Towards a General Framework for Actual Causation Using CP-logic

Abstract. Since Pearl's seminal work on providing a formal language for causality, the subject has garnered a lot of interest among philosophers and researchers in artificial intelligence alike. One of the most debated topics in this context is the notion of actual causation, which concerns itself with specific -as opposed to general -causal claims. The search for a proper formal definition of actual causation has evolved into a controversial debate, that is pervaded with ambiguities and confusion. The goal of our research is twofold. First, we wish to provide a clear way to compare competing definitions. Second, we want to improve upon these definitions so they can be applied to a more diverse range of instances, including non-deterministic ones. To achieve these goals we provide a general, abstract definition of actual causation, formulated in the context of the expressive language of CP-logic (Causal Probabilistic logic). We will then show that three recent definitions by Ned Hall (originally formulated for structural models) and a definition of our own (formulated for CP-logic directly) can be viewed and directly compared as instantiations of this abstract definition, which also allows them to deal with a broader range of examples

Counterfactual Causality from First Principles?

In this position paper we discuss three main shortcomings of existing approaches to counterfactual causality from the computer science perspective, and sketch lines of work to try and overcome these issues: (1) causality definitions should be driven by a set of precisely specified requirements rather than specific examples; (2) causality frameworks should support system dynamics; (3) causality analysis should have a well-understood behavior in presence of abstraction.Comment: In Proceedings CREST 2017, arXiv:1710.0277

Ceteris Paribus Laws

Laws of nature take center stage in philosophy of science. Laws are usually believed to stand in a tight conceptual relation to many important key concepts such as causation, explanation, confirmation, determinism, counterfactuals etc. Traditionally, philosophers of science have focused on physical laws, which were taken to be at least true, universal statements that support counterfactual claims. But, although this claim about laws might be true with respect to physics, laws in the special sciences (such as biology, psychology, economics etc.) appear to have—maybe not surprisingly—different features than the laws of physics. Special science laws—for instance, the economic law “Under the condition of perfect competition, an increase of demand of a commodity leads to an increase of price, given that the quantity of the supplied commodity remains constant” and, in biology, Mendel's Laws—are usually taken to “have exceptions”, to be “non-universal” or “to be ceteris paribus laws”. How and whether the laws of physics and the laws of the special sciences differ is one of the crucial questions motivating the debate on ceteris paribus laws. Another major, controversial question concerns the determination of the precise meaning of “ceteris paribus”. Philosophers have attempted to explicate the meaning of ceteris paribus clauses in different ways. The question of meaning is connected to the problem of empirical content, i.e., the question whether ceteris paribus laws have non-trivial and empirically testable content. Since many philosophers have argued that ceteris paribus laws lack empirically testable content, this problem constitutes a major challenge to a theory of ceteris paribus laws

The Biosemiotic Approach in Biology : Theoretical Bases and Applied Models

Biosemiotics is a growing fi eld that investigates semiotic processes in the living realm in an attempt to combine the fi ndings of the biological sciences and semiotics. Semiotic processes are more or less what biologists have typically referred to as “ signals, ” “ codes, ”and “ information processing ”in biosystems, but these processes are here understood under the more general notion of semiosis, that is, the production, action, and interpretation of signs. Thus, biosemiotics can be seen as biology interpreted as a study of living sign systems — which also means that semiosis or sign process can be seen as the very nature of life itself. In other words, biosemiotics is a field of research investigating semiotic processes (meaning, signification, communication, and habit formation in living systems) and the physicochemical preconditions for sign action and interpretation. (...

