In this article, I propose a semantic account of temporally mismatched past subjunctive counterfactuals. The proposal consists of the following parts. First, I show that in cases of temporal mismatch, [past] cannot be interpreted inside the proposition where it occurs at surface structure. Instead, it must be interpreted as constraining the time argument of the accessibility relation. This has the effect of shifting the time of the evaluation of the conditional to some contextually salient past time. Second, I will propose (...) specific felicity conditions (presuppositions) for subjunctive conditionals and I will argue that there is a strict correspondence between the time of evaluation in the truth conditions of a conditional and the time relevant for the felicity conditions. In other words, if the time relevant for the accessibility relation has been shifted to the past, then the conditional's presupposition will make reference to a past context. On the other hand, if no past is constraining the time argument of the accessibility relation, the conditional's felicity will make reference to the current (main) context. Third, I will argue that the intuition that the antecedent of mismatched counterfactuals is not true is a scalar implicature arising from a competition not between assertions but between presuppositions. Finally, I will investigate the repercussions of my proposal for the general theory of modality. (shrink)

Higginbotham (1986) observed that quantified conditionals have a stronger meaning than might be expected, as attested by the apparent equivalence of examples like No student will pass if he goofs off and Every student will fail if he goofs off. Higginbotham's observation follows straightforwardly given the validity of conditional excluded middle (CEM; as observed by von Fintel & Iatridou 2002), and as such could be taken as evidence thereof (e.g. Williams forthcoming). However, the empirical status of CEM has been disputed, (...) and it is invalid under many prominent theories of conditionals—notably Lewis (1973) for counterfactuals, also Kratzer (1979, 1991). More acutely, Higginbotham's observation holds even for quantified counterparts of conditionals that appear not to obey CEM (Higginbotham 2003), and the standard way of explaining (away) such apparent counterexamples to the principle, à la Stalnaker (1981), does not directly yield an account of our apparent truth-conditional intuitions about the quantified counterparts (Leslie 2009). This article provides an explanation for the latter intuitions within Stalnaker's framework, the upshot being that CEM does remain a viable explanation, in principle, for Higginbotham's observation. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present an explanation for the impact of normative considerations on people’s assessment of certain seemingly purely descriptive matters. The explanation is based on two main claims. First, a large category of expressions are tacitly modal: they are contextually equivalent to modal proxies. Second, the interpretation of predominantly circumstantial or teleological modals is subject to certain constraints which make certain possibilities salient at the expense of others.

Counterpossibles are counterfactuals with necessarily false antecedents. The problem of counterpossibles is easiest to state within the "nearest possible world" framework for counterfactuals: on this approach, a counterfactual is true (roughly) when the consequent is true in the "nearest" possible world where the antecedent is true. Since counterpossibles have necessarily false antecedents, there is no possible world where the antecedent is true. On the approach favored by Lewis, Stalnaker, Williamson, and others, counterpossibles are all trivially true. I introduce several arguments (...) against the trivial approach. First, it is counter-intuitive to think that all counterpossibles are true. Second, if all counterpossibles were true, then we could not make sense of their use in logical, philosophical, or mathematical arguments. Making sense of the role of sentences like these requires that they not have vacuous truth conditions. The account of counterpossibles I ultimately favor is an extension of the "nearest possible world" semantics discussed above. The Lewis/Stalnaker account is supplemented with the addition of impossible worlds, and the nearness metric is extended to range over these impossible worlds as well as possible worlds. Thus, a counterfactual is true when its consequent is true in the nearest world where the antecedent is true; if the counterfactual's antecedent is impossible, then the nearest world in question will be an impossible world. Once the framework of impossible worlds and similarity is in place, we can put it to use in the analysis of other philosophical phenomena. I examine one proposal that makes use of a theory of counterpossibles to develop an analysis of the notion of metaphysical dependence. (shrink)

Owing to the problem of inescapable clashes, epistemic accounts of might-counterfactuals have recently gained traction. In a different vein, the might argument against conditional excluded middle has rendered the latter a contentious principle to incorporate into a logic for conditionals. The aim of this paper is to rescue both ontic mightcounterfactuals and conditional excluded middle from these disparate debates and show them to be compatible. I argue that the antecedent of a might-counterfactual is semantically underdetermined with respect to the counterfactual (...) worlds it selects for evaluation. This explains how might-counterfactuals select multiple counterfactual worlds as they apparently do and why their utterance confers a weaker alethic commitment on the speaker than does that of a would-counterfactual, as well as provides an ontic solution to inescapable clashes. I briefly sketch how the semantic underdetermination and truth conditions of mightcounterfactuals are regulated by conversational context. (shrink)

