Results for 'Logical Counterfactual'

962 found
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  1. Relevant Logics, Counterfactual Worlds, and the Understanding of Narrative.Luis Galván - 2019 - In Matei Chihaia & Katharina Rennhak (eds.), Relevance and Narrative Research. Lexington Books. pp. 37-60.
    The aim of this paper is to explore what insights relevant logics may provide for the understanding of literary fictional narrative. To date, hardly anyone has reflected on the intersection of relevant logics and narratology, and some could think that there is good reason for it. On the one hand, relevance has been a prominent issue in pragmatics, in the tradition of Grice, and Sperber and Wilson; thus framed, relevance is highly context-sensitive, so it seems unsuitable for formal analysis. On (...)
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  2.  51
    Counterfactuals 2.0: Logic, Truth Conditions, and Probability.Giuliano Rosella - 2023 - Dissertation, University of Turin
    The present thesis focuses on counterfactuals. Specifically, we will address new questions and open problems that arise for the standard semantic accounts of counterfactual conditionals. The first four chapters deal with the Lewisian semantic account of counterfactuals. On a technical level, we contribute by providing an equivalent algebraic semantics for Lewis' variably strict conditional logics, which is notably absent in the literature. We introduce a new kind of algebra and differentiate between local and global versions of each of Lewis' (...)
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  3. Causal Models and the Logic of Counterfactuals.Jonathan Vandenburgh - manuscript
    Causal models show promise as a foundation for the semantics of counterfactual sentences. However, current approaches face limitations compared to the alternative similarity theory: they only apply to a limited subset of counterfactuals and the connection to counterfactual logic is not straightforward. This paper addresses these difficulties using exogenous interventions, where causal interventions change the values of exogenous variables rather than structural equations. This model accommodates judgments about backtracking counterfactuals, extends to logically complex counterfactuals, and validates familiar principles (...)
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  4. The Metaphysics in Counterfactual Logic.Samuel Elgin - manuscript
    This paper investigates the metaphysics in higher-order counterfactual logic. I establish the necessity of identity and distinctness and show that the logic is committed to vacuism, which entails that all counteridenticals are true. I prove the Barcan, Converse Barcan, Being Constraint and Necessitism. I then show how to derive the Identity of Indiscernibles in counterfactual logic. I study a form of maximalist ontology which has been claimed to be so expansive as to be inconsistent. I show that it (...)
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  5. Non-Analytic Tableaux for Chellas's Conditional Logic CK and Lewis's Logic of Counterfactuals VC.Richard Zach - 2018 - Australasian Journal of Logic 15 (3):609-628.
    Priest has provided a simple tableau calculus for Chellas's conditional logic Ck. We provide rules which, when added to Priest's system, result in tableau calculi for Chellas's CK and Lewis's VC. Completeness of these tableaux, however, relies on the cut rule.
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  6. How Strong Is a Counterfactual?David Boylan & Ginger Schultheis - 2021 - Journal of Philosophy 118 (7):373-404.
    The literature on counterfactuals is dominated by strict accounts and variably strict accounts. Counterexamples to the principle of Antecedent Strengthening were thought to be fatal to SA; but it has been shown that by adding dynamic resources to the view, such examples can be accounted for. We broaden the debate between VSA and SA by focusing on a new strengthening principle, Strengthening with a Possibility. We show dynamic SA classically validates this principle. We give a counterexample to it and show (...)
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  7. Counterfactuals and the law.Simon Beck - 1993 - South African Journal of Philosophy 12 (3).
    This article is concerned with the place counterfactual reasoning occupies in South African law, and how philosophy might be able to help the law. I point out some of the more important and unavoidable uses of counterfactual reasoning in our law. Following this I make some suggestions as to how philosophy, and especially informal logic, can be of help to the law. Finally, I make some suggestions as to how the law in turn can help philosophy.
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  8. Counterfactual Conditionals: Orthodoxy and its Challenges.Daniel Dohrn - 2020 - Milan: Mimesis International.
