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Causes and Explanations: A Structural-Model Approach --- Part 1: Causes (1301.2275v1)
Published 10 Jan 2013 in cs.AI
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.