Showing papers on "Counterfactual conditional published in 1980"

Two Recent Theories of Conditionals

Abstract: In recent years, two new and fundamentally different accounts of conditionals and their logic have been put forth, one based on nearness of possible worlds (Stalnaker, ‘A Theory of Conditionals’, 1968, this volume, pp. 41–55; Lewis, Counterfactuals, 1973) and the other based on subjective conditional probabilities (Adams, The Logic of Conditionals, 1975). The two accounts, I shall claim, have almost nothing in common, They do have a common logic within the domain on which they both pronounce, but that, as far as I can discover, is little more than a coincidence. Each of these disparate accounts, though, has an important application to natural language, or so I shall argue. Roughly, Adams’ probabilistic account is true of indicative conditionals, and a nearness of possible worlds account is true of subjunctive conditionals. If that is so, the apparent similarity of these two ‘if constructions hides a profound semantical difference.

A Defense of Conditional Excluded Middle

Abstract: This paper is a polemic about a detail in the semantics for conditionals. It takes for granted what is common to semantic theories proposed by David Lewis,1 John Pollock,2 Brian Chellas,3 and myself and Richmond Thomason4 in order to focus on some small points of difference between the theory I favor and the others. I will sketch quickly and roughly the general ideas which lie behind all of these theories, and the common semantical framework in which these ideas are developed. Then I will describe the divergences between my theory and the others — I will focus on the difference between my theory and the one favored by Lewis — and argue that my theory gives a better account of the way conditionals work in natural language.

The Prior Propensity Account of Subjunctive Conditionals

Abstract: I agree with Ernest Adams and Brian Ellis that assertability of uniterated indicative conditionals goes by epistemic conditional probability. It might be thought that subjunctives are mere stylistic variants of indicatives, the counterfactual being used only to convey the extra information that we are in a counterfactual belief state. There are striking examples which argue that this is not always the case.

A Sketch of Some Recent Developments in the Theory of Conditionals

Abstract: The papers discussed in this sketch represent what I take to be a very exciting stream in recent work on conditionals. The first section includes two classics, Stalnaker’s ‘A Theory of Conditionals’ and Lewis’ ‘Counterfactuals and Comparative Possibility’, together with Stalnaker’s new paper ‘A Defence of Conditional Excluded Middle’. These papers contrast sharply with the earlier work of Goodman, Chisholm, and others, which attested to the problematic character of talk about alternative possibilities by drawing attention to the ambiguity and extreme context dependence of our linguistic intuitions about counterfactuals.1 Stalnaker and Lewis proceed by constructing abstract models that take as primitive the very sort of alternative possibilities that these earlier writers found problematic. They use these models to formulate new and interesting questions which can then be used to suggest examples on which to test linguistic intuitions. Whatever one thinks about the ultimate suitability of the possible worlds account, as an analysis of English conditionals, he must agree that the dispute between Stalnaker and Lewis in these papers has considerably sharpened and clarified our linguistic intuitions.