LATEST DISCOUNTS & SALES: PROMOTIONS

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

Actual Causality by Joseph Y. Halpern (Cornell University) at Abbey's Bookshop,
Actual Causality
— —
Joseph Y. Halpern (Cornell University)

Actual Causality

Joseph Y. Halpern (Cornell University)

$115

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?
English
MIT Press
19 February 2019
Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge; Machine learning
Series: The MIT Press
"A new approach for defining causality and such related notions as degree of responsibility, degrees of blame, and causal explanation.

Causality plays a central role in the way people structure the world; we constantly seek causal explanations for our observations. But what does it even mean that an event C ""actually caused"" event E? The problem of defining actual causation goes beyond mere philosophical speculation. For example, in many legal arguments, it is precisely what needs to be established in order to determine responsibility. The philosophy literature has been struggling with the problem of defining causality since Hume.

In this book, Joseph Halpern explores actual causality, and such related notions as degree of responsibility, degree of blame, and causal explanation. The goal is to arrive at a definition of causality that matches our natural language usage and is helpful, for example, to a jury deciding a legal case, a programmer looking for the line of code that cause some software to fail, or an economist trying to determine whether austerity caused a subsequent depression.

Halpern applies and expands an approach to causality that he and Judea Pearl developed, based on structural equations.

He carefully formulates a definition of causality, and building on this, defines degree of responsibility, degree of blame, and causal explanation.

He concludes by discussing how these ideas can be applied to such practical problems as accountability and program verification. Technical details are generally confined to the final section of each chapter and can be skipped by non-mathematical readers.

A new approach for defining causality and such related notions as degree of responsibility, degrees of blame, and causal explanation.

Causality plays a central role in the way people structure the world; we constantly seek causal explanations for our observations. But what does it even mean that an event C ""actually caused"" event E? The problem of defining actual causation goes beyond mere philosophical speculation. For example, in many legal arguments, it is precisely what needs to be established in order to determine responsibility. The philosophy literature has been struggling with the problem of defining causality since Hume.

In this book, Joseph Halpern explores actual causality, and such related notions as degree of responsibility, degree of blame, and causal explanation. The goal is to arrive at a definition of causality that matches our natural language usage and is helpful, for example, to a jury deciding a legal case, a programmer looking for the line of code that cause some software to fail, or an economist trying to determine whether austerity caused a subsequent depression.

Halpern applies and expands an approach to causality that he and Judea Pearl developed, based on structural equations.

He carefully formulates a definition of causality, and building on this, defines degree of responsibility, degree of blame, and causal explanation.

He concludes by discussing how these ideas can be applied to such practical problems as accountability and program verification. Technical details are generally confined to the final section of each chapter and can be skipped by non-mathematical readers."
By:  
Imprint:   MIT Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 229mm,  Width: 178mm,  Spine: 13mm
ISBN:   9780262537131
ISBN 10:   0262537133
Series:   The MIT Press
Pages:   240
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Joseph Y. Halpern is Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University. He is the author of Actual Causality and the coauthor of Reasoning about Knowledge, both published by the MIT Press.

See Inside

See Also

Actual Causality

Mythologies

Roland Barthes

Paperback

$22.99 

In Stock 😊

ADD +
Actual Causality

Leviathan and the Air-Pump

Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental...

Steven Shapin

Paperback

$42.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Actual Causality

The Last Word

Thomas Nagel (Professor of Philosophy...

Paperback

$80.95 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Actual Causality

Contemporary Debates in Epistemology...

Matthias Steup (Purdue University)...

Paperback

$47.95 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Actual Causality

Truth and Method

Hans-Georg Gadamer

Paperback

$49.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Actual Causality

The Two Fundamental Problems of...

Karl Popper

Paperback

$39.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +