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Subjunctive Credences and Semantic Humility
Author(s) -
Moss Sarah
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
philosophy and phenomenological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1933-1592
pISSN - 0031-8205
DOI - 10.1111/j.1933-1592.2011.00550.x
Subject(s) - counterfactual conditional , humility , philosophy , context (archaeology) , causation , citation , epistemology , theology , counterfactual thinking , computer science , history , library science , archaeology
In light of the chance that the plate will be saved by a sudden gust of hot air, what should we say about the truth conditions of the ordinary conditional (1b)? Some theories predict that (1b) is true. For instance, Lewis 1973b says that the plate being saved by friendly air currents is a remarkable low-probability event, and that worlds where such events happen are farther away than worlds where I drop the plate and nothing special happens. Hence the plate breaks in all the closest worlds where I drop it, and so (1b) comes out true. Williams 2008 develops and defends a neo-Lewisian account which similarly excludes wacky events from worlds closest to ours. And Bennett 2003 develops a “near-miss” proposal, according to which the plate may be saved by friendly air currents in some of the closest worlds where I drop it, but (1b) nevertheless counts as true because the plate breaks at a very high proportion of the closest plate-dropping worlds. Some theories predict that (1b) is not true. For instance, Hajek 2007 argues that (1a) is true and incompatible with (1b), and so he concludes that (1b) is false. Gillies 2007 argues that conditionals like (1a) expand the domain that subjunctives quantify