The problem of true-true counterfactuals

Analysis 72 (2):276-285 (2012)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Early commentators on David Lewis's account of counterfactuals noted that certain examples suggest that some counterfactuals with true antecedents and true consequents are false. Lewis's account has the consequence that all such counterfactuals are true, leaving us to choose between explaining away our intuitions about the examples in question or offering an alternative to Lewis's account. Here I argue that a simple modification of the familiar Lewisian truth conditions yields the intuitively correct verdicts about these examples, and so we can take our intuitions about these examples at face value without any major departure from Lewis's approach to counterfactuals

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,349

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Counterfactuals with true components.Alan Penczek - 1997 - Erkenntnis 46 (1):79-85.
Counterpossibles.Barak Krakauer - 2012 - Dissertation, University of Massachusetts
Counterfactuals and explanation.Boris Kment - 2006 - Mind 115 (458):261-310.
Safety and the True–True Problem.Jon Cogburn & Jeffrey W. Roland - 2013 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 94 (2):246-267.
True antecedents.Michael McDermott - 2007 - Acta Analytica 22 (4):333-335.
Counterfactuals for consequentialists.Jean-Paul Vessel - 2003 - Philosophical Studies 112 (2):103 - 125.
Reply to Ahmed.Lee Walters - 2011 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 111 (1pt1):123-133.
Remarks on counterpossibles.Berit Brogaard & Joe Salerno - 2013 - Synthese 190 (4):639-660.

Analytics

Added to PP
2012-02-23

Downloads
151 (#121,584)

6 months
17 (#141,290)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Aidan McGlynn
University of Edinburgh

Citations of this work

Sensitivity, safety, and impossible worlds.Guido Melchior - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 178 (3):713-729.
An Argument for Conjunction Conditionalization.Lee Walters & Robert Williams - 2013 - Review of Symbolic Logic 6 (4):573-588.
Possible World Semantics and True-True Counterfactuals.Lee Walters - 2016 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97 (3):322-346.
The counterfactual direct argument.Simon Goldstein - 2020 - Linguistics and Philosophy 43 (2):193-232.

View all 12 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 36 (3):602-605.
Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Foundations of Language 13 (1):145-151.
Four Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time.Theodore Sider - 2004 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (3):642-647.
How to defeat opposition to Moore.Ernest Sosa - 1999 - Philosophical Perspectives 13:137-49.

View all 21 references / Add more references