Showing papers on "Counterfactual conditional published in 2008"

The Functional Theory of Counterfactual Thinking

Abstract: Counterfactuals are thoughts about alternatives to past events, that is, thoughts of what might have been. This article provides an updated account of the functional theory of counterfactual thinking, suggesting that such thoughts are best explained in terms of their role in behavior regulation and performance improvement. The article reviews a wide range of cognitive experiments indicating that counterfactual thoughts may influence behavior by either of two routes: a content-specific pathway (which involves specific informational effects on behavioral intentions, which then influence behavior) and a content-neutral pathway (which involves indirect effects via affect, mind-sets, or motivation). The functional theory is particularly useful in organizing recent findings regarding counterfactual thinking and mental health. The article concludes by considering the connections to other theoretical conceptions, especially recent advances in goal cognition.

How to Say Ought in Foreign: The Composition of Weak Necessity Modals

Abstract: In this article, we draw attention to the fact that what English expresses by the use of the weak necessity modal ought, many other languages express by combining a strong necessity modal with the morphology that appears in the consequent of a counterfactual conditional. On the hypothesis that there should be a compositional form-to-meaning mapping, we explore the semantics of weak necessity modals and propose how to derive this semantics from the combination of a strong necessity modal and counterfactual marking. Specifically, building on the semantics for weak necessity modals proposed by Sloman, we propose that weak necessity modals are the result of the promotion of a secondary ordering source of a strong necessity modal. This meta-linguistic operation is signaled or effected by counterfactual marking. The fact that it is a strong necessity modal that is counterfactually marked crosslinguistically, shows that even with weak necessity modals the quantificational force is universal.

Self-handicapping, excuse making, and counterfactual thinking: consequences for self-esteem and future motivation.

Abstract: Researchers interested in counterfactual thinking have often found that upward counterfactual thoughts lead to increased motivation to improve in the future, although at the cost of increased negative affect. The present studies suggest that because upward counterfactual thoughts indicate reasons for a poor performance, they can also serve as excuses. In this case, upward counterfactual thoughts should result in more positive self-esteem and reduced future motivation. Five studies demonstrated these effects in the context of self-handicapping. First, upward counterfactual thinking was increased in the presence of a self-handicap. Second, upward counterfactual thoughts indicating the presence of a self-handicap protected self-esteem following failure. Finally, upward counterfactual thoughts that protect self-esteem reduced preparation for a subsequent performance as well as performance itself. These findings suggest that the consequences of upward counterfactuals for affect and motivation are moderated by the goals of the individual as well as the content of the thoughts.

Psychologial Studies of Causal and Counterfactual Reasoning

Abstract: Counterfactual theories of causation of the sort presented in Mackie, 1974, and Lewis, 1973 are a familiar part of the philosophical landscape. Such theories are typically advanced primarily as accounts of the metaphysics of causation. But they also raise empirical psychological issues concerning the processes and representations that underlie human causal reasoning. For example, do human subjects internally represent causal claims in terms of counterfactual judgments and when they engage in causal reasoning, does this involves reasoning about counterfactual claims? This paper explores several such issues from a broadly interventionist perspective.

Modal Knowledge, Counterfactual Knowledge and the Role of Experience

Abstract: In recent work Timothy Williamson argues that the epistemology of metaphysical modality is a special case of the epistemology of counterfactuals. I argue that Williamson has not provided an adequate argument for this controversial claim, and that it is not obvious how what he says should be supplemented in order to derive such an argument. But I suggest that an important moral of his discussion survives this point. The moral is that experience could play an epistemic role which is more epistemically significant than a mere ‘enabling’ role but not equivalent to an evidential role.

I—The Presidential Address: Counterfactuals

Abstract: I argue that the suppositional view of conditionals, which is quite popular for indicative conditionals, extends also to subjunctive or counterfactual conditionals. According to this view, conditional judgements should not be construed as factual, categorical judgements, but as judgements about the consequent under the supposition of the antecedent. The strongest evidence for the view comes from focusing on the fact that conditional judgements are often uncertain; and conditional uncertainty, which is a well-understood notion, does not function like uncertainty about matters of fact. I argue that the evidence for this view is as strong for subjunctives as it is for indicatives.

The Normative Turn: Counterfactuals and a Philosophical Historiography of Science

Abstract: Counterfactual reasoning is broadly implicated in causal claims made by historians. However, this point is more generally recognized and accepted by economic historians than historians of science. A good site for examining alternative appeals to counterfactuals is to consider "what if" the Scientific Revolution had not occurred in seventeenth-century Europe. Two alternative interpretations are analyzed: that the revolution would eventually have happened somewhere else ("overdeterminism") or that the revolution would not have happened at all ("underdeterminism"). Broadly speaking, these two interpretations correspond to the respective attitudes of philosophers and historians to the development of science. However, a case is presented for synthesizing the two interpretations into a normative historiography of science that would allow past and present concerns to interrogate each other. This exercise in counterfactual reasoning can be imagined in the spirit of a time traveler who aims to persuade, rather than simply understand, the natives he or she encounters.

Hindsight bias and the activation of counterfactual mind-sets.

