One criticism of David Lewis's account of counterfactuals is that it sometimes assigns the wrong truth-value to a counterfactual when both antecedent and consequent happen to be true. Lewis has suggested a possible remedy to this situation, but commentators have found this to be unsatisfactory. I suggest an alternative solution which involves a modification of Lewis's truth conditions, but which confines itself to the resources already present in his account. This modification involves the device of embedding one counterfactual within another. (...) On the revised set of truth conditions, counterfactuals with true components are sometimes true and sometimes false, in a way that is more in keeping with our intuitive judgments about such statements. (shrink)

A pigeon has been conditioned to peck at red objects and has also been conditioned to peck at triangular objects. The pigeon is now presented with a red triangle and pecks. In virtue of which of the object's properties did the pigeon peck? I argue that the disjunctive property "red or triangular" best answers this question and that this in turn gives us reason to admit such disjunctive properties to our ontology. I also show how the criterion for causal efficacy (...) that I employ, expressed in terms of counterfactual conditionals, works to preclude spurious disjunctive properties from counting as efficacious. (shrink)

This paper outlines various classroom exercises to be given at the beginning of an introductory logic course. The purpose of the exercises is to gain students’ attention while introducing them to basic terms and principles of logic, both inductive and deductive. The suggested exercises are flexible enough to introduce a range of material and to do so in a variety of sequences, according to the instructor’s preference.

This paper outlines various classroom exercises to be given at the beginning of an introductory logic course. The purpose of the exercises is to gain students’ attention while introducing them to basic terms and principles of logic, both inductive and deductive. The suggested exercises are flexible enough to introduce a range of material and to do so in a variety of sequences, according to the instructor’s preference.