Talking About Worlds*

Mandelkern, Matthew

doi:10.1111/phpe.12112

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…Hence, v 1 w ℎ , " ¨¨¨" v w ℎ , " T. Since ℎ pt uq " 1, ℎ pv 1 w ℎ q " ¨¨¨" ℎ pv w ℎ q " 1. But then ℎ pv w ℎ q " 1, and so v w ℎ , " v w ℎ, " T. This account resembles probabilistic approaches to counterfactuals (Edgington, 2008;Leitgeb, 2012a,b;Moss, 2013;Lassiter, 2017) as well as information-sensitive approaches to conditionals (Kolodny and MacFarlane, 2010;Santorio, 2017;Schulz, 2014Schulz, , 2017Mandelkern, 2019;Khoo, forthcoming).…”

Section: The Restrictor Semantics For Counterfactual Skepticismmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…The failure of Limited CEM is a problem for two reasons. First, even though it has been historically controversial, CEM has received strong support in the literature recently (Higginbotham, 1986(Higginbotham, , 2003Williams, 2010;Klinedinst, 2011;Swanson, 2012;Santorio, 2017;Mandelkern, 2019). Arguably, whatever evidence there is for CEM carries over to Limited CEM.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Does Chance Undermine Would?

Kocurek

2021

Mind

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Counterfactual scepticism holds that most ordinary counterfactuals are false. The main argument for this view appeals to a ‘chance undermines would’ principle: if ψ would have some chance of not obtaining had ϕ obtained, then ϕ □→ ψ is false. This principle seems to follow from two fairly weak principles, namely, that ‘chance ensures could’ and that ϕ □→ ψ and ϕ ⋄→ ¬ ψ clash. Despite their initial plausibility, I show that these principles are independently problematic: given some modest closure principles, they entail absurdities. Moreover, on the most promising strategy for saving these principles, they do not, in the relevant sense, entail the chance-undermines-would principle. Instead, they entail a principle that only supports counterfactual indeterminism, the view that most ordinary counterfactuals are chancy, that is, not settled true. I demonstrate this by developing an indeterminist semantics that vindicates the clash and chance-ensures-could principles but not the chance-undermines-would principle. This view, I argue, offers a better account of our credal and linguistic judgements than counterfactual scepticism.

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Section: The Restrictor Semantics For Counterfactual Skepticismmentioning

confidence: 83%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Chance Undermine Would?

Kocurek

2021

Mind

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“…The contextualist says that what p-worlds are closest is partly determined by relevance in context: in a world 33 Hájek (2020) raises precisely this worry. 34 See for instance Mandelkern (2018). 35 For instance, Stalnaker (1981) gives a supervaluational defence of CEM, where a counterfactual is true in a context iff it is true relative to all Stalnakerian selection functions admissible in that context.…”

Section: Contextualismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Counterfactual skepticism is (just) skepticism

Boylan

2023

Philos Phenomenol Research

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Its devotees are few, but they have a simple, powerful argument in their arsenal: most counterfactuals are chancy; and chancy counterfactuals, they say, cannot be true.The camp of the non-skeptics -much better populated -spends its time on defensive strategies. 1 Stories are given about how counterfactuals could possibly be true, notwithstanding the arguments of the counterfactual skeptic. The defenders presume they only need to hold out: if they can deflect the force of the skeptical argument, counterfactual skepticism will melt away; so heavy are the costs of counterfactual skepticism in their eyes.Should the non-skeptics be so confident? Hajek, the arch counterfactual skeptic, certainly thinks not. He claims counterfactual skepticism has not just a good argument but an attractive world-view. It is the best way, he suggests, of reconciling what we know about counterfactuals with discoveries about fundamental physics. What's more, he claims, this skepticism is benign. The ordinary counterfactuals we assert and reason about can be replaced with more hedged, probabilistic counterfactuals. Perhaps we say false things all the time; but we still hew close enough to the truth.

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“…First, they can explain away the plausibility of Would Entails Could since Would Entails Could only fails for counterpossibles on the standard semantics. Second, they can reject Duality on independent grounds (Mandelkern, 2019). This would require giving up the standard semantic accounts, but not necessarily in a way that entails giving up vacuism.…”

Section: Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Counterpossibles

Kocurek

2021

Philosophy Compass

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A counterpossible is a counterfactual with an impossible antecedent. Counterpossibles present a puzzle for standard theories of counterfactuals, which predict that all counterpossibles are semantically vacuous. Moreover, counterpossibles play an important role in many debates within metaphysics and epistemology, including debates over grounding, causation, modality, mathematics, science, and even God. In this article, we will explore various positions on counterpossibles as well as their potential philosophical consequences.

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Talking About Worlds*

Cited by 12 publications

References 74 publications

Does Chance Undermine Would?

Does Chance Undermine Would?

Counterfactual skepticism is (just) skepticism

Counterpossibles

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