    In Counterfactual Conditionals, Daniel Dohrn discusses the standard account of counterfactuals, conditionals of the form ‘If A had been the case, then B would have been the case’. According to the standard account, a counterfactual is true if the then-sentence is true in all closest worlds in which the if-sentence is true. Closeness is spelled out in terms of an ordering of worlds by their similarity. Dohrn explores resources of defending the standard account against several challenges. In particular, (...)
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  9. Counterfactual Similarity, Nomic Indiscernibility, and the Paradox of Quidditism.Andrew D. Bassford & C. Daniel Dolson - 2024 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 67 (1):230-261.
    Aristotle is essentially human; that is, for all possible worlds metaphysically consistent with our own, if Aristotle exists, then he is human. This is a claim about the essential property of an object. The claim that objects have essential properties has been hotly disputed, but for present purposes, we can bracket that issue. In this essay, we are interested, rather, in the question of whether properties themselves have essential properties (or features) for their existence. We call those who suppose they (...)
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  10. Context-indexed counterfactuals and non-vacuous counterpossibles.Mariusz Popieluch - 2019 - Dissertation, The University of Queensland
    The two main features of this thesis are (i) an account of contextualized (context indexed) counterfactuals, and (ii) a non-vacuist account of counterpossibles. Experience tells us that the truth of the counterfactual is contingent on what is meant by the antecedent, which in turn rests on what context is assumed to underlie its reading (intended meaning). On most conditional analyses, only the world of evaluation and the antecedent determine which worlds are relevant to determining the truth of a conditional, (...)
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  11. Benardete’s paradox and the logic of counterfactuals.Michael Caie - 2018 - Analysis 78 (1):22-34.
    I consider a puzzling case presented by Jose Benardete, and by appeal to this case develop a paradox involving counterfactual conditionals. I then show that this paradox may be leveraged to argue for certain non-obvious claims concerning the logic of counterfactuals.
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  12.  80
    Transcendental Logic and the Logic of Thought.Dennis Schulting - 2021 - Studi Kantiani 34 (1):115-126.
    In this paper, I reflect on the idea, hinted at by Kant in a footnote to §16 of the B- Deduction that is not often discussed (KrV B 134n.), that transcendental logic is the ground of logic as a whole. This has important repercussions for the way we should see the role of transcendental logic with respect to the question of truth as well as the nature and scope of transcendental logic in relation to cognition, and in relation to general (...)
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  13. New foundations for counterfactuals.Franz Huber - 2014 - Synthese 191 (10):2167-2193.
    Philosophers typically rely on intuitions when providing a semantics for counterfactual conditionals. However, intuitions regarding counterfactual conditionals are notoriously shaky. The aim of this paper is to provide a principled account of the semantics of counterfactual conditionals. This principled account is provided by what I dub the Royal Rule, a deterministic analogue of the Principal Principle relating chance and credence. The Royal Rule says that an ideal doxastic agent’s initial grade of disbelief in a proposition \(A\) , (...)
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  14. The Method of Thought Experiments: Probability and Counterfactuals.Francesco Berto & Aybüke Özgün - forthcoming - Journal of Philosophy.
    We find a simple counterfactual acceptable, it is argued, to the extent that (i) our probability of the consequent under the thought experiment of counterfactually supposing the antecedent is high, (ii) provided the latter is on-topic with respect to the former. Counterfactual supposition is represented by Lewisian imaging. Topicality, by an algebra of subject matters. A topic-sensitive probabilistic logic is then provided, to reason about the acceptability of simple counterfactuals.
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  15. Modal skepticism and counterfactual knowledge.Juhani Yli-Vakkuri - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 162 (3):605-623.
    Abstract Timothy Williamson has recently proposed to undermine modal skepticism by appealing to the reducibility of modal to counterfactual logic ( Reducibility ). Central to Williamson’s strategy is the claim that use of the same non-deductive mode of inference ( counterfactual development , or CD ) whereby we typically arrive at knowledge of counterfactuals suffices for arriving at knowledge of metaphysical necessity via Reducibility. Granting Reducibility, I ask whether the use of CD plays any essential role in a (...)
