I defend the view that the truth conditions of the ordinary indicative conditional are those of the material conditional. This is done via a discussion of assertability and by appeal to conventional implicature rather than conversational implicature.

The standard view of philosophers is that the existence of particular events within our universe is capable of being explained in terms of initial conditions and natural laws, but that the existence of our universe itself is a 'brute given' that is incapable of naturalistic explanation. A supernatural explanation of the existence of our universe may be alleged to be possible ('God created our universe so that humans may exist and the existence of humans is an intrinsic good'), but an (...) explanation that appeals only to factors, situations or regularities in nature is deemed to be in principle impossible. It is also a standard view of philosophers that the less fundamental natural laws of our universe are capable of being explained in terms of more fundamental laws of our universe, but that the most basic natural laws of our universe are incapable of being explained naturalistically. Perhaps they can be explained supernaturally, by asserting that God ordained them so that humans may eventually evolve, but no other explanation is supposed possible. (shrink)

The following article was originally published in Australasian Journal of Philosophy March 1991 (Volume 69, No.

The idea that english has more than one declarative "mood" has been dismissed as superstitious by empirically-minded grammarians of english for centuries--with such spectacular unsuccess, however, that the indicative/subjunctive dichotomy stands today as a cornerstone for philosophical and logical speculation about "conditionals." let me be next into the breach. i shall urge that there is no grammatical basis for any such distinction. and as for the particular adjudications of mood logicians and philosophers actually propose, there is neither rhyme nor reason (...) to them. my bent, then, is basically destructive. but i shall also be outlining a better taxonomy. (shrink)