Abstract: Previous research has shown that conditional counterfactuals are positively related to the magnitude of creeping determinism. Unlike previous experiments which show this increased hindsight bias to occur after exceptional antecedents, we investigated another possible factor, namely a prior activation of a counterfactual mind-set. We investigated our prediction using a hypothetical scenario. Prior to reading the hindsight scenario some participants were asked to solve a scrambled-sentence test including conditional counterfactual sentences. Results of two experiments were consistent with our predictions: Participants that solved the scrambled-sentence test perceived the outcome to be more inevitable than participants in a no-outcome control condition and participants in a no-prime control condition. Furthermore, we found that this increase in creeping determinism was mediated by the perceived causal strength of the target antecedent for the occurrence of the outcome, and that the priming-effect did not occ...

Counterfactual history, management and organizations: Reflections and new directions

Abstract: This article reflects on the papers published in the Symposium on 'Counterfactual History in Management and Organizations'. After describing the background to the symposium we review some important themes in the multidisciplinary domain of counterfactuals. We discuss each of the papers published in the symposium and set out our views on future directions for counterfactual history in the management and organization studies discipline.

Shell games, information, and counterfactuals

Abstract: Cohen and Meskin 2006 have recently proposed a novel counterfactual account of information. I argue that it is a step down from its intended target, namely Dretske's 1981 theory of information. Thinking of the information carried by signals in terms of counterfactuals leads to falsely diagnosing bona fide instances of information transmission as not being instances of information transmission at all, with major loss of explanatory power.

How counterfactuals got lost on the way to brussels

Abstract: In this paper we address one of the issues raised by the Call for Papers: “Are European Commission evaluation practices giving birth to a European standardisation?” We are mainly concerned with the approach adopted by the European Commission (EC) for the evaluation of the impact of Structural Funds. The EC evaluation guidelines largely ignore the counterfactual methods that the social science community has produced to deal with issues of causal attribution. Counterfactual analysis has become the standard approach for most research institutions and international organizations over the last two decades, with the notable exception of the EC. We offer two main arguments to support the claim that the EC standard approach cannot deal satisfactorily with the estimation of impacts. First, EC evaluation guidelines widely recommend the use of impact indicators: we contend that indicators alone do not identify nor estimate any impact in a meaningful way. Only a properly conducted counterfactual analysis allows the quantification of impacts, provided that suitable data are available and some (often stringent) conditions are met. Second, we argue that the emphasis on indicators is a symptom of an overriding concern with accountability for progress toward objectives, which is different than estimation of causal impacts. We make the case for a partial shift of attention, away from measuring progress toward objectives, and in favour of learning “what works”— that is, gathering evidence on whether the Structural Funds do produce the changes they hold as objectives.

Complete identification methods for causal inference

Abstract: Human beings organize their intuitive understanding of the world in terms of causes and effects. Primitive humanity posited gods and spirits as invisible causes of phenomena they did not comprehend. As our attempts to understand the world began to be formalized and codified as empirical science, the emphasis on discerning cause-effect relationships remained. Though we, the modern humanity, are armed with powerful computers, sophisticated technology, and highly developed mathematics and statistics, our fundamental questions remain the same as those of our cave dwelling ancestors – we seek to understand the causes of windfalls and misfortunes that befall us, what effects our actions have, and what would happen if the past were different from what it is. This thesis will address these ancient questions with the rigor and generality of modern mathematics. Using the framework of graphical causal models which formalizes a variety of causal queries, such as causal effects, counterfactuals and path-specific effects as certain types of probability distributions, I will develop algorithms which will evaluate these probability distributions from available information; prove that whenever these algorithms fail to evaluate a query, no other method could succeed; provide characterizations based on directed graphs for cases where these algorithms do succeed; and finally show how a class of constraints placed on the causal model by its directed graph are due to conditional independence in these probability distributions, and how these conditional independencies can be exploited for testing causal theories.

Counterfactuals vs. conditional probabilities: A critical analysis of the counterfactual theory of information

Abstract: Cohen and Meskin 2006 recently offered a counterfactual theory of information to replace the standard probabilistic theory of information. They claim that the counterfactual theory fares better than the standard account on three grounds: first, it provides a better framework for explaining information flow properties; second, it requires a less expensive ontology; and third, because it does not refer to doxastic states of the information-receiving organism, it provides an objective basis. In this paper, I show that none of these is really an advantage. Moreover, the counterfactual theory fails to satisfy one of the basic properties of information flow, namely the Conjunction principle. Thus, I conclude, there is no reason to give up the standard probabilistic theory for the counterfactual theory of information.

Explicit Spatial-Temporal Simulation of a Rare Disease

Abstract: This paper reports on the use of possibility theory and agent based explicit spatiotemporal simulation to compare the effects on each of three real communities given the assumption that a rare disease is carried out of a hypothetical high containment biological research laboratory sited in that community. The initial event has nonzero possibility but its probability is not well measurably different from zero. The conditional distributions obtained by making this event an input to the simulation resemble "counterfactual conditionals" that can provide useful information about the relative technical and social desirability of alternative sites even though a conventional risk assessment is not possible.

