An Argument for Conjunction Conditionalization

Review of Symbolic Logic 6 (4):573-588 (2013)
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Abstract

Are counterfactuals with true antecedents and consequents automatically true? That is, is Conjunction Conditionalization: if (X & Y), then (X > Y) valid? Stalnaker and Lewis think so, but many others disagree. We note here that the extant arguments for Conjunction Conditionalization are unpersuasive, before presenting a family of more compelling arguments. These arguments rely on some standard theorems of the logic of counterfactuals as well as a plausible and popular semantic claim about certain semifactuals. Denying Conjunction Conditionalization, then, requires rejecting other aspects of the standard logic of counterfactuals, or else our intuitive picture of semifactuals.

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Author Profiles

Robert Williams
University of Leeds
Lee Walters
University of Southampton

Citations of this work

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Causal counterfactuals without miracles or backtracking.J. Dmitri Gallow - 2022 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 107 (2):439-469.
Decision and foreknowledge.J. Dmitri Gallow - 2024 - Noûs 58 (1):77-105.
Possible World Semantics and True-True Counterfactuals.Lee Walters - 2016 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97 (3):322-346.

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References found in this work

Philosophical explanations.Robert Nozick - 1981 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
The Philosophy of Philosophy.Timothy Williamson - 2007 - Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
A Theory of Conditionals.Robert Stalnaker - 1968 - In Nicholas Rescher (ed.), Studies in Logical Theory. Oxford,: Blackwell. pp. 98-112.
Inquiry.Robert C. Stalnaker - 1984 - Cambridge University Press.

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