Holger Andreas (University of British Columbia)
The present paper aims to complement causal model approaches to causal explanation by Woodward, Halpern and Pearl, and Strevens. It centres on a strengthened Ramsey Test of conditionals: α ≫ γ iff, after suspending judgment about α and γ, an agent can infer γ from the supposition of α (in the context of further beliefs in the background). It has been shown by Andreas and Günther that such a conditional can be used as starting point of an analysis of ‘because’ in natural language. In what follows, we shall refine this analysis so as to yield a fully fledged account of (deterministic) causal explanation.
