III.—COUNTERFACTUALS AND SUBJUNCTIVE CONDITIONALS

Abstract

THERE is no special problem about the verification or analysis of counterfactual or unfulfilled conditional statements. There is no special problem about the verification or analysis of subjunctive conditionals. It exhausts the peculiar philosophical interest of these two classes of statement to explain why no philosopher ought to think them peculiarly interesting, and to explain why so many do. Such is the limited aim of this article. It should not be supposed that if it achieves its aim, all the difficulties and disputes which have occurred in discussions supposed to be about counterfactual or subjunctive conditionals will be settled in a few pages. For many of these difficulties have arisen, not out of features peculiar to either of these classes of statement, but out of features common to all conditional statements. Thus the purpose of this article is to clear the air and, if possible, to reorientate the discussion. For the two assertions it makes and defends contradict assumptions common to most writers on the subject, assumptions which are frequently left unexpressed and are seldom defended by argument.'