We chart the ways in which closure properties of consequence relations for uncertain inference take on different forms according to whether the relations are generated in a quantitative or a qualitative manner. Among the main themes are: the identification of watershed conditions between probabilistically and qualitatively sound rules; failsafe and classicality transforms of qualitatively sound rules; non-Horn conditions satisfied by probabilistic consequence; representation and completeness problems; and threshold-sensitive conditions such as `preface' and `lottery' rules.

We explore ways in which purely qualitative belief change in the AGM tradition throws light on options in the treatment of conditional probability. First, by helping see why it can be useful to go beyond the ratio rule defining conditional from one-place probability. Second, by clarifying what is at stake in different ways of doing that. Third, by suggesting novel forms of conditional probability corresponding to familiar variants of qualitative belief change, and conversely. Likewise, we explain how recent work on (...) the qualitative part of probabilistic inference leads to a very broad class of 'proto-probability' functions. (shrink)

David Lewis (1941-2001) was Class of 1943 University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. His contributions spanned philosophical logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and epistemology. In On the Plurality of Worlds, he defended his challenging metaphysical position, "modal realism." He was also the author of the books Convention, Counterfactuals, Parts of Classes, and several volumes of collected papers.

In a previous paper I described a range of nonmonotonic conditionals that behave like conditional probability functions at various levels of probabilistic support. These conditionals were defined as semantic relations on an object language for sentential logic. In this paper I extend the most prominent family of these conditionals to a language for predicate logic. My approach to quantifiers is closely related to Hartry Field's probabilistic semantics. Along the way I will show how Field's semantics differs from a substitutional interpretation (...) of quantifiers in crucial ways, and show that Field's approach is closely related to the usual objectual semantics. One of Field's quantifier rules, however, must be significantly modified to be adapted to nonmonotonic conditional semantics. And this modification suggests, in turn, an alternative quantifier rule for probabilistic semantics. (shrink)