Lessons from Sobel sequences

Considering the exceptions: on the failure of cumulative transitivity for indicative conditionals

“…Existing theories of indicative conditionals in natural language semantics, despite their differences, unanimously validate Cumulative Transitivity. 4 So 4 This includes accounts of truth-conditional varieties (Lewis 1973;Stalnaker 1968), including even McGee's (1985) semantics that invalidates modus ponens, suppositional varieties (Adams 1966(Adams , 1975Edgington 1995Edgington , 2001, informational varieties (Yalcin 2007(Yalcin , 2012(Yalcin , 2016Bledin 2014), and dynamic varieties (von Fintel 2001; Gillies 2004Gillies , 2007Gillies , 2009Willer 2017). Some of these accounts, such as Lewis (1973), von Fintel (2001), and Gilles (2007), are proposed for counterfactuals, but they can be straightforwardly carried over as accounts of indicatives.…”

“…(2007), though they make basically the same predictions. Willer (2013) motivates a more complicated dynamic variant of the spheres framework which is developed in Willer (2017). The basic proposal that I make here is implementable in any of these frameworks, and the question which framework one should opt for hangs on issues outside the scope of this paper.…”

Counterfactual Logic and the Necessity of Mathematics

“…And there is a growing literature by those who reject the Failure of Counterfactual Strengthening. von Fintel [42], Gillies [14] and Willer [44], for example, argue that the order in which Sobel sequences are expressed often affects how felicitous they seem. 17 Some might claim 'If Luke were to go to the concert, he would see the singer' before claiming 'If Luke were to go to the concert and stand behind someone tall, he would not see the singer,' but changing the ordering of the sentences sounds odd-it would be strange to claim 'If Luke were to go to the concert and stand behind someone tall, he would not see the singer' and then assert 'If Luke were to go to the concert, he would see the singer.'…”

“…See, again,[14,42,44] 19. They claim, for example, "Granted, certain proponents of the view that there are false counterpossibles may take the further radical step of rejecting COUNTERFACTUAL DEDUCTION.…”

Homogeneity effects in natural language semantics

“…First of all, this fits well with the idea that conditionals are, on some level, plural predication over pluralities of possible worlds (e.g., Schlenker, ; Klinedinst, ): if ϕ, then ψ is taken to mean that ψ is the case in the accessible ϕ ‐ worlds . Second, it provides a new way to make sense of the well‐known exception tolerance of conditionals (Gillies, ; Klecha, ; Lewis, ; Moss, ; von Fintel, ; Willer, ): Križ () argues that this is simply the non‐maximality that accompanies homogeneity.…”