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  16. Possible World Semantics and True-True Counterfactuals.Lee Walters - 2016 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97 (3):322-346.
    The standard semantics for counterfactuals ensures that any counterfactual with a true antecedent and true consequent is itself true. There have been many recent attempts to amend the standard semantics to avoid this result. I show that these proposals invalidate a number of further principles of the standard logic of counterfactuals. The case against the automatic truth of counterfactuals with true components does not extend to these further principles, however, so it is not clear that rejecting the latter should (...)
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  17. Molinism's kryptonite: Counterfactuals and circumstantial luck.Andre Leo Rusavuk - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.
    According to Molinism, logically prior to his creative decree, God knows via middle knowledge the truth value of the counterfactuals or conditionals of creaturely freedom (CFs) and thus what any possible person would do in any given circumstance. Critics of Molinism have pointed out that the Molinist God gets lucky that the CFs allow him to actualize either a world of his liking or even a good-enough world at all. In this paper, I advance and strengthen the popular critique in (...)
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  18. Counterfactuals, causation, and preemption.John Collins - unknown
    A counterfactual is a conditional statement in the subjunctive mood. For example: If Suzy hadn’t thrown the rock, then the bottle wouldn’t have shattered. The philosophical importance of counterfactuals stems from the fact that they seem to be closely connected to the concept of causation. Thus it seems that the truth of the above conditional is just what is required for Suzy’s throw to count as a cause of the bottle’s shattering. If philosophers were reluctant to exploit this idea (...)
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  19. Counterfactual Fallacies.Andrea Iacona - 2011 - Humana Mente 4 (19).
    A widely accepted claim about counterfactuals is that they differ from strict conditionals, that is, there is no adequate representation of them as sentences of the form   . To justify this claim, Stalnaker and Lewis have argued that some fallacious inferences would turn out valid if counterfactuals were so represented. However, their argument has a flaw, as it rests on a questionable assumption about the relation between surface grammar and logical form. Without that assumption, no consequence of (...)
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  20. Counterfactual Knowledge, Factivity, and the Overgeneration of Knowledge.Jan Heylen - 2020 - Erkenntnis 87 (5):2243-2263.
    Antirealists who hold the knowability thesis, namely that all truths are knowable, have been put on the defensive by the Church-Fitch paradox of knowability. Rejecting the non-factivity of the concept of knowability used in that paradox, Edgington has adopted a factive notion of knowability, according to which only actual truths are knowable. She has used this new notion to reformulate the knowability thesis. The result has been argued to be immune against the Church-Fitch paradox, but it has encountered several other (...)
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  21. Sufficient Conditions for Counterfactual Transitivity and Antecedent Strengthening.Tristan Grøtvedt Haze - 2023 - American Philosophical Quarterly 60 (3):237-247.
    This paper is about two controversial inference-patterns involving counterfactual or subjunctive conditionals. Given a plausible assumption about the truth-conditions of counterfactuals, it is shown that one can't go wrong in applying hypothetical syllogism (i.e., transitivity) so long as the set of worlds relevant for the conclusion is a subset of the sets of worlds relevant for the premises. It is also shown that one can't go wrong in applying antecedent strengthening so long as the set of worlds relevant for (...)
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  22. Modal-Logical Reconstructions of Thought Experiments.Ruward Mulder & F. A. Muller - 2023 - Erkenntnis 2023 (7):2835-2847.
    Sorensen (1992) has provided two modal-logical schemas to reconstruct the logical structure of two types of destructive thought experiments: the Necessity Refuter and the Possibility Refuter. The schemas consist of five propositions which Sorensen claims but does not prove to be inconsistent.We show that the five propositions, as presented by Sorensen, are not inconsistent, but by adding a premise (and a logical truth), we prove that the resulting sextet of premises is inconsistent. Häggqvist (2009) has provided a (...)