In the accounts we give of one another, claims about our abilities appear to be indispensable. Some abilities are so widespread that many who have them take them for granted, such as the ability to walk, or to write one's name, or to tell a hawk from a handsaw. Others are comparatively rare and notable, such as the ability to hit a Major League fastball, or to compose a symphony, or to tell an elm from a beech. In either case, (...) however, when we ascribe such abilities to one another we have the impression that we are making claims that, whether they are worth saying or not, are at least sometimes true. The impression of truth exerts a pressure towards giving a philosophical theory of ability. It is not an option, at least at the outset, to dismiss all our talk of ability as fiction or outright falsehood. A theory of ability can be reasonably expected to say what it is to have an ability in a way that vindicates the appearance of truth. Such a theory will deserve the name “philosophical” insofar as it gives an account, not of this or that range of abilities, but of abilities generally. (shrink)

In this essay I renew the case for Conditional Excluded Middle (CXM) in light of recent developments in the semantics of the subjunctive conditional. I argue that Michael Tooley’s recent backward causation counterexample to the Stalnaker-Lewis comparative world similarity semantics undermines the strongest argument against CXM, and I offer a new, principled argument for the validity of CXM that is in no way undermined by Tooley’s counterexample. Finally, I formulate a simple semantics for the subjunctive conditional that is consistent with (...) both CXM and Tooley’s counterexample. (shrink)

It has received little attention that the truth values of sequential counterfactuals (i.e. counterfactuals in which the antecedent event precedes the consequent event) can shift over time. In the footsteps of Goodman, I develop a theory of sequential counterfactuals that can account for this feature. The theory (i) defends a semifactual test of cotenability, (ii) spells out the truth conditions for semifactuals in probabilistic terms and (iii) accounts for truth-value shifts by appealing to a dynamic view of time.

Iterated conditionals of the form If p, then if q, r are an important topic in philosophical logic. In recent years, psychologists have gained much knowledge about how people understand simple conditionals, but there are virtually no published psychological studies of iterated conditionals. This paper presents experimental evidence from a study comparing the iterated form, If p, then if q, r with the “imported,” noniterated form, If p and q, then r, using a probability evaluation task and a truth-table task, (...) and taking into account qualitative individual differences. This allows us to critically contrast philosophical and psychological approaches that make diverging predictions regarding the interpretation of these forms. The results strongly support the probabilistic Adams conditional and the “new paradigm” that takes this conditional as a starting point. (shrink)

According to an influential recent view, S is propositionally justified in believing p iff S is in no position to know that S is in no position to know p. I argue that this view faces compelling counterexamples.

Causal eliminativists maintain that all causal talk is false. The prospects for such a view seem to be stymied by an indispensability argument, charging that any agent must distinguish between effective and ineffective strategies, and that such a distinction must commit that agent to causal notions. However, this argument has been under-explored. The contributions of this paper are twofold: first, I provide a thorough explication of the indispensability argument and the various ways it might be defended. Second, I point to (...) an important limitation in the argument and suggest that it does not give us sufficient reason to reject eliminativism. In support of this last claim, I show that the distinction between effective and ineffective strategies could perfectly well be grounded in a counterfactual rather than a causal decision theory and argue that there are fully adequate explanations of how we could come to make the requisite counterfactual judgments that need not invoke causal concepts. (shrink)

In the early 1980s, Paul V. Spade advanced the thesis that obligational reasoning was counterfactual reasoning, based upon his interpretation of the obligationes of Walter Burley, Richard Kilvington, and Roger Swyneshed. Eleonore Stump in a series of contemporary papers argued against Spade’s thesis with respect to Burley and Swyneshed, provisionally admitting it for Kilvington with the caveat that Kilvington’s theory is by no means clear or non-idiosyncratic. In this paper, we revisit the connection between counterfactual reasoning and obligationes, focusing on (...) one particular treatise, the anonymous early twelfth-century Obligationes Parisienses edited by L.M. de Rijk in the late 70s. We show that while positio in this treatise does not involve counterfactual reasoning, the species sit verum or rei veritas apparently does, and it is precisely this which distinguishes the two species in this treatise. (shrink)

