Logic and Causal Reasoning

This work is about causes, the knowledge we have of them, and the logic we use to think about them. Causality plays a fundamental role in our understanding of why things happen as they do. Causal knowledge is obtained from reasoning about the connections between scientific data and the connections between common-sense events. Thus, much of our knowledge of science and of daily life is about the causal structure in which events and our actions take place. Not only do we use such knowledge to guide ourselves effectively through life but also to construct various technologies. In recent years there has been a growing interest in applying formal logic to various forms of causal reasoning. This interest springs partly from the theoretical need to understand what we mean by causality and partly from the practical motivation of using such formalizations in the creation of artificial intelligence. The papers in this book reflect both types of concerns.