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In Defense of a Probability Based Semantics for Counterfactuals
Author(s) -
Gundersen Lars,
Olesen Mads
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/papq.12193
Subject(s) - counterfactual conditional , argumentative , semantics (computer science) , connection (principal bundle) , epistemology , conjunction (astronomy) , computer science , philosophy , mathematical economics , counterfactual thinking , mathematics , programming language , physics , geometry , astronomy
In a recent paper Lee Walters criticizes a number of philosophers – including Gundersen – for committing a ‘failure in the argumentative strategy’ when they attempt to amend the standard Lewis semantics for counterfactuals in order to avoid the so‐called principle of Conjunction Conditionalization. In this article we defend a Gundersen‐style probability‐based semantics against Walter's major misgivings: that it is not logically conservative, that it is committed to the Connection Hypothesis, and that it cannot deal satisfactory with irrelevant semi‐factuals.