Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T09:20:55.450Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

STALNAKER’S THESIS IN CONTEXT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2014

ANDREW BACON
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper I present a precise version of Stalnaker’s thesis and show that it is both consistent and predicts our intuitive judgments about the probabilities of conditionals. The thesis states that someone whose total evidence is E should have the same credence in the proposition expressed by ‘if A then B’ in a context where E is salient as they have conditional credence in the proposition B expresses given the proposition A expresses in that context. The thesis is formalised rigorously and two models are provided that demonstrate that the new thesis is indeed tenable within a standard possible world semantics based on selection functions. Unlike the Stalnaker–Lewis semantics the selection functions cannot be understood in terms of similarity. A probabilistic account of selection is defended in its place.

I end the paper by suggesting that this approach overcomes some of the objections often levelled at accounts of indicatives based on the notion of similarity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Symbolic Logic , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 131 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Symbolic Logic 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, E. W. (1975). The Logic of Conditionals: An Application of Probability to Deductive Logic, Vol. 86. Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahmed, A. (2011). Walters on conjunction conditionalization. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Hardback), 111, 115–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bacon, A. (Unpublished Manuscript). Conditional logics accommodating Stalnaker’s thesis.Google Scholar
Bennett, J. F. (2003). A Philosophical Guide to Conditionals. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. (2011). Multidimensional possible-world semantics for conditionals. Philosophical Review, 121(4) pp. 539–571.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edgington, D. (1986). Do conditionals have truth conditions? Crítica: Revista Hispanoamericana de Filosofía, 18(52), 3–39.Google Scholar
Edgington, D. (1995). On conditionals. Mind, 104(414), 235–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edgington, D. (2014). Conditionals. In Zalta, E. N., editor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2014 edition). Berlin: Spring .Google Scholar
Fine, K. (2012). A difficulty for the possible worlds analysis of counterfactuals. Synthese, 189(1), 29–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbard, A. (1981). Two recent theories of conditionals. In Harper, W. L., Stalnaker, R., & Pearce, G., editors. IFS: Conditionals, Belief, Decision, Chance and Time, Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publ. Co., pp. 211–248.Google Scholar
Hájek, A. (1989). Probabilities of conditionals — revisited. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 18(4), 423–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hájek, A., & Hall, N. (1994). The hypothesis of the conditional construitl of conditional probability. In Eells, E. & Skyrms, B., editors. Probability and conditionals: belief revision and rational decision, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 75.Google Scholar
Hall, N. (1994). Back in the cccp. In Eells, E. & Skyrms, B., editors. Probability and conditionals: belief revision and rational decision, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 75.Google Scholar
Harper, W. L. (1976). Ramsey test conditionals and iterated belief change (a response to stalnaker). Foundations of Probability Theory, Statistical Inference, and Statistical Theories of Science: Volume II Foundations and Philosophy of Statistical Inference Proceedings of an International Research Colloquium held at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, May 10–13, 1973. Berlin: Springer, pp. 117–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herzberger, H. G. (1979). Counterfactuals and consistency. Journal of Philosophy, 76(2), 83–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffrey, R., & Edgington, D. (1991). Matter-of-fact conditionals. In Eells, E. & Skyrms, B., editors. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp. 161–209.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, R., & Stalnaker, R. (1994). Conditionals as random variables. Probability and conditionals: belief revision and rational decision , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 31.Google Scholar
Kaufmann, S. (2009). Conditionals right and left: Probabilities for the whole family. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 38(1), 1–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kratzer, A. (1986). Conditionals. Chicago Linguistics Society, 22, 1–15.Google Scholar
Kratzer, A. (2012). Modals and Conditionals: New and Revised Perspectives, Vol. 36. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. (1973). Counterfactuals. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mårtensson, J. (1999). Subjunctive conditionals and time: A defense of the classical approach Ph.D thesis, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg.Google Scholar
McGee, V. (1989). Conditional probabilities and compounds of conditionals. The Philosophical Review, 98(4), 485–541.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nolan, D. ( 2003). Defending a possible-worlds account of indicative conditionals. Philosophical Studies, 116(3), 215–269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, J., Hawthorne, J., & Buchak, L. ( Forthcoming). Groupthink. Philosophical studies.Google Scholar
Santos, P. (2008). Context-sensitivity and (indicative) conditionals. Disputatio, 2(24), 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schulz, M. (Forthcoming). Counterfactuals and arbitrariness. Mind.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, R. (1968). A theory of conditionals. Studies in logical theory, 2, 98–112.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, R. (1975). Indicative conditionals. Philosophia, 5(3), 269–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stalnaker, R. (1976). Letter to van fraassen. In Harper, W. L., & Hooker, C. A., editors. Foundations of probability theory, statistical inference, and statistical theories of science, Vol. 1 , Berlin: Springer, pp. 302–306.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, R. (1981). A defense of conditional excluded middle. In Harper, W. L., Stalnaker, R., & Pearce, G., editors. IFS: Conditionals, belief, decision, chance, and time, Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publ. Co., pp. 87–104.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, R. (2009). Conditional propositions and conditional assertions. In Egan, A., & Weatherson, B., editors. Epistemic Modality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 227–248.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, R. (1970). Probability and conditionals. Philosophy of Science, 37, 64–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stalnaker, R. (1987). Inquiry. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Tichỳ, P. (1978). A new theory of subjunctive conditionals. Synthese, 37(3), 433–457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tooley, M. (2002). Backward causation and the stalnaker-lewis approach to counterfactuals. Analysis, 62(275), 191–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Fraassen, B.C. (1976). Probabilities of conditionals. Foundations of probability theory, statistical inference, and statistical theories of science, Vol. 1, pp. 261–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Rooij, R. (1999). Gibbard’s problem: The context dependence of conditional statements. Proceedings Dutch-German workshop on nonmonotonic reasoning.Google Scholar
Weatherson, B. (2009). Conditionals and indexical relativism. Synthese, 166(2), 333–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar