001uai-causes/}
}