"If you'd wiggled A, then B would've changed" Causality and counterfactual conditionals

Open Access
Authors
Publication date 03-2011
Journal Synthese
Volume | Issue number 179 | 2
Pages (from-to) 239-251
Organisations
  • Interfacultary Research - Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC)
Abstract
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.
Document type Article
Note In special issue: Logic and philosophy of science in the footsteps of E. W. Beth.
Language English
Published at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9780-9
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If you'd wiggled A, then B would've changed (Accepted author manuscript)
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