In his original semantics for counterfactuals, David Lewis presupposed that the ordering of worlds relevant to the evaluation of a counterfactual admitted no incomparability between worlds. He later came to abandon this assumption. But the approach to incomparability he endorsed makes counterintuitive predictions about a class of examples circumscribed in this paper. The same underlying problem is present in the theories of modals and conditionals developed by Bas van Fraassen, Frank Veltman, and Angelika Kratzer. I show how to reformulate all (...) these theories in terms of lower bounds on partial preorders, conceived of as maximal antichains, and I show that treating lower bounds as cutsets does strictly better at capturing our intuitions about the semantics of modals, counterfactuals, and deontic conditionals. (shrink)

Statues and lumps of clay are said by some to coincide - to be numerically distinct despite being made up of the same parts. They are said to be numerically distinct because they differ modally. Coincident objects would be non-modally indiscernible, and thus appear to violate the supervenience of modal properties on nonmodal properties. But coincidence and supervenience are in fact consistent if the most fundamental modal features are not properties, but are rather relations that are symmetric as between coincident (...) entities, relations such as "opposite-possibly surviving being squashed". (shrink)

Bare conditionals, I argue, exhibit Conditional Duality in that when they appear in downward entailing environments they differ from bare conditionals elsewhere in having existential rather than universal force. Two recalcitrant phenomena are shown to find a new explanation under this thesis: bare conditionals under only, and bare conditionals in the scope of negative nominal quantifiers, or what has come to be known as Higginbotham’s puzzle. I also consider how bare conditionals behave when embedded under negation, arguing that such conditionals (...) often involve denial negation. One important conclusion that emerges from the discussion is that an account of bare conditionals that validates Conditional Excluded Middle is not warranted. By limiting the scope of the strict analysis Conditional Duality is also a way of maintaining such an account. (shrink)

This paper dwells upon formal models of changes of beliefs, or theories, which are expressed in languages containing a binary conditional connective. After defining the basic concept of a (non-trivial) belief revision model. I present a simple proof of Gärdenfors''s (1986) triviality theorem. I claim that on a proper understanding of this theorem we must give up the thesis that consistent revisions (additions) are to be equated with logical expansions. If negated or might conditionals are interpreted on the basis of (...) autoepistemic omniscience, or if autoepistemic modalities (Moore) are admitted, even more severe triviality results ensue. It is argued that additions cannot be philosophically construed as parasitic (Levi) on expansions. In conclusion I outline somed logical consequences of the fact that we must not expect monotonic revisions in languages including conditionals. (shrink)

The semantics Vann McGee gives for his 1989 conditional logic is based on Stalnaker’s 1968 semantics but replaces the familiar concept of truth at a world with the novel concept of truth under a hypothesis. Developed here is a semantics of the standard type, in which sentences are true at worlds, only with additional constraints imposed on the accessibility relation and the selection function. McGee conditionals of the form A ⇒ X are translated into Stalnaker conditionals of the form \A (...) > X. An interpretation of the semantics is provided, and a few implications for the theory of indicative conditionals and their probabilities are noted. (shrink)

Sir David Ross introduced prima facie duties, or acts with a tendency to be duties proper. He also spoke of general prima facie principles, wwhich attribute to acts having some feature the tendency to be a duty proper. Like Utilitarians from Mill to Hare, he saw a role for such principles in the epistemology of duty: in the process by means of which, in any given situation, a moral code can help us to find out what we ought to do.After (...) formalizing general prima facie principles as universally quantified conditionals I will show how seeming duties can be detached from them. There will be examples involving lies, burnt offerings and the question of whether to have a napkin on your lap while eating asparagus. They will illustrate the defeasibility of this detachment, how it can lead into dilemmas, and how general prima facie principles are overridden by more specific ones. (shrink)

Possible worlds semantics for conditionals leave open the problem of how to construct models for realistic domains. In this paper, we show how to adapt logics of action and change such as John McCarthy’s Situation Calculus to conditional logics. We illustrate the idea by presenting models for conditionals whose antecedents combine a declarative condition with a hypothetical action.