Counterfactuals, probabilities, and information: Response to critics

Abstract: In earlier work we proposed an account of information grounded in counterfactual conditionals rather than probabilities, and argued that it might serve philosophical needs that more familiar probabilistic alternatives do not. Demir [2008] and Scarantino [2008] criticize the counterfactual approach by contending that its alleged advantages are illusory and that it fails to secure attractive desiderata. In this paper we defend the counterfactual account from these criticisms, and suggest that it remains a useful account of information.

An amazing come-back a counterfactual imperfective in Russian

Abstract: The paper shows how the semantically underspecified imperfective aspect in Russian becomes associated with counterfactual complete events in specific contexts, notably in chess annotations (Restan 1989), while the perfective invariably denotes factual complete events. The counterfactual flavour of the construction invites a comparison with more standard counterfactual conditionals, including some discussion of the imperfective and counterfactuality in French. I show that the “counterfactual imperfective” in Russian differs from ordinary counterfactual conditionals, which are characterized by a semantically empty past tense. This subtle distinction leads to a further division of pragmatic labour between the form “imperfective past” (hypotheses in the past) and the “subjunctive (“by”) perfective past” (hypotheses in the present/future). The analysis is couched in Bidirectional Optimality Theory (Blutner 2000), which provides an ideal framework for analyzing non-compositional form-meaning optimization and pr...

On the Role of Past Tense in Resolving Similarity in Counterfactuals

Abstract: In this paper I investigate the semantics of counterfactual conditionals. I propose a generalized de re analysis according to which counterfactuals are predicated de re of situations in the actual world. I compare the resulting local view of similarity with the global view found in Lewis-Stalnaker style proposals, presenting arguments in favor of the former. In the de re analysis, past tense identifies the actual world situation the counterfactual is about.

Potential outcomes, counterfactuals, and structural modelling. Causal approaches in the social sciences

Abstract: This paper examines the potential outcome model developed by Rubin and its counterfactual underpinnings as developed by Lewis. Though a ma jor contribution of Rubin’s potential outcome model has been to stress the importance of the design stage, we recall the main methodological and epistemological flaws of this approach. We argue that the study of causes and effects does not necessarily require counterfactuals, once a structural modelling framework, as the one developed here, is adopted. Our approach emphasises and spells out the role of background knowledge, marginal conditional decomposition, and of stability for providing a causal explanation of a given phenomenon.

On Counterfactual Conditionals

Abstract: The counterfactual conditionals is different from material implication and strict implication,There are coexisting theory and similar theory in history,but both of them have certain limitation.In fact,the counterfactual conditional is a pragmatic conception that expresses the tendency or sentiment to some events or environments and possesses close relation to the subject.

Thinking counterfactually – how controllability affects the ‘undoing’ of causes and enablers.

Abstract: Previous research on counterfactual thoughts about prevention suggests that people tend to focus on enabling rather than causing agents. However, research has also demonstrated that people have a preference for mutating controllable events. We explore whether counterfactual thinking about enablers is distinct from ‘undoing’ controllable events. We presented participants with scenarios in which a cause and an enabler contribute to a negative outcome. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups in which we systematically manipulated the controllability of the cause and the enabler. Participants generated counterfactuals which focused on the cause or the enabler and completed blame ratings for the cause and the enabler. The results indicate that participants had a preference for mutating the enabling relation, apart from in one condition where the cause was controllable and the enabler was uncontrollable. Participants tended to assign more blame to the cause than the enabler, regardless of controllability. The findings are discussed in the context of previous research on causal and counterfactual thinking.

Brogaard and Salerno on antirealism and the conditional fallacy

Abstract: Brogaard and Salerno (2005, Nous, 39, 123–139) have argued that antirealism resting on a counterfactual analysis of truth is flawed because it commits a conditional fallacy by entailing the absurdity that there is necessarily an epistemic agent. Brogaard and Salerno’s argument relies on a formal proof built upon the criticism of two parallel proofs given by Plantinga (1982, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 56, 47–70) and Rea (2000, Nous, 34, 291–301). If this argument were conclusive, antirealism resting on a counterfactual analysis of truth should probably be abandoned. I argue however that the antirealist is not committed to a controversial reading of counterfactuals presupposed in Brogaard and Salerno’s proof, and that the antirealist can in principle adopt an alternative reading that makes this proof invalid. My conclusion is that no reductio of antirealism resting on a counterfactual analysis of truth has yet been provided.

Evaluating the Impact of Colonialism on Economic Development: A Counterfactual Analysis

Abstract: Did colonization a ect the patterns of development of the colonized territories I draw attention to the importance of counterfactuals and claim that assessments of the colonial impact are contingent on the counterfactual employed Paying attention to counterfactuals enables us to design an empirical strategy to assess the impact of colonialism Inferences based on non-experimental data may su er from various biases Statistical models make di erent assumptionsto identify the models and correct for likely biases Causal effects are sensitive to these assumptions I apply different matching methods and check for robustness of results In the sample considered, the analysis indicates that colonialism had a negative on the economic development of the colonized but the causal effect was miniscule in economic terms