Abstract
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 counter-factual 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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Thielscher, M. (1999). A Theory of First-Order Counterfactual Reasoning. In: Burgard, W., Cremers, A.B., Cristaller, T. (eds) KI-99: Advances in Artificial Intelligence. KI 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 1701. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48238-5_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48238-5_11
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