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  23. Basic Conditional Reasoning: How Children Mimic Counterfactual Reasoning.Brian Leahy, Eva Rafetseder & Josef Perner - 2014 - Studia Logica 102 (4):793-810.
    Children approach counterfactual questions about stories with a reasoning strategy that falls short of adults’ Counterfactual Reasoning (CFR). It was dubbed “Basic Conditional Reasoning” (BCR) in Rafetseder et al. (Child Dev 81(1):376–389, 2010). In this paper we provide a characterisation of the differences between BCR and CFR using a distinction between permanent and nonpermanent features of stories and Lewis/Stalnaker counterfactual logic. The critical difference pertains to how consistency between a story and a conditional antecedent incompatible with a (...)
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  24. (1 other version)Counterfactuals, Irreversible Laws and The Direction of Time.Terrance A. Tomkow - manuscript
    The principle of Information Conservation or Determinism is a governing assumption of physical theory. Determinism has counterfactual consequences. It entails that if the present were different, then the future would be different. But determinism is temporally symmetric: it entails that if the present were different, the past would also have to be different. This runs contrary to our commonsense intuition that what has happened in the future depends on the past in a way the past does not depend on (...)
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  25. A problem for counterfactual sufficiency.John William Waldrop - 2023 - Analysis 83 (3):527-535.
    The consequence argument purports to show that determinism is true only if no one has free will. Judgments about whether the argument is sound depend on how one understands locutions of the form 'p and no one can render p false'. The main interpretation on offer appeals to counterfactual sufficiency: s can render p false just in case there is something s can do such that, were s to do it, p would be false; otherwise, s cannot render p (...)
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  26. Hume, Causation and Counterfactuals.Joshua Anderson - 2019 - Humanites Bulletin 2 (1):36-49.
    What is offered here is an interpretation of Hume’s views on causation. While it might not be literally Hume’s view, it is certainly consistent with Hume, and is probably what Hume should say on causation, in light of recent developments in science and logic. As a way in, it is argued that the considerations that Hume brings against rationalist theories of causation can be applied to counterfactual theories of causation. Since, counterfactuals, possible worlds and modality were not ideas that (...)
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  27. Conjunction, Connection and Counterfactuals.Chaoan He - 2016 - Erkenntnis 81 (4):705-719.
    The standard Lewis–Stalnaker semantics of counterfactuals, given the Strong Centering Thesis, implies that all true–true counterfactuals are trivially true. McGlynn developed a theory, based on Penczek, to rehabilitate the non-triviality of true–true counterfactuals. I show here that counterfactuals with true but irrelevant components are counterexamples to McGlynn’s account. I argue that an extended version of the connection hypothesis is sustainable, and grounds a full theory of counterfactuals explicable in a broadly standard way, if an indispensable asymmetry between semifacuals and other (...)
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  28. 'Logic Will Get You From A to B, Imagination Will Take You Anywhere'.Francesco Berto - 2023 - Noûs (3):717-729.
    There is some consensus on the claim that imagination as suppositional thinking can have epistemic value insofar as it’s constrained by a principle of minimal alteration of how we know or believe reality to be – compatibly with the need to accommodate the supposition initiating the imaginative exercise. But in the philosophy of imagination there is no formally precise account of how exactly such minimal alteration is to work. I propose one. I focus on counterfactual imagination, arguing that this (...)
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  29.  60
    The Algebras of Lewis Counterfactuals.Giuliano Rosella & Sara Ugolini - manuscript
    The logico-algebraic study of Lewis's hierarchy of variably strict conditional logics has been essentially unexplored, hindering our understanding of their mathematical foundations, and the connections with other logical systems. This work aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive logico-algebraic analysis of Lewis's logics. We begin by introducing novel finite axiomatizations for varying strengths of Lewis's logics, distinguishing between global and local consequence relations on Lewisian sphere models. We then demonstrate that the global consequence relation is strongly algebraizable (...)
