This paper outlines an account of conditionals, the evidential account, which rests on the idea that a conditional is true just in case its antecedent supports its consequent. As we will show, the evidential account exhibits some distinctive logical features that deserve careful consideration. On the one hand, it departs from the material reading of ‘if then’ exactly in the way we would like it to depart from that reading. On the other, it significantly differs from the non-material accounts which (...) hinge on the Ramsey Test, advocated by Adams, Stalnaker, Lewis, and others. (shrink)

This paper develops a probabilistic analysis of conditionals which hinges on a quantitative measure of evidential support. In order to spell out the interpreta- tion of ‘if’ suggested, we will compare it with two more familiar interpretations, the suppositional interpretation and the strict interpretation, within a formal framework which rests on fairly uncontroversial assumptions. As it will emerge, each of the three interpretations considered exhibits specific logical features that deserve separate consideration.

In some recent works, Crupi and Iacona have outlined an analysis of ‘if’ based on Chrysippus’ idea that a conditional holds whenever the negation of its consequent is incompatible with its antecedent. This paper presents a sound and complete system of conditional logic that accommodates their analysis. The soundness and completeness proofs that will be provided rely on a general method elaborated by Raidl, which applies to a wide range of systems of conditional logic.

This paper investigates the logic of reasons. Its aim is to provide an analysis of the sentences of the form ‘p is a reason for q’ that yields a coherent account of their logical properties. The idea that we will develop is that ‘p is a reason for q’ is acceptable just in case a suitably defined relation of incompatibility obtains between p and ¬q. As we will suggest, a theory of reasons based on this idea can solve three challenging (...) puzzles that concern, respectively, contraposing reasons, conflicting reasons, and supererogatory reasons, and opens a new perspective on some classical issues concerning non-deductive inferences. (shrink)

This paper outlines an account of concessive conditionals that rests on two main ideas. One is that the logical form of a sentence as used in a given context is determined by the content expressed by the sentence in that context. The other is that a coherent distinction can be drawn between a reading of ‘if’ according to which a conditional is true when its consequent holds on the supposition that its antecedent holds, and a stronger reading according to which (...) a conditional is true when its antecedent supports its consequent. As we will suggest, the logical form of concessive conditionals can be elucidated by relying on this distinction. (shrink)

According to the analysis of concessive conditionals suggested by Crupi and Iacona, a concessive conditional \(p{{\,\mathrm{\hookrightarrow }\,}}q\) is adequately formalized as a conjunction of conditionals. This paper presents a sound and complete axiomatic system for concessive conditionals so understood. The soundness and completeness proofs that will be provided rely on a method that has been employed by Raidl, Iacona, and Crupi to prove the soundness and completeness of an analogous system for evidential conditionals.

We provide a 'verisimilitudinarian' analysis of the well-known Linda paradox or conjunction fallacy, i.e., the fact that most people judge the probability of the conjunctive statement "Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement" (B & F) as more probable than the isolated statement "Linda is a bank teller" (B), contrary to an uncontroversial principle of probability theory. The basic idea is that experimental participants may judge B & F a better hypothesis about Linda as compared (...) to B because they evaluate B & F as more verisimilar than B. In fact, the hypothesis "feminist bank teller", while less likely to be true than "bank teller", may well be a better approximation to the truth about Linda. (shrink)

Once upon a time, some thought that indicative conditionals could be effectively analyzed as material conditionals. Later on, an alternative theoretical construct has prevailed and received wide acceptance, namely, the conditional probability of the consequent given the antecedent. Partly following critical remarks recently ap- peared in the literature, we suggest that evidential support—rather than conditional probability alone—is key to understand indicative conditionals. There have been motivated concerns that a theory of evidential conditionals (unlike their more tra- ditional counterparts) cannot generate (...) a sufficiently interesting logical system. Here, we will describe results dispelling these worries. Happily, and perhaps surprisingly, appropriate technical variations of Ernst Adams’s classical approach allow for the construction of a logic of evidential conditionals with distinctive fea- tures, which is also well-behaved and reasonably strong. (shrink)

The Linda paradox is a key topic in current debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. We present a novel analysis of this paradox, based on the notion of verisimilitude as studied in the philosophy of science. The comparison with an alternative analysis based on probabilistic confirmation suggests how to overcome some problems of our account by introducing an adequately defined notion of verisimilitudinarian confirmation.