Related papers: Causal Counterfactuals Reconsidered
We introduce a formalism for the evaluation of counterfactual queries in the framework of quantum causal models, generalising Pearl's semantics for counterfactuals in classical causal models, thus completing the last rung in the quantum…
Counterfactual reasoning aims at answering contrary-to-fact questions like ``Would have Alice recovered had she taken aspirin?'' and corresponds to the most fine-grained layer of causation. Critically, while many counterfactual statements…
I generalize acyclic deterministic structural causal models to the nondeterministic case and argue that this offers an improved semantics for counterfactuals. The standard, deterministic, semantics developed by Halpern (and based on the…
In (Beckers, 2025) I introduced nondeterministic causal models as a generalization of Pearl's standard deterministic causal models. I here take advantage of the increased expressivity offered by these models to offer a novel definition of…
Galles and Pearl claimed that "for recursive models, the causal model framework does not add any restrictions to counterfactuals, beyond those imposed by Lewis's [possible-worlds] framework." This claim is examined carefully, with the goal…
We introduce an extension of team semantics which provides a framework for the logic of manipulationist theories of causation based on structural equation models, such as Woodward's and Pearl's; our causal teams incorporate (partial or…
We introduce a generalization of team semantics which provides a framework for manipulationist theories of causation based on structural equation models, such as Woodward's and Pearl's; our causal teams incorporate (partial or total)…
Perhaps the most prominent current definition of (actual) causality is due to Halpern and Pearl. It is defined using causal models (also known as structural equations models). We abstract the definition, extracting its key features, so that…
Structural causal models are the basic modelling unit in Pearl's causal theory; in principle they allow us to solve counterfactuals, which are at the top rung of the ladder of causation. But they often contain latent variables that limit…
In [4], we introduced an extension of team semantics (causal teams) which assigns an interpretation to interventionist counterfactuals and causal notions based on them (as e.g. in Pearl's and Woodward's manipulationist approaches to…
Consider the case where causal relations among variables can be described as a Gaussian linear structural equation model. This paper deals with the problem of clarifying how the variance of a response variable would have changed if a…
We mathematically axiomatise the stochastics of counterfactuals, by introducing two related frameworks, called counterfactual probability spaces and counterfactual causal spaces, which we collectively term counterfactual spaces. They are,…
Most of the scientific literature on causal modeling considers the structural framework of Pearl and the potential-outcome framework of Rubin to be formally equivalent, and therefore interchangeably uses do-interventions and the…
Counterfactual reasoning -- envisioning hypothetical scenarios, or possible worlds, where some circumstances are different from what (f)actually occurred (counter-to-fact) -- is ubiquitous in human cognition. Conventionally,…
The framework of Pearl's Causal Hierarchy (PCH) formalizes three types of reasoning: probabilistic (i.e. purely observational), interventional, and counterfactual, that reflect the progressive sophistication of human thought regarding…
Causal Modeling Semantics (CMS, e.g., Galles and Pearl 1998; Pearl 2000; Halpern 2000) is a powerful framework for evaluating counterfactuals whose antecedent is a conjunction of atomic formulas. We extend CMS to an evaluation of the…
We give a category-theoretic treatment of causal models that formalizes the syntax for causal reasoning over a directed acyclic graph (DAG) by associating a free Markov category with the DAG in a canonical way. This framework enables us to…
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 regards…
Counterfactual explanations (CEs) are methods for generating an alternative scenario that produces a different desirable outcome. For example, if a student is predicted to fail a course, then counterfactual explanations can provide the…
Counterfactual frameworks have grown popular in machine learning for both explaining algorithmic decisions but also defining individual notions of fairness, more intuitive than typical group fairness conditions. However, state-of-the-art…