Einstein was notoriously confident that God doesn’t play dice with the universe. Perhaps it is a confidence born of a deeper modal presumption: that Godcouldn’t play dice with the universe. If so, such confidence almost certainly disappoints. Even if God doesn’t play dice with the universe, he might. Thus arises the issue here addressed: what implications does this datum have for a proper understanding of divine providence? My interest is in theories that aim to present complete theories of providence, ones (...) that refuse to relegate anything that happens to a domain falling outside the scope of providence. What we can learn about the parts of it that are most promising for a fully satisfying theory of providence, in light of the dice-playing possibility? (shrink)

The Ramseyan thesis that the probability of an indicative conditional is equal to the corresponding conditional probability of its consequent given its antecedent is both widely confirmed and subject to attested counterexamples (e.g., McGee 2000, Kaufmann 2004). This raises several puzzling questions. For instance, why are there interpretations of conditionals that violate this Ramseyan thesis in certain contexts, and why are they otherwise very rare? In this paper, I raise some challenges to Stefan Kaufmann's account of why the Ramseyan thesis (...) sometimes fails, and motivate my own theory. On my theory, the proposition expressed by an indicative conditional is partially determined by a background partition, and hence its probability depends on the choice of such a partition. I hold that this background partition is contextually determined, and in certain conditions is set by a salient question under discussion in the context. I show how the resulting theory offers compelling answers to the puzzling questions raised by failures of the Ramseyan thesis. (shrink)

– We offer a new motivation for imprecise probabilities. We argue that there are propositions to which precise probability cannot be assigned, but to which imprecise probability can be assigned. In such cases the alternative to imprecise probability is not precise probability, but no probability at all. And an imprecise probability is substantially better than no probability at all. Our argument is based on the mathematical phenomenon of non-measurable sets. Non-measurable propositions cannot receive precise probabilities, but there is a natural (...) way for them to receive imprecise probabilities. The mathematics of non-measurable sets is arcane, but its epistemological import is far-reaching; even apparently mundane propositions are liable to be affected by non-measurability. The phenomenon of non-measurability dramatically reshapes the dialectic between critics and proponents of imprecise credence. Non-measurability offers natural rejoinders to prominent critics of imprecise credence. Non-measurability even reverses some of the critics’ arguments—by the very lights that have been used to argue against imprecise credences, imprecise credences are better than precise credences. (shrink)

Considerations involving disagreement, as well as related considerations involving correction and retraction, have played an important role in recent debates about epistemic modals. For instance, it has been argued that contextualist views about epistemic modals have problems when it comes to explaining cases of disagreement. In response to these challenges, I explore the idea that the relevant cases of disagreement may involve credal disagreement. In a case of credal disagreement, the parties have different degrees of belief or credences. There does (...) not have to be a difference in outright beliefs in order for the parties to disagree. I argue that the idea of credal disagreement allows us to make sense of otherwise problematic cases of disagreement involving epistemic modals. I also discuss how these ideas can be extended to cases of correction and retraction. (shrink)

Should we act only for the sake of what we might bring about (causal decision theory); or is it enough for a decent motive that our action is highly correlated with something desirable (evidential decision theory)? The conflict between these points of view is embodied in Newcomb's problem. It is argued here that intuitive evidence from familiar decision contexts does not enable us to settle the issue, since the two theories dictate the same results in normal circumstances. Nevertheless, there are (...) several reasons to reject the causal approach: (1) its relative complexity; (2) its commitment to the existence of situations in which every possible act would be irrational; (3) its incorporation of an arbitrary time bias; and (4) its implicit distinction between what ought to be done and what ought to be hoped for. (shrink)

The authors believe that the questions raised at the beginning of Frege’s On Sense and Reference – ‘Is [identity] a relation? A relation between objects, or between names or signs of objects?’ – set the course for a long-lasting but not at all satisfying discussion. For the disputants tend to advocate, either a ‘name-view’ of identity in a straightforward but rudimentary and logically untenable form, or else a version of an ‘object-view’ that makes all too light of the analysandum–analysans distinction (...) and hence is damned to analytical barrenness. In contrast, by unfolding the underlying idea of the original ‘name-view’, the authors offer three alternative and mutually compatible interpretations of identity that may best be characterized as the ‘name-based’, the ‘hybrid’ and the ‘sense-based’ variant of a ‘concept-view of identity’. At the same time, however, these interpretations may well be considered variants of a non-barren ‘object-view’. (shrink)