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  30. Context-indexed Counterfactuals.Mariusz Popieluch - 2022 - Studia Semiotyczne 35 (2):89-123.
    It is commonly believed that the role of context cannot be ignored in the analysis of conditionals, and counterfactuals in particular. On truth conditional accounts involving possible worlds semantics, conditionals have been analysed as expressions of relative necessity: “If A, then B” is true at some world w if B is true at all the A-worlds deemed relevant to the evaluation of the conditional at w. A drawback of this approach is that for the evaluation of conditionals with the same (...)
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  31. The Logic of Hyperlogic. Part B: Extensions and Restrictions.Alexander W. Kocurek - 2022 - Review of Symbolic Logic:1-28.
    This is the second part of a two-part series on the logic of hyperlogic, a formal system for regimenting metalogical claims in the object language (even within embedded environments). Part A provided a minimal logic for hyperlogic that is sound and complete over the class of all models. In this part, we extend these completeness results to stronger logics that are sound and complete over restricted classes of models. We also investigate the logic of hyperlogic when the language is enriched (...)
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  32. The Logic of Hyperlogic. Part A: Foundations.Alexander W. Kocurek - 2024 - Review of Symbolic Logic 17 (1):244-271.
    Hyperlogic is a hyperintensional system designed to regiment metalogical claims (e.g., “Intuitionistic logic is correct” or “The law of excluded middle holds”) into the object language, including within embedded environments such as attitude reports and counterfactuals. This paper is the first of a two-part series exploring the logic of hyperlogic. This part presents a minimal logic of hyperlogic and proves its completeness. It consists of two interdefined axiomatic systems: one for classical consequence (truth preservation under a classical interpretation of the (...)
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  33. Idealization, Counterfactuals and the Correspondence Principle.Michael J. Shaffer - 2007 - In Jerzy Brzezinski, Andrzej Klawiter, Theo A. F. Kuipers, Krzysztof Lastowski, Katarzyna Paprzycka & Piotr Przybysz (eds.), The Courage of Doing Philosophy: Essays Dedicated to Leszek Nowak. Rodopi.
    In a recent revision (chapter 4 of Nowakowa and Nowak 2000) of an older article Leszek Nowak (1992) has attempted to rebut Niiniluoto’s 1990 critical suggestion that proponents of the Poznań idealizational approach to the sciences have committed a rather elementary logical error in the formal machinery that they advocate for use in the analysis of scientific methodology. In this paper I criticize Nowak’s responses to Niiniluoto’s suggestion, and, subsequently, work out some of the consequences of that criticism for (...)
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  34. Two Kinds of Logical Impossibility.Alexander Sandgren & Koji Tanaka - 2020 - Noûs 54 (4):795-806.
    In this paper, we argue that a distinction ought to be drawn between two ways in which a given world might be logically impossible. First, a world w might be impossible because the laws that hold at w are different from those that hold at some other world (say the actual world). Second, a world w might be impossible because the laws of logic that hold in some world (say the actual world) are violated at w. We develop a novel (...)
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  35. Logic talk.Alexander W. Kocurek - 2021 - Synthese 199 (5-6):13661-13688.
    Sentences about logic are often used to show that certain embedding expressions are hyperintensional. Yet it is not clear how to regiment “logic talk” in the object language so that it can be compositionally embedded under such expressions. In this paper, I develop a formal system called hyperlogic that is designed to do just that. I provide a hyperintensional semantics for hyperlogic that doesn’t appeal to logically impossible worlds, as traditionally understood, but instead uses a shiftable parameter that determines the (...)
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  36. An Interpretation of McCall’s “Real Possible Worlds” and His Semantics for Counterfactuals.Alexandru Dragomir - 2016 - Symposion: Theoretical and Applied Inquiries in Philosophy and Social Sciences 3 (1):65-78.