Explaining Actual Causation via Reasoning About Actions and Change

In causality, an actual cause is often defined as an event responsible for bringing about a given outcome in a scenario. In practice, however, identifying this event alone is not always sufficient to provide a satisfactory explanation of how the outcome came to be. In this paper, we motivate this claim using well-known examples and present a novel framework for reasoning more deeply about actual causation. The framework reasons over a scenario and domain knowledge to identify additional events that helped to "set the stage" for the outcome. By leveraging techniques from Reasoning about Actions and Change, the approach supports reasoning over domains in which the evolution of the state of the world over time plays a critical role and enables one to identify and explain the circumstances that led to an outcome of interest. We utilize action language AL for defining the constructs of the framework. This language lends itself quite naturally to an automated translation to Answer Set Programming, using which, reasoning tasks of considerable complexity can be specified and executed. We speculate that a similar approach can also lead to the development of algorithms for our framework

Biosemiosis and Causation: Defending Biosemiotics Through Rosen's Theoretical Biology, or, Integrating Biosemiotics and Anticipatory Systems Theory

The fracture in the emerging discipline of biosemiotics when the code biologist Marcello Barbieri claimed that Peircian biosemiotics is not genuine science raises anew the question: What is science? When it comes to radically new approaches in science, there is no simple answer to this question, because if successful, these new approaches change what is understood to be science. This is what Galileo, Darwin and Einstein did to science, and with quantum theory, opposing interpretations are not merely about what theory is right, but what is real science. Peirce's work, as he acknowledged, is really a continuation of efforts of Schelling to challenge the heritage of Newtonian science for the very good reason that the deep assumptions of Newtonian science had made sentient life, human consciousness and free will unintelligible, the condition for there being science. Pointing out the need for such a revolution in science has not succeeded as a defence of Peircian biosemiotics, however. In this paper, I will defend the scientific credentials of Peircian biosemiotics by relating it to the theoretical biology of the bio-mathematician, Robert Rosen. Rosen's relational biology, focusing on anticipatory systems and giving a place to final causes, should also be seen as a rigorous development of the Schellingian project to conceive nature in such a way that the emergence of sentient life, mind and science are intelligible. Rosen has made a very strong case for the characterization of his ideas as a real advance not only in science, but in how science should be understood, and I will argue that it is possible to provide a strong defence of Peircian biosemiotics as science through Rosen's defence of relational biology. In the process, I will show how biosemiotics can and should become a crucial component of anticipatory systems theory

Antecedents and consequences of effectuation and causation in the international new venture creation process

The selection of the entry mode in an international market is of key importance for the venture. A process-based perspective on entry mode selection can add to the International Business and International Entrepreneurship literature. Framing the international market entry as an entrepreneurial process, this paper analyzes the antecedents and consequences of causation and effectuation in the entry mode selection. For the analysis, regression-based techniques were used on a sample of 65 gazelles. The results indicate that experienced entrepreneurs tend to apply effectuation rather than causation, while uncertainty does not have a systematic influence. Entrepreneurs using causation-based international new venture creation processes tend to engage in export-type entry modes, while effectuation-based international new venture creation processes do not predetermine the entry mod

