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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Advance Access published online on November 8, 2005
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, doi:10.1093/bjps/axi147
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© The Author (2005). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of British Society for the Philosophy of Science. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Article

Causes and Explanations: A Structural-Model Approach. Part I: Causes

Joseph Y. Halpern 1* and Judea Pearl 2

1 Cornell University, Department of Computer Science, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
2 Department of Computer Science, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Joseph Y. Halpern, E-mail: halpern{at}cs.cornell.edu


  Abstract

We propose a new definition of actual causes, using structural equations to model counterfactuals. We show that the definition yields a plausible and elegant account of causation that handles well examples which have caused problems for other definitions and resolves major difficulties in the traditional account.

1 Introduction

2 Causal models: a review

 2.1 Causal models

 2.2 Syntax and semantics

3 The definition of cause

4 Examples

5 A more refined definition

6 Discussion

A Appendix: Some Technical Issues

 A.1 The active causal process

 A.2 A closer look at AC2(b)

 A.3 Causality with infinitely many variables

 A.4 Causality in nonrecursive models


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