Counterfactuals and probability / Moritz Schulz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schulz, Moritz, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Counterfactuals (Logic).

Probabilities.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 236 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2017.

Summary:

This volume explores counterfactual thought and language. We can typically evaluate counterfactual questions probabilistically, predicting what would be likely or unlikely to happen. Schulz describes these probabilistic ways of evaluating counterfactual questions and turns the data into a novel account of the workings of counterfactual thought.

Contents:

1. Introduction

1.1. Uncertainty about Counterfactuals

1.2. Where Uncertainty Shows Up

1.3. Debate about Indicative Conditionals

1.4. Counterfactuals

1.5. Standard Semantics

1.6. Systematizing the Data

1.7. Identifying the Challenge

1.8. Non-Standard Explanations

1.9. Modifying the Semantics

1.10. Overview

2. Problem of Evaluating Counterfactuals

2.1. Probability

2.2. Prior Epistemic Probabilities

2.3. Hypothetical Epistemic Probabilities

2.4. Prior Propensities

2.4.1. Morgenbesser Cases

2.4.2. Counterfactuals and Determinism

2.4.3. Counterlegals

2.4.4. Probabilistic Modus Ponens

2.5. Conclusion

3. Counterfactual Chance

3.1. Selection Function

3.2. Relevance and Chance

3.3. Principal Principle for Counterfactuals

3.4. Admissible Evidence

3.5. Comparison with Skyrms

3.6. Imaging

3.7. Generalized Imaging

3.8. Imaging and the PP-Constraint

3.9. Some Methodological Considerations

3.10. Conclusion

4. Puzzle About Counterfactuals

4.1. Problem for Standard Semantics

4.2. Puzzle

4.3. Means of Escape

4.4. Comparison with Indicative Conditionals

4.5. Conclusion

5. Restriction and Modification

5.1. Restrictor View

5.2. Simple Conditionals

5.3. Counterfactual `If'-Clauses as Restrictors

5.4. Counterfactual `If'-Clauses as Modifiers

5.5. Variants of the View

5.6. Lack of Independent Evidence

5.7. Problem of Embeddings

5.8. Conclusion

6. Counterfactuals and Arbitrariness

6.1. Proposal

6.1.1. Epsilon-Operator

6.1.2. Arbitrary Truth Conditions

6.1.3. Logic of Counterfactuals

6.1.4. Metaphysics of Arbitrariness

6.1.5. Comparisons

6.2. Evaluation of Counterfactuals

6.2.1. Uniformity Reconsidered

6.2.2. Modelling the Epistemic Space

6.3. Knowability and Assertability

6.4. Revisiting the Puzzle

6.5. Conclusion

7. Applications

7.1. Counterfactuals with a True Antecedent

7.2. Duality

7.3. Conditional Excluded Middle

7.4. Limit Assumption

8. Triviality

8.1. Lewis on Imaging

8.2. Leitgeb's Observation

8.3. Williams's Extension of Lewis's Triviality Result

8.4. Conclusion

9. Concluding Remarks

9.1. Error Theories

9.2. Pragmatic Explanations

9.3. Unifying the Theory?

9.4. Conclusion.

Notes:

This edition previously issued in print: 2017.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed February 3, 2017).

Other Format:

Print version :

ISBN:

9780191831713

0-19-183171-9

0-19-108906-0