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Cause and Counterfactual

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Herbert A. Simon  and
Nicholas Rescher
Herbert A. Simon
Affiliation:
Carnegie Institute of Technology
Nicholas Rescher
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
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Abstract

It is shown how a causal ordering can be defined in a complete structure, and how it is equivalent to identifying the mechanisms of a system. Several techniques are shown that may be useful in actually accomplishing such identification. Finally, it is shown how this explication of causal ordering can be used to analyse causal counterfactual conditionals. First the counterfactual proposition at issue is articulated through the device of a belief-contravening supposition. Then the causal ordering is used to provide modal categories for the factual propositions, and the logical contradiction in the system is resolved by ordering the factual propositions according to these causal categories.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , December 1966 , pp. 323 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1966

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References

[1] Ando, , et al., Essays on the Structure of Social Science Models (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1963).Google Scholar
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[4] Rescher, N., Hypothetical Reasoning (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1964).Google Scholar
[5] Simon, Herbert A., “Causal Ordering and Identifiability,” in Hood, W. C. and Koopmans, T. C. (eds.), Studies in Econometric Method (New York: Wiley, 1953), reprinted in Models of Man (New York: Wiley, 1957), Chap. 1.Google Scholar