"Conditionals" (1987)
(Copyright © 2014 Piero Scaruffi | Legal restrictions )
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A collection of articles by David Lewis, Robert Stalnaker, Grice and Frank
Jackson on the subject of conditionals. A theory of conditionals must offer
an account of the truth conditions of a conditional (under which conditions
"if A then B" is true or false, or acceptable to some degree). The traditional
view that a conditional is true if and only if the antecedent is false or the
consequent is true is too simplicistic and allows conditionals such as
"if Jones lives in London, then he lives in Scotland" to be true (if he does
not live in London or lives in Scotland) when it is obviously senseless.
Stalnaker and Lewis solve some of the problems of (subjective) conditionals ("if it were that A then it would be that B") by using possible-world semantics. Lewis also reviews Ernest Adams' thesis that the assertability of (indicative) conditionals ("if A then B") is measured by the conditional probability of the consequent given the antecedent. TM, ®, Copyright © 2014 Piero Scaruffi |
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