Where causality, conditionals and epistemology meet:A logical inquiry

This dissertation is an intellectual journey along topics at the intersection of the study of conditionals, causality and epistemology. It will focus on a couple of problems at this intersection pointed out in recent research. I will demonstrate how by combining knowledge and tools from all three fields we can make substantial progress on solving these issues. I will also show that this integrated approach provides us with a better understanding of the relation between conditionals, causality and epistemology

Some Aspects of Modality in Analytical Mechanics

This paper discusses some of the modal involvements of analytical mechanics. I first review the elementary aspects of the Lagrangian, Hamiltonian and Hamilton-Jacobi approaches. I then discuss two modal involvements; both are related to David Lewis' work on modality, especially on counterfactuals. The first is the way Hamilton-Jacobi theory uses ensembles, i.e. sets of possible initial conditions. The structure of this set of ensembles remains to be explored by philosophers. The second is the way the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian approaches' variational principles state the law of motion by mentioning contralegal dynamical evolutions. This threatens to contravene the principle that any actual truth, in particular an actual law, is made true by actual facts. Though this threat can be avoided, at least for simple mechanical systems, it repays scrutiny; not least because it leads to some open questions.Comment: 36 pages, no figures. Delivered at a Philosophy of Science Association Symposium in memory of the distinguished philosopher David Lewis, Milwaukee, November 2002. This version includes significant additions to Section 5.1. This version is forthcoming in `Formal Teleology and Causality', ed. M. Stoeltzner, P. Weingartner, Paderborn, Germany: Mentis. A precis of the first half of the paper is forthcoming in the journal Philosophy of Scienc

Non-strict Interventionism: The Case Of Right-Nested Counterfactuals

The paper focuses on a recent challenge brought forward against the interventionist approach to the meaning of counterfactual conditionals. According to this objection, interventionism cannot account for the interpretation of right-nested counterfactuals, the problem being its strict interventionism. We will report on the results of an empirical study supporting the objection. Furthermore, we will extend the well-known logic of intervention with a new operator expressing an alternative notion of intervention that does away with strict interventionism (and thus can account for some critical examples). This new notion of intervention operates on the valuation of the variables in a causal model, and not on their functional dependencies.</p

Basic Conditional Reasoning: How Children Mimic Counterfactual Reasoning

Children approach counterfactual questions about stories with a reasoning strategy that falls short of adults&rsquo; Counterfactual Reasoning (CFR). It was dubbed &ldquo;Basic Conditional Reasoning&rdquo; (BCR) in Rafetseder et al. (Child Dev 81(1):376&ndash;389, 2010). In this paper we provide a characterisation of the differences between BCR and CFR using a distinction between permanent and nonpermanent features of stories and Lewis/Stalnaker counterfactual logic. The critical difference pertains to how consistency between a story and a conditional antecedent incompatible with a nonpermanent feature of the story is achieved. Basic conditional reasoners simply drop all nonpermanent features of the story. Counterfactual reasoners preserve as much of the story as possible while accommodating the antecedent

Thought about Properties: Why the Perceptual Case is Basic

This paper defends a version of the old empiricist claim that to think about unobservable physical properties a subject must be able to think perception-based thoughts about observable properties. The central argument builds upon foundations laid down by G. E. M. Anscombe and P. F. Strawson. It bridges the gap separating these foundations and the target claim by exploiting a neglected connection between thought about properties and our grasp of causation. This way of bridging the gap promises to introduce substantive constraints on right accounts of perception and perception-based thought

Thinking About Causation : A Causal Language with Epistemic Operators

In this paper we propose a formal framework for modeling the interaction of causal and (qualitative) epistemic reasoning. To this purpose, we extend the notion of a causal model [11, 16, 17, 26] with a representation of the epistemic state of an agent. On the side of the object language, we add operators to express knowledge and the act of observing new information. We provide a sound and complete axiomatization of the logic, and discuss the relation of this framework to causal team semantics.Peer reviewe

Do economic models tell us anything useful about Cohesion Policy impacts? A comparison of HERMIN, QUEST and ECOMOD

An ex-ante impact analysis of EC Cohesion Policy investment programmes for the period 2007-2013 was recently carried out on behalf of the European Commission (DG Regional Policy) using three different economic models: the QUEST II model of DG-ECFIN, the ECOMOD model of EcoMod Network/Free University of Brussels and the COHESION system of HERMIN models of GEFRA/EMDS. The main results were published in the most recent Fourth Cohesion Report (EC, 2007), and it turned out that different models gave different results. In some cases the differences were very big and pointed to quite different conclusions about the impact of the European Cohesion Policy on growth and employment impacts. In order to progress the debate on the usefulness of model-based policy impact analysis, we first set out the wider context within which EC Cohesion Policy is designed, implemented and evaluated. We then present a brief summary of the main findings of the model-based analysis in terms of impacts on aggregate GDP and total employment. We conclude with a discussion of possible reasons why two of the models – QUEST and HERMIN - may be producing different results.

Explaining the Constitutional Integration and Resurgence of Traditional Political Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa

Social scientists have recently observed a “resurgence” of traditional political institutions on the constitutional level in Sub-Sahara Africa. Yet, the scope and causes of the resurgence remain unclear. We base our analysis on original data on the degree of constitutional integration of traditional institutions and on their constitutional resurgence since 1990 in 45 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. We test six theoretical explanations for constitutionalization: former colonial rule, democratization, state capacity, economic development, foreign aid and settlement patterns. First, we verify the broad resurgence of traditional political institutions on a constitutional level. Second, our analysis suggests that, particularly in former British colonies, traditional leaders were able to translate the arrangements of British colonial rule as well as the advantages of a country’s deconcentrated settlement pattern into greater constitutional status. Third, settlement patterns proved important for traditional leaders to gain or increase constitutional status – leading to a constitutional resurgence of traditional institutions