Open Accesssimilarity approach strikes back: Negation in counterfactuals
Author(s) -
Katrin Schulz
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
zas papers in linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1435-9588
DOI - 10.21248/zaspil.61.2018.500
Subject(s) - counterfactual conditional , negation , counterfactual thinking , similarity (geometry) , meaning (existential) , antecedent (behavioral psychology) , epistemology , mathematics , semantics (computer science) , mathematical economics , causality (physics) , linguistics , natural language processing , computer science , artificial intelligence , psychology , philosophy , social psychology , programming language , image (mathematics) , physics , quantum mechanics
The meaning of counterfactual conditionals is standardly described using the similarityapproach (Stalnaker, 1968; Lewis, 1973). This approach has recently been challenged byCiardelli et al. (2018). They argue that the similarity approach is in principle unable to accountfor the meaning of counterfactuals with an antecedent consisting of a conjunction embeddedunder a negation (¬(p^q)). Ciardelli et al. (2018) dismiss the approach on these grounds andoffer an alternative. The main goal of the present paper is to defend the similarity approachagainst this attack. I will argue that the problem that underlies the observations in Ciardelliet al. 2018 is more general and not solved by the solution they offer. I will furthermore argue,against Ciardelli et al. (2018), that the cause of the problem is not the similarity approach, butthe interaction of negation with the meaning of counterfactual conditionals. The paper willconclude with a first outline of a solution for the problem, which still uses the similarity approach,but combines it with an alternative semantics for negation.Keywords: counterfactuals, negation, similarity approach, causality.