    McCall (1984) offered a semantics of counterfactual conditionals based on “real possible worlds” that avoids using the vague notion of similarity between possible worlds. I will propose an interpretation of McCall’s counterfactuals in a formal framework based on Baltag-Moss-Solecki events and protocols. Moreover, I will argue that using this interpretation one can avoid an objection raised by Otte (1987).
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  37. A problem not peculiar to counterfactual sufficiency.Chaoan He - forthcoming - Analysis.
    The Consequence Argument for incompatibilism is beset by two rival interpretations: the counterfactual sufficiency interpretation and the counterfactual might interpretation. Waldrop recently argued that the counterfactual sufficiency interpretation conflicts with certain principles governing the logic of counterfactuals. In this paper, I show that Waldrop’s argument can be adapted to prove that the counterfactual might interpretation also conflicts with the same principles. So the problem Waldrop pointed out is not peculiar to the counterfactual sufficiency interpretation.
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  38. Hiddleston’s Causal Modeling Semantics and the Distinction between Forward-Tracking and Backtracking Counterfactuals.Kok Yong Lee - 2017 - Studies in Logic 10 (1):79-94.
    Some cases show that counterfactual conditionals (‘counterfactuals’ for short) are inherently ambiguous, equivocating between forward-tracking and backtracking counterfactu- als. Elsewhere, I have proposed a causal modeling semantics, which takes this phenomenon to be generated by two kinds of causal manipulations. (Lee 2015; Lee 2016) In an important paper (Hiddleston 2005), Eric Hiddleston offers a different causal modeling semantics, which he claims to be able to explain away the inherent ambiguity of counterfactuals. In this paper, I discuss these two semantic (...)
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  39. Boxes and Diamonds: An Open Introduction to Modal Logic.Richard Zach - 2019 - Open Logic Project.
    A textbook for modal and other intensional logics based on the Open Logic Project. It covers normal modal logics, relational semantics, axiomatic and tableaux proof systems, intuitionistic logic, and counterfactual conditionals.
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  40. Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing? A Logical Investigation.Jan Heylen - 2017 - Erkenntnis 82 (3):531-559.
    From Leibniz to Krauss philosophers and scientists have raised the question as to why there is something rather than nothing. Why-questions request a type of explanation and this is often thought to include a deductive component. With classical logic in the background only trivial answers are forthcoming. With free logics in the background, be they of the negative, positive or neutral variety, only question-begging answers are to be expected. The same conclusion is reached for the modal version of the Question, (...)
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  41. The Inextricable Link Between Conditionals and Logical Consequence.Matheus Silva - manuscript
    There is a profound, but frequently ignored relationship between logical consequence (formal implication) and material implication. The first repeats the patterns of the latter, but with a wider modal reach. It is argued that this kinship between formal and material implication simply means that they express the same kind of implication, but differ in scope. Formal implication is unrestricted material implication. This apparently innocuous observation has some significant corollaries: (1) conditionals are not connectives, but arguments; (2) the traditional examples (...)
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  42. Antirealism, theism and the conditional fallacy.Berit Brogaard & Joe Salerno - 2005 - Noûs 39 (1):123–139.
    In his presidential address to the APA, Alvin Plantinga argues that the only sensible way to be an anti-realist is to be a theist. Anti-realism (AR) in this context is the epistemic analysis of truth that says, "(AR) necessarily, a statement is true if and only if it would be believed by an ideally [or sufficiently] rational agent/community in ideal [or sufficiently good] epistemic circumstances." Plantinga demonstrates, with modest modal resources, that AR entails that necessarily, ideal epistemic circumstances obtain. As (...)
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  43. On counterpossibles.Jens Christian Bjerring - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 168 (2):327-353.
    The traditional Lewis–Stalnaker semantics treats all counterfactuals with an impossible antecedent as trivially or vacuously true. Many have regarded this as a serious defect of the semantics. For intuitively, it seems, counterfactuals with impossible antecedents—counterpossibles—can be non-trivially true and non-trivially false. Whereas the counterpossible "If Hobbes had squared the circle, then the mathematical community at the time would have been surprised" seems true, "If Hobbes had squared the circle, then sick children in the mountains of Afghanistan at the time would (...)