Start with an ordinary disposition ascription, like ‘the wire is live’ or ‘the glass is fragile’. Lewis gives a canonical template for what he regards as the analysandum of such an ascription:“Something x is disposed at time t to give response r to stimulus s”.For example, the wire is disposed at noon to conduct electrical current when touched by a conductor.What Lewis calls “the simple conditional analysis” gives putatively necessary and sufficient conditions for the analysandum in terms of a counterfactual:“if (...) x were to undergo stimulus s at time t, x would give response r”.Call this the counterfactual analysans. For example: If the wire were to be touched by a conductor at noon, the wire would conduct electricity.So we have three things in play: the ordinary disposition ascription ; the canonical template that is supposed to formalize this disposition ascription; and the counterfactual analysans that is supposed to provided an analysis of the canonical template.Finkish dispositions have been widely regarded as counterexamples to the adequacy of as an analysis of. I will argue that they are not. They succeed, however, as counterexamples to the adequacy of as an analysis of. That said, the classic cases are somewhat contrived. I will introduce the notion of a minkish disposition: a disposition that something has, even though it might not display it in response to the relevant stimulus. Cases of minkish dispositions are entirely familiar. They refute the adequacy of both as an analysis of and of. I will argue that they also refute Lewis’s own, more complicated counterfactual analysis of dispositions, and bring out an internal tension in his views. (shrink)

In his (1981) paper, Stalnaker has revised his old theory of conditionals and has given the revision an interesting defense. Indeed, Stalnaker shows that this new theory meets the standard objections put to the old. However, I argue that the revision runs into difficulties in the context of quantum mechanics: If Stalnaker's theory of the conditional is assumed, then from plausible assumptions certain Bell-like conflicts with experiment can be derived. This result, I go on to argue, is a good reason (...) to reject Stalnaker's theory, at least for the quantum mechanical context. (shrink)

*Note that this project is now being developed in joint work with Rich Woodward* -/- Some things are left open by a work of fiction. What colour were the hero’s eyes? How many hairs are on her head? Did the hero get shot in the final scene, or did the jailor complete his journey to redemption and shoot into the air? Are the ghosts that appear real, or a delusion? Where fictions are open or incomplete in this way, we can (...) ask what attitudes it’s appropriate (or permissible) to take to the propositions in question, in engaging with the fiction. In Mimesis as Make-Believe (henceforth, MMB), Walton argues that just as truth norms belief, truth-in-fiction norms imagination. Granting that what is true-in-the-fiction should be imagined, and what is false-in-the-fiction is not to be imagined, there remains the question of what to say within the Waltonian framework about things that are neither true- nor false-in-the-fiction---the loci of incompleteness. (shrink)

This paper is obsolete. It is superseded by the book, Conditionals in Context, MIT Press, 2005.

Several philosophers have claimed that S knows p only if S’ s belief is safe, where S's belief is safe iff (roughly) in nearby possible worlds in which S believes p, p is true. One widely held intuition many people have is that one cannot know that one's lottery ticket will lose a fair lottery prior to an announcement of the winner, regardless of how probable it is that it will lose. Duncan Pritchard has claimed that a chief advantage of (...) safety theory is that it can explain the lottery intuition without succumbing to skepticism. I argue that Pritchard is wrong. If a version of safety theory can explain the lottery intuition, it will also lead to skepticism. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Article Pages 1-26 DOI 10.1007/s10670-011-9305-z Authors Dylan Dodd, Department of Philosophy, Northern Institute of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK Journal Erkenntnis Online ISSN 1572-8420 Print ISSN 0165-0106. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to identify what I take to be the main conceptual problem in Lewis’ semantics for counterfactuals when the Limit Assumption is not satisfied, what I call the Discrimination Problem , and to present and discuss a modification of Lewis’ semantics that aims at solving DP. First, I outline Lewis’ semantics, highlighting the aspects that will be relevant for our discussion. Second, I present DP and discuss it with a heuristic example. Third, I present the (...) new proposal and comment some formal consequences and the objections they give rise to. Fourth, I present an allegedly equivalent version of the proposal and discuss the difference between counterfactuals and strict conditionals. Finally, I defend that the two proposals are different and argue for the first one as the best way of capturing two intuitions that seem in conflict when the LA is not satisfied. I conclude with a dilemma: either the proposal here defended works or LA is inescapable. Thus, if the proposal doe.. (shrink)

