Counterfactual Research Articles

COUNTERFACTUALS, CAUSATION, AND OVERDETERMINATION

Etude de la solution apportee par D. Lewis au probleme de la surdetermination qui se pose dans le cadre de son analyse contrefactuelle de la causation. Examinant la notion de quasi-dependance definie comme processus intrinsequement similaire a la dependance contrefactuelle, l'A. montre qu'il subsiste deux problemes; le premier concerne les lois de la nature, le second l'equivalence entre la quasi-dependance et le rejet de l'analyse contrefactuelle de la causation

Counterfactuals and preemptive causation

Counterfactuals and preemptive causation

Teaching Inequality: A Simple Counterfactual Exercise

L'A. montre que les inegalites sociales demeurent une preoccupation au coeur de la sociologie. En meme temps il souligne la difficulte liee a leur enseignement. Il presente les strategies pedagogiques mises en place pour pallier a cette difficulte comme l'utilisation de jeux de simulation ou les individus sont plus ou moins avantages, jeux qui refletent la situation sociale reelle. L'A. estime que les exercices qui se limitent a souligner les barrieres rencontrees par les individus face au succes n'ont qu'un impact limite. Il preconise une methode permettant d'examiner dans le detail les conceptions socialement valorisees concernant les phenomenes de stratification et s'efforce de demonter la logique individualiste qui les sous-tend

The power of thought experiments

According to popular opinion, thought experiments are limited in scope, since no novel empirical results could be expected to be produced by thought alone. Yet consider the spectacular 16th century experiment by Stevin. leading to the discovery of the principles of the resolution and combination of forces. He conducted no experiments, for he derived his novel and highly important conclusions by several steps of ingenious reasoning alone. To understand why mental experiments may serve as very effective scientific tools. we need to explicate carefully their underlying mechanism. Thought experiments invariably involve the widely debated notion of “counterfactual conditionals.” A variety of historical examples are offered designed to illustrate the nature of thought experiments, their associated counterfactual conditionals. as well a the nature of the vital link between the two.

INDUCTIVE CONFIRMATION, COUNTERFACTUAL CONDITIONALS, AND LAWS OF NATURE

Examinant la these de l'exclusivite inductive concernant la confirmation d'une hypothese dans les cas actuels comme les cas contrefactuels, l'A. etudie le role de l'affirmation de la loi naturelle dans les generalisations du type de la loi et dans les generalisations accidentelles, ainsi que dans la reconstruction rationnelle de la science en general

Causes and nested counterfactuals

Causes and nested counterfactuals

Reply to ‘causes and nested counterfactuals’

Reply to ‘causes and nested counterfactuals’

A relevant theory of conditionals

In this paper we set out a semantics for relevant (counterfactual) conditionals. We combine the Routley-Meyer semantics for relevant logic with a semantics for conditionals based on selection functions. The resulting models characterize a family of conditional logics free from fallacies of relevance, in particular counternecessities and conditionals with necessary consequents receive a non-trivial treatment.

Bell's theorem in an indeterministic universe

A variation of Bell's theorem that deals with the indeterministic case is formulated and proved within the logical framework of Lewis's theory of counterfactuals. The no-faster-than-light-influence condition is expressed in terms of Lewis ‘would’ counterfactual conditionals. Objections to this procedure raised by certain philosophers of science are examined and answered. The theorem shows that the incompatibility between the predictions of quantum theory and the idea of no faster-than-light influence cannot be ascribed to any auxiliary or tacit assumption of either determinism or the related idea that outcomes of unperformed measurements are determinate within nature. In addition, the theorem provides an example of an application of Lewis's theory of counterfactuals in a rigorous scientific context.

Lewis on ‘Might’ and ‘Would’ Counterfactual Conditionals

Letting denote ‘would’ counterfactual conditionals like (A) If I had looked in my pocket, I would have found a penny and letting denote ‘might’ counterfactual conditionals like(B) If I had looked in my pocket, I might have found a penny,David Lewis’s thesis (LT) regarding the connection between these two types of conditionals is that

Reply to "Stapp's algebraic argument for nonlocality"

The logical structure of my recently proved nonlocality theorem [Phys. Rev. A 46, 6860 (1992)] is examined from the perspective of the theory counterfactual conditionals. It is shown in detail why the argument of Dickson and Clifton [preceding Comment, Phys. Rev. A 49, 4259 (1994)] does not substantiate their claim.

