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🌻 Counterfactuals are part of the meaning of causation but are not necessarily part of how we know about it
Causal mapping is easier if we are realist about causation

Causal mapping is easier if we are realist about causation. We can say that narrative accounts are full of claims about causal powers, that X had the power to affect Y, and X did exercise that power and Y was affected (perhaps in this particular case in spite of or with the assistance of other things).

Causal realism invites us to say that things have the causal power to affect other things.

The weird thing is that most physical and natural scientists think about causation in a realist way, but in the social sciences we tell ourselves not to because it isn't scientific (!).

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We can learn about causal powers via constructing or observing pseudo-counterfactuals, but also via other routes.

Maybe counterfactual arguments logically follow from facts about causal powers. But the meaning of "X caused Y" can't be reduced to a counterfactual statement about co-occurrences.

"X caused Y" maybe implies something about a counterfactual: broadly speaking, that Y would not have happened if X had not happened and everything else had stayed exactly the same. (Philosophers love to argue over the details.)

But the meaning of "X caused Y" can't be reduced to a statistical, counterfactual statement about co-occurrences. It says that the co-occurrences are true but they happen because X has the power to cause Y, and X happened.