Johdattelevia huomioita arkeologian spekulatiiviseen tieto-oppiin

In philosophical metaphysics, speculation is often seen to have value as an ontological concept referring to rational contemplation on the fundamental but unobservable nature of reality. In philosophy of science, on the other hand, speculation is commonly taken as an epistemological notion to mean that a proposition regarding the nature of reality can be possibly either true or false, and that the veracity of a proposition can be tested against empirically observed facts. This simplistic division into speculation as a matter of metaphysics and a matter of empirics also pertains to archaeology where speculation, as an ontological concept pertaining to the unobservable, has had little value. Instead, speculation, as well as the ambiguity and uncertainty introduced with it, have been treated as provisional resorts and epistemological points of elimination. In reviewing the history of archaeology in terms of the common views of the form and constituents of archaeological inference, and in drawing philosophical inspiration from a range of speculative philosophies and contemporary archaeological theorising, this thesis argues that the desirable strategy in the epistemology of archaeology is not the systematic elimination of speculation. In contrast, the thesis takes speculation seriously and contends that it has significance in the epistemology of archaeology as both an epistemological and an ontological notion. The thesis holds that in order to develop an empirically sensitive, ontologically considerate, and ethically sustainable epistemology of archaeology, speculation should be cultivated and cared for as a systematic consideration of the multiplicity of experience. In other words, speculation is to be preserved as a method of thinking otherwise; a countermeasure to the methodological (and the ensuing ontological) simplification risked by adhering to the eliminationist strategies. The practical possibilities towards a speculative epistemology of archaeology are discussed in terms of methodological and theoretical deceleration, a matter that has become increasingly relevant with the recent natural scientific revolution in archaeology. Slowing down, in this context, aims towards a historical understanding of the discipline as a community of practitioners with possibly conflicting concerns and objectives. In this way, the principle of speculative epistemology becomes the perpetual anticipation of the possible practical effects of pursuing truths and realities on epistemologies that entertain different understandings of those concepts.Spekulaatiolla on ollut tieteessä yleensä hyvin marginaalinen rooli. Sen merkitys on ollut ennen kaikkea tuottaa tiedollisia ehdotelmia, jotka voidaan erilaisia päättely- tai tulkintamenetelmiä käyttäen osoittaa joko tosiksi tai epätosiksi. Spekulaation on siis ajateltu heikentävän tiedon luotettavuutta. Tässä väitöskirjassa tutkitaan spekulaation merkitystä arkeologisen tiedontuottamisprosessin osana. Väitöskirjan tutkimuskysymys on, mikä tiedollinen merkitys spekulaatiolla on arkeologian tietoteoriassa, mikäli käsitettä ei alisteta spekulaation vääjäämättömälle eliminaatiolle. Kysymystä lähestytään väitöskirjassa sekä teoreettis-filosofisena että tieteenhistoriallisena ongelmana. Väitöskirjan tieteenhistoriallisen osuuden ja samalla sen aineiston muodostavat arkeologien luonnehdinnat oman tieteenalansa kannalta luonteenomaisista ja luotettavina pidetyistä päättelymenetelmistä. Väitöskirjassa luodaan katsaus arkeologien teoreettisiin kirjoituksiin 1800-luvun jälkipuoliskolta 2000-luvun alkuun ja osoitetaan, että tieteenalan vakiintuneet teoriat ja menetelmät perustuvat liian ihmiskeskeisille tieto- ja tulkintakäsityksille. Arkeologiassa tällaisia ovat olleet ennen kaikkea tieteenfilosofiasta lainatut päättelymenetelmät ja muodollinen logiikkakäsitys sekä semiotiikasta ja fenomenologiasta lainatut kieli- ja ruumiskeskeiset tulkintateoriat. Väitöskirjan filosofisen ja teoreettisen lähtökohdan muodostaa 2000-luvulla arkeologiassa laajalle levinnyt ajatus, että edellä mainitut ihmiskeskeiset tietoteoriat eli epistemologiat saattavat huomaamattakin alistaa arkeologiset tutkimuskohteet inhimilliselle ajattelulle tyypilliselle järkeistämiselle ja samalla vääristää sellaisia olemassaolon muotoja eli ontologioita, joille esimerkiksi epämääräisyys ja sotkuisuus ovat luonteenomaisia. Väitöskirjan kannalta tärkeä ontologinen ajatus onkin, että tiedontuottamisen tavat eivät vain esitä tutkimuskohteita, vaan myös luovat niitä. Näin spekulaatiosta tulee käsite, jolla on sekä epistemologista että ontologista painoarvoa. Spekulaation käytännöllistä merkitystä lähestytään väitöskirjassa tiedepoliittisena ongelmana. Väitöskirjassa osoitetaan, että mikäli arkeologian tavoitteena on mahdollistaa menneisyyden olemassaolo ja ymmärtäminen mahdollisimman monipuolisilla tavoilla, spekulaation roolia tulee korostaa erilaisia tutkimustavoitteita yhdistävänä tiedollisena ulottuvuutena. Näin spekulaatiosta tulee eettinen käsite ja tapa ennakoida omien tutkimustavoitteiden edistämisen käytännöllisiä vaikutuksia tiedeyhteisöön