The pragmantax of some Italian conditionals

In Italian, thematic or resumptive conditionals, ‘Dutchman Sentences’, conditional inducements and deterrents, and conditional speech acts can only be found as indicative conditionals, and (almost) never as subjunctive conditionals. In the present paper, I argue that this morphosyntactic constraint on four types of ‘pragmatic’ conditional depends on the interrelation between their specific pragmatic features and the semantics of mood choice in the standard Italian conditional system of moods and tenses, which will be analyzed, together with the basic meaning of se (‘if’), in a neo-Gricean fashion.

Local and global metrics for the semantics of counterfactual conditionals

ABSTRACT The semantics for counterfactual conditionals employs indexed relations ⁢a between possible worlds, with x >a y read intuitively as «x is closer to a than is y». This paper considers the question how far these different «closeness» relations of a model may be derived from a common source. Despite some well-known negative observations, we show that there is also quite a strong positive answer. Our main result is that for any model equiped with modular relations derived from multiple metrics da via the equation x ⁢a y iff da(a, x) ⁢ da(a, y), there is a model that validates exactly the same formulae of the logic of counterfactuals, and whose relations ⁢a are determined by a common metric d, via the equation x ⁢a y iff da(a, x) ⁢da(a, y).

Heuristics and counterfactual self-knowledge

Heuristics and counterfactual self-knowledge

FICTION, COUNTERFACTUALS, AND TRUTH

FICTION, COUNTERFACTUALS, AND TRUTH

Five faces of minimality

We discuss similarities and residual differences, within the general semantic framework of minimality, between defeasible inference, belief revision, counterfactual conditionals, updating — and also conditional obligation in deontic logic. Our purpose is not to establish new results, but to bring together existing material to form a clear overall picture.

Events, counterfactuals, and speed

Events, counterfactuals, and speed

Supervenience and causal necessity

Causal necessity typically receives only oblique attention. Causal relations, laws of nature, counterfactual conditionals, or dispositions are usually the immediate subject(s) of interest. All of these, however, have a common feature. In some way, they involve the causal modality, some form of natural or physical necessity. In this paper, causal necessity is discussed with the purpose of determining whether a completely general empiricist theory can account for the causal in terms of the noncausal. Based on an examination of causal relations, laws of nature, counterfactual conditionals, and dispositions, it is argued that no reductive program devoid of essentialist commitments can account for all the phenomena that involve causal necessity. Hence, neo-Humean empiricism fails to provide a framework adequate for understanding causal necessity.

Symposium Contribution on Events and Their Names by Jonathan Bennett

A book is a mirror. Bennett's -book of eighty-six subtitled sections is a many-faceted, multimirrored sphere rotating above the darkened ballroom where events dance intimately with companion facts. If a reviewer looks in, many reviewers look back with new beliefs adopted because of Bennett's persuasion, some but not all contrary to earlier beliefs. The thoroughly agreeable review, an endangered species, can illustrate general remarks of commendation with professions of such beliefs. In this symposium, one can take the commendation for granted; this is a place for contention. If a reviewer looks in, reviewers look back with new beliefs adopted in reaction to Bennett, some but not all modify earlier beliefs Bennett would have us abandon completely. ZDS, is, Zapping them with Disjunctive Syllogism, is a familiar move in exact philosophy. In Section 56, Bennett shows how ZDS ruins an attempt to define simplicity of properties in terms of entailment relations between predicates. In Section 79, Bennett reports a very similar move by Castafteda trivializes a proposed condition for level generation. But ZDS and its kin annoy the just and unjust alike. It makes trouble for Bennett's own treatmentof causation. Bennett replaces Mackie's notion of an INUS condition with the notion of an NS condition, a Necessary part of a Sufficient Condition (Section 18). He provides an account of what it is for the fact P to be an NS condition of the fact Q that is expressed in hard logic, with none of the messy complications counterfactual conditionals bring with them. (The account itself resembles 1940's-style treatments of counterfactual conditionals.) In this formulation, L is the conjunction of all causal laws:

Middle Knowledge and the Soteriological Problem of Evil

According to the thesis of divine ‘middle knowledge’, first propounded by the Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina in the sixteenth century, subjunctive conditionals stating how free agents would freely respond under counter-factual conditions (call such expressions ‘counterfactuals of freedom’) may be straightforwardly true, and thus serve as the objects of divine knowledge. This thesis has provoked considerable controversy, and the recent revival of interest in middle knowledge, initiated by Anthony Kenny, Robert Adams and Alvin Plantinga in the 1970s, has led to two ongoing debates. One is a theoretical debate over the very intelligibility of middle knowledge;1 the other is a practical debate over its philosophical and theological utility.2