Team semantics is a highly general framework for logics which describe dependencies and independencies among variables. Typically, the (in)dependencies considered in this context are properties of sets of configurations or data records. We show how team semantics can be further generalized to support languages for the discussion of interventionist counterfactuals and causal dependencies, such as those that arise in manipulationist theories of causation (Pearl, Hitchcock, Woodward, among others). We show that the “causal teams” we introduce in the present paper can be used for modelling some classical counterfactual scenarios which are not captured by the usual causal models. We then analyse the basic properties of our counterfactual languages and discuss extensively the differences with respect to the Lewisian tradition.

We introduce an extension of team semantics ([13], [22]) which provides a framework for the logic of manipulationist theories of causation based on structural equation models, such as Woodward's ([25]) and Pearl's ([18]); our causal teams incorporate (partial or total) information about functional dependencies that are invariant under interventions. We give a unified treatment of observational and causal aspects of causal models by isolating two operators on causal teams which correspond, respectively, to conditioning and to interventionist counterfactual implication. We then introduce formal languages for deterministic and probabilistic causal discourse, and show how various notions of cause (e.g. direct and total causes) may be defined in them.Through the tuning of various constraints on structural equations (recursivity, existence and uniqueness of solutions, full or partial definition of the functions), our framework can capture different causal models. We give an overview of the inferential aspects of the recursive, fully defined case; and we dedicate some attention to the recursive, partially defined case, which involves a shift of attention towards nonclassical truth values. Structural equation modelsThe most basic objects in the structural equation modeling approach are variables, which we will denote with capital letters X,Y.... Each variable V can assume values (tipically denoted as v, v , v ...) within a certain range of objects, Ran(V ). Variables are related to each other by structural equations, for example Y := f Y (X 1 , . . . , X n )

Logics based on team semantics, such as inquisitive logic and dependence logic, are not closed under uniform substitution. This leads to an interesting separation between expressive power and definability: it may be that an operator O can be added to a language without a gain in expressive power, yet O is not definable in that language. For instance, even though propositional inquisitive logic and propositional dependence logic have the same expressive power, inquisitive disjunction and implication are not definable in propositional dependence logic. A question that has been open for some time in this area is whether the tensor disjunction used in propositional dependence logic is definable in inquisitive logic. We settle this question in the negative. In fact, we show that extending the logical repertoire of inquisitive logic by means of tensor disjunction leads to an independent set of connectives; that is, no connective in the resulting logic is definable in terms of the others.

No abstract

We analyze the behaviour of declarations of independence between existential quantifiers in quantifier prefixes of IF sentences; we give a syntactical criterion for deciding whether a sentence beginning with such prefix exists such that its truth values may be affected by removal of the declaration of independence. We extend the result also to equilibrium semantics values for undetermined IF sentences.The main theorem allows us to describe the behaviour of various particular classes of quantifier prefixes, and to prove as a remarkable corollary that all existential IF sentences are equivalent to first-order sentences.As a further consequence, we prove that the fragment of IF sentences with knowledge memory has only first-order expressive power.

We analyze from a global point of view the expressive resources of IF logic that do not stem from Henkin (partially-ordered) quantification. When one restricts attention to regular IF sentences, this amounts to the study of the fragment of IF logic which is individuated by the game-theoretical property of Action Recall. We prove that the fragment of Action Recall can express all existential second-order (ESO) properties. This can be accomplished already by the prenex fragment of Action Recall, whose only second-order source of expressiveness are the so-called signalling patterns. The proof shows that a complete set of Henkin prefixes is explicitly definable in the fragment of Action Recall. In the more general case, in which also irregular IF sentences are allowed, we show that full ESO expressive power can be achieved using neither Henkin nor signalling patterns.

We analyse the two definitions of generalized quantifiers for logics of dependence and independence that have been proposed by F. Engström, comparing them with a more general, higher-order definition of team quantifier. We show that Engström's definitions (and other quantifiers from the literature) can be identified, by means of appropriate lifts, with special classes of team quantifiers. We point out that the new team quantifiers express a quantitative and a qualitative component, while Engström's quantifiers only range over the latter. We further argue that Engström's definitions are just embeddings of the first-order generalized quantifiers into team semantics, and fail to capture an adequate notion of teamtheoretical generalized quantifier, save for the special cases in which the quantifiers are applied to flat formulas. We also raise several doubts concerning the meaningfulness of the monotone/nonmonotone distinction in this context. In the appendix we develop some proof theory for Engström's quantifiers.

No abstract