Zeitschrift | Band | Artikel
"If you'd wiggled a, then b would've changed"
pp. 239-251
Abstrakt
This paper deals with the truth conditions of conditional sentences. It focuses on a particular class of problematic examples for semantic theories for these sentences. I will argue that the examples show the need to refer to dynamic, in particular causal laws in an approach to their truth conditions. More particularly, I will claim that we need a causal notion of consequence. The proposal subsequently made uses a representation of causal dependencies as proposed in Pearl (2000) to formalize a causal notion of consequence. This notion inserted in premise semantics for counterfactuals in the style of Veltman (1976) and Kratzer (1979) will provide a new interpretation rule for conditionals. I will illustrate how this approach overcomes problems of previous proposals and end with some remarks on remaining questions.
Publication details
Published in:
van Benthem Johan, Kuipers Theo A., Visser Henk (2011) Logic and philosophy of science in the footsteps of E. W. Beth. Synthese 179 (2).
Seiten: 239-251
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-010-9780-9
Referenz:
Schulz Katrin (2011) „"If you'd wiggled a, then b would've changed"“. Synthese 179 (2), 239–251.