Efficient causation on reasoning, discovery and counterfactuals

Abstract

This paper demonstrates a formalism of efficient causation. Efficient causation is one of the four types of basic causations coined by Aristotle. The efficient causation is not only a necessary step to complete reasoning tasks, its property also demonstrates invariant position in various reasoning tasks. We analyze several typical cases involved in structural efficient causation. Meanwhile, our analysis shows the invariant property of the efficient causation benefits causal inference and complex causal reasoning in a structural manner.