A Theory of First-Order Counterfactual Reasoning
نویسنده
چکیده
A new theory of evaluating counterfactual statements is presented based on the established predicate calculus formalism of the Fluent Calculus for reasoning about actions. The assertion of a counterfactual antecedent is axiomatized as the performance of a special action. An existing solution to the Ramification Problem in the Fluent Calculus, where indirect effects of actions are accounted for via causal propagation, allows to deduce the immediate consequences of a counterfactual condition. We show that our theory generalizes Pearl etal.’s characterization, based on causal models, of propositional counterfactuals.
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