Screening off generalized: Reichenbach’s legacy

David Atkinson, Jeanne Peijnenburg*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
81 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract


Eells and Sober proved in 1983 that screening off is a sufficient condi- tion for the transitivity of probabilistic causality, and in 2003 Shogenji noted that the same goes for probabilistic support. We start this paper by conjecturing that Hans Reichenbach may have been aware of this fact. Then we consider the work of Suppes and Roche, who demonstrated in 1986 and 2012 respectively that screening off can be generalized, while still being sufficient for transitivity. We point out an interesting difference between Reichenbach’s screening off and the generalized version, which we illustrate with an example about haemophilia among the descendants of Queen Victoria. Finally, we embark on a further generalization: we develop a still weaker condi- tion, one that can be made as weak as one wishes.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8335-8354
Number of pages20
JournalSynthese
Volume199
Issue number3-4
Early online date8-Jun-2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec-2021

Keywords

  • Probabilistic support
  • Reichenbach
  • Screening off
  • Sufficient conditions
  • Transitivity

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