THE EXPLANATORY ROLE OF EVENTS IN CAUSAL AND TEMPORAL REASONING IN MEDICINE

The logic of time and the way we reason about time is intrinsically co nnected with the way we reason about causality. In this paper, we focu s our attention on some of the less obvious ways in which reasoning ab out time and causality interact. It is explained why in temporal reaso ning a firm distinction has to be made between the ontology, i.e., wha t happens, and the way we describe the ontology. Temporal events need to be redescribed in such a way that they causally explain why some of the events are followed by the others. While building a temporal/caus al theory, certain events may be omitted, not because they do not play a causal role, but because they do not play an explanatory role. In d oing so, it is possible to eliminate the distinction between theories representing time as dense, and theories that represent time as discre te.