Published July 29, 2024 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Credences for strict conditionals

Creators

  • 1. University of Chicago

Description

Less-than-certain conditional judgments pose notorious problems for strict analyses of conditionals: across their various incarnations, these analyses have trouble making sense of how conditionals could have non-trivial probabilities in the first place; minimal constraints on how such probabilities are to be assigned, moreover, lead to results that seem at odds with a strict outlook on the semantics of conditionals, most notably the validity of Conditional Excluded Middle. I demonstrate that a strict analysis can overcome the trouble if couched in a bilateral dynamic setting that properly extends the familiar Ramsey test for accepting conditionals to other iffy attitudes, most importantly the one of rejecting a conditional. The resulting framework accommodates the appeal of Stalnaker's thesis as well as of Conditional Excluded Middle in a strict setting. A discussion of how to handle the probability of epistemically modalized conditionals and of compounds of conditionals is provided.

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Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1111/phpr.13085
Other
oai:uchicago.tind.io:13030

UChicago Information

Division(s)
Arts & Humanities Division
Department(s)
Philosophy