In this essay I renew the case for Conditional Excluded Middle in light of recent developments in the semantics of the subjunctive conditional. I argue that Michael Tooley's recent backward causation counterexample to the Stalnaker-Lewis comparative world similarity semantics undermines the strongest argument against CXM, and I offer a new, principled argument for the validity of CXM that is in no way undermined by Tooley's counterexample. Finally, I formulate a simple semantics for the subjunctive conditional that is consistent with both (...) CXM and Tooley's counterexample. (shrink)

Both arguments are based on the breakdown of normal criteria of identity in certain science-fictional circumstances. In one case, normal criteria would support the identity of person A with each of two other persons, B and C; and it is argued that, in the imagined circumstances, A=B and A=C have no truth value. In the other, a series or spectrum of cases is tailored to a sorites argument. At one end of the spectrum, persons A and B are such that (...) A=B is clearly true; at the other end, A and B are such that the identity is clearly false. In between, normal criteria of identity leave the truth or falsehood of A=B undecided, and it is argued that in these circumstances A=B has no truth value.These arguments are to be understood counterfactually. My claim is that, so understood, neither establishes its conclusion. The first involves a pair of counterfactual situations that are equally possible or tied. If A=B and A=C have no truth value, a counterfactual conditional with one of them as consequent and an antecedent that is true in circumstances in which either is true should have no truth value. Intuitively, however, any such counterfactual is false. The second argument can be seen to invite an analogous response. If this is right, however, there is an important disanalogy between this and the classical paradox of the heap. If the disanalogy is only apparent, the argument shows at most that the existence of persons can be indeterminate. (shrink)

A comprehensive theory ofeven if needs to account for consequent ‘entailing’even ifs and in particular those of theif-focused variety. This is where the theory ofeven if ceases to be neutral between conditional theories. I have argued thatif-focusedeven ifs,especially if andonly if can only be accounted for through the suppositional theory ofif. Furthermore, a particular interpretation of this theory — the conditional assertion theory — is needed to account foronly if and a type of metalinguistic negation ofQ if P. We therefore (...) have evidence that the currently accepted approaches to conditionals are basically wrong about the semantic forms they attribute toif P, Q.11. (shrink)

If we seek to analyse causation in terms of counterfactual conditionals then we must assume that there is a class of counterfactuals whose members (i) are all and only those we need to support our judgements of causation, (ii) have truth-conditions specifiable without any irreducible appeal to causation. I argue that (i) and (ii) are unlikely to be met by any counterfactual analysis of causation. I demonstrate this by isolating a class of counterfactuals called non-projective counterfactuals, or NP-counterfactuals, and indicate (...) how counterfactual analyses of causation must appeal to them to account for the correct causal judgements we make. I show that the truth-conditions of NP-counterfactuals are specifiable only by irreducible appeal to causation. A dilemma then holds: if counterfactual analyses of causation eschew appeal to NP-counterfactuals they are empirically inadequate, but if they appeal to NP-counterfactuals they are circular and thus conceptually inadequate. (shrink)

Aaccording to D. K. lewis (1973), would-couterfactuals and might-counterfactuals are duals. from this, it follows that the negation of a would-counterfactual is equiv- alent to the corresponding “might-not”-counterfactual and that the negation of a might-counterfactual is equivalent to the corresponding “would-not”- counterfactual. there are cases, however, where we seem to be entitled to accept the would- counterfactual and we are also equally entitled to accept the corresponding might-not-counterfactual and cases where we seem to be entitled to accept the might-counterfactual without (...) being equally entitled to reject the corresponding would-not-counterfactual. In this paper, I will show that a distinction between two types of rejections for counterfactuals (p-rejection and s-rejection) and the recognition that might-not-counterfactuals may play the role of p-rejections (by an application to counterfactuals of the lewisian approach to conversational scores) could explain why the problematic cases should not be seen as cases where the duality of would- and might-counterfactuals fails. (shrink)