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  44. An Argument for Conjunction Conditionalization.Lee Walters & Robert Williams - 2013 - Review of Symbolic Logic 6 (4):573-588.
    Are counterfactuals with true antecedents and consequents automatically true? That is, is Conjunction Conditionalization: if (X & Y), then (X > Y) valid? Stalnaker and Lewis think so, but many others disagree. We note here that the extant arguments for Conjunction Conditionalization are unpersuasive, before presenting a family of more compelling arguments. These arguments rely on some standard theorems of the logic of counterfactuals as well as a plausible and popular semantic claim about certain semifactuals. Denying Conjunction Conditionalization, then, requires (...)
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  45. Plantinga's Free Will Defence: Critical Note.Leslie Allan - manuscript
    Some atheistic philosophers have argued that God could have created a world with free moral agents and yet absent of moral evil. Using possible world semantics, Alvin Plantinga sought to defuse this logical form of the problem of evil. In this critical note, Leslie Allan examines the adequacy of Plantinga's argument that the existence of God is logically compatible with the existence of moral evil. The veracity of Plantinga's argument turns on whether his essential use of counterfactual conditionals (...)
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  46. Consequences of Conditional Excluded Middle.Jeremy Goodman - manuscript
    Conditional excluded middle (CEM) is the following principe of counterfactual logic: either, if it were the case that φ, it would be the case that ψ, or, if it were the case that φ, it would be the case that not-ψ. I will first show that CEM entails the identity of indiscernibles, the falsity of physicalism, and the failure of the modal to supervene on the categorical and of the vague to supervene on the precise. I will then argue (...)
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  47. Extrapolation and Scientific Truth.Louis Caruana - manuscript
    Conference paper presented at the 10th International Congress of Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, Florence, Italy (19-25 August 1995). Extrapolation here refers to the act of inferring more widely from a limited range of known facts. This notion of extrapolation, especially when applied to past events, has recently been used to formulate a pragmatic definition of truth. This paper shows that this definition has serious problems. The pragmatic definition of truth has been formulated in discussions on internal realism. In (...)
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  48. Counterpossibles and the nature of impossible worlds.Mattias Skipper Rasmussen - 2016 - SATS 17 (2):145-158.
    One well-known objection to the traditional Lewis-Stalnaker semantics of counterfactuals is that it delivers counterintuitive semantic verdicts for many counterpossibles (counterfactuals with necessarily false antecedents). To remedy this problem, several authors have proposed extending the set of possible worlds by impossible worlds at which necessary falsehoods may be true. Linguistic ersatz theorists often construe impossible worlds as maximal, inconsistent sets of sentences in some sufficiently expressive language. However, in a recent paper, Bjerring (2014) argues that the “extended” Lewis-Stalnaker semantics delivers (...)
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  49.  52
    Probabilistic inferences from conjoined to iterated conditionals.Giuseppe Sanfilippo, Niki Pfeifer, D. E. Over & A. Gilio - 2018 - International Journal of Approximate Reasoning 93:103-118.
    There is wide support in logic, philosophy, and psychology for the hypothesis that the probability of the indicative conditional of natural language, P(if A then B), is the conditional probability of B given A, P(B|A). We identify a conditional which is such that P(if A then B)=P(B|A) with de Finetti's conditional event, B|A. An objection to making this identification in the past was that it appeared unclear how to form compounds and iterations of conditional events. In this paper, we illustrate (...)
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  50. Walters on Conjunction Conditionalization.Arif Ahmed - 2011 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 111 (1pt1):115-122.
    This discussion note examines a recent argument for the principle that any counterfactual with true components is itself true. That argument rests upon two widely accepted principles of counterfactual logic to which the paper presents counterexamples. The conclusion speculates briefly upon the wider lessons that philosophers should draw from these examples for the semantics of counterfactuals.
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