Speaker: Christopher Hitchcock (Caltech)
Title: Actual Causation: Analysis, Modeling, and Judgment
Abstract: This talk provides an overview of an ongoing project in trying to understand‘actual causation’, the type of relationship that is described (usually in thepast tense) by statements of the form ‘C caused E’, where ‘C’ and ‘E’ name ordescribe particular facts or events. This has been a collaborative projectinvolving psychologists and computer scientists as well as philosophers. Inaddition to describing some of the results of the project, the talk will alsoreflect on the different kinds of questions that researchers in differentdisciplines ask, the relationship between these different kinds of questions,and the nature and benefits of inter-disciplinary research.