Article

Causes and explanations: a structural-model approach-part II: explanations

Authors:

Joseph Y. Halpern,

Judea PearlAuthors Info & Claims

IJCAI'01: Proceedings of the 17th international joint conference on Artificial intelligence - Volume 1

Pages 27 - 34

Published: 04 August 2001 Publication History

Abstract

We propose a new definition of (causal) explanation, using structural equations to model counterfactuals. The definition is based on the notion of actual cause, as defined and motivated in a companion paper. Essentially, an explanation is a fact that is not known for certain but, if found to be true, would constitute an actual cause of the fact to be explained, regardless of the agent's initial uncertainty. We show that the definition handles well a number of problematic examples from the literature.

References

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{Chajewska and Halpern, 1997} U. Chajewska and J. Y. Halpern. Defining explanation in probabilistic systems. In Proc. UAI '97, pages 62-71, 1997.

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{Galles and Pearl, 1997} D. Galles and J. Pearl. Axioms of causal relevance. Artificial Intelligence, 97(1-2):9-43, 1997.

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{Gärdenfors, 1988} P. Gärdenfors. Knowledge in Flux. MIT Press, 1988.

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{Halpern, 2000} J. Y. Halpern. Axiomatizing causal reasoning. Journal of A.I. Research, pages 317-337, 2000.

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{Halpern and Pearl, 2001} J. Y. Halpern and J. Pearl. Causes and explanations: A structuralmodel approach- Part I: Causes. Available at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/halpern, 2001.

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{Hempel, 1965} C. G. Hempel. Aspects of Scientific Explanation. Free Press, 1965.

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{Henrion and Druzdzel, 1990} M. Henrion and M. J. Druzdzel. Qualitative propagation and scenario-based approaches to explanation of probabilistic reasoning. In Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence 6, Elsevier Science, pages 17-32, 1990.

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{Lewis, 1986a} D. Lewis. Causal explanation. In Philosophical Papers, volume II, pages 214-240. Oxford University Press, 1986.

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{Lewis, 1986b} D. Lewis. Causation. In Philosophical Papers, volume II, pages 159-213. Oxford University Press, 1986. The original version of this paper, without numerous postscripts, appeared in the Journal of Philosophy 70, 1973, pp. 113-126.

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{Pearl, 1988} J. Pearl. Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems. Morgan Kaufmann, 1988.

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{Pearl, 2000} J. Pearl. Causality: Models, Reasining, and Inference. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

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{Salmon, 1989} W. C. Salmon. Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. University of Minnesota Press, 1989.

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{Scriven, 1959} M. J. Scriven. Explanation and prediction in evolutionary theory. Science, 130:477-482, 1959.

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{Shimony, 1991} S. E. Shimony. Explanation, irrelevance and statistical independence. In Proc. AAAI '91, pages 482-487, 1991.

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{Woodward, 2001} J. Woodward. Explanation. In The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Science. Basil Blackwell, 2001. To appear.

Cited By

Yoon DNiu NMozafari BÖzcan FKoutrika GMadden S(2016)DBSherlockProceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Management of Data10.1145/2882903.2915218(1599-1614)Online publication date: 26-Jun-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2882903.2915218
Besnard PCordier MMoinard Y(2014)Arguments Using Ontological and Causal KnowledgeProceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Foundations of Information and Knowledge Systems - Volume 836710.1007/978-3-319-04939-7_3(79-96)Online publication date: 3-Mar-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-319-04939-7_3
Kanagal BLi JDeshpande ASellis TMiller RKementsietsidis AVelegrakis Y(2011)Sensitivity analysis and explanations for robust query evaluation in probabilistic databasesProceedings of the 2011 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of data10.1145/1989323.1989411(841-852)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1989323.1989411
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cover image Guide Proceedings

IJCAI'01: Proceedings of the 17th international joint conference on Artificial intelligence - Volume 1

August 2001

760 pages

ISBN:1558608125

Sponsors

AAAI: American Association for Artificial Intelligence
The International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence, Inc.

Publisher

Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc.

San Francisco, CA, United States

Publication History

Published: 04 August 2001

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Cited By

Yoon DNiu NMozafari BÖzcan FKoutrika GMadden S(2016)DBSherlockProceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Management of Data10.1145/2882903.2915218(1599-1614)Online publication date: 26-Jun-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2882903.2915218
Besnard PCordier MMoinard Y(2014)Arguments Using Ontological and Causal KnowledgeProceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Foundations of Information and Knowledge Systems - Volume 836710.1007/978-3-319-04939-7_3(79-96)Online publication date: 3-Mar-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-319-04939-7_3
Kanagal BLi JDeshpande ASellis TMiller RKementsietsidis AVelegrakis Y(2011)Sensitivity analysis and explanations for robust query evaluation in probabilistic databasesProceedings of the 2011 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of data10.1145/1989323.1989411(841-852)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1989323.1989411
Moinard Y(2010)A formalism for causal explanations with an answer set programming translationProceedings of the 4th international conference on Knowledge science, engineering and management10.5555/1885721.1885777(585-590)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1885721.1885777
Chong Svan der Meyden RHeifetz A(2009)Deriving epistemic conclusions from agent architectureProceedings of the 12th Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge10.1145/1562814.1562826(61-70)Online publication date: 6-Jul-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1562814.1562826
van der Meyden R(2008)On notions of causality and distributed knowledgeProceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning10.5555/3031661.3031688(209-218)Online publication date: 16-Sep-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3031661.3031688
Ré CSuciu D(2008)Approximate lineage for probabilistic databasesProceedings of the VLDB Endowment10.14778/1453856.14539431:1(797-808)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.14778/1453856.1453943
Besnard PCordier MMoinard Y(2007)Ontology-based inference for causal explanationProceedings of the 2nd international conference on Knowledge science, engineering and management10.5555/1775431.1775451(153-164)Online publication date: 28-Nov-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1775431.1775451
Besnard PCordier MMoinard Y(2006)Configurations for inference between causal statementsProceedings of the First international conference on Knowledge Science, Engineering and Management10.1007/11811220_25(292-304)Online publication date: 5-Aug-2006
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/11811220_25
Korb KHope LNicholson AAxnick K(2004)Varieties of causal interventionProceedings of the 8th Pacific Rim International Conference on Trends in Artificial Intelligence10.1007/978-3-540-28633-2_35(322-331)Online publication date: 9-Aug-2004
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