Is ‘Would If’ Hyperintensional?

2020 ◽  
pp. 214-221
Author(s):  
Timothy Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Independent Evidence ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Logical Equivalence ◽  
Truth Value

This chapter responds to Fine’s arguments that counterfactual conditionals are hyperintensional because the result of substituting a truth-functionally equivalent antecedent can change the truth-value of a counterfactual. Fine’s descriptions of his alleged examples of hyperintensionality are inconsistent but seem consistent as a result of contextual shifts between different components, for which there is independent evidence, and which can be explained by the application of the suppositional heuristic, which makes some worlds verifying the antecedent relevant. Different senses of ‘hyperintensional’ are distinguished, one based on sameness of intension, another on logical equivalence, but the objection to Fine’s arguments works for both.

scholarly journals Conditionals on crutches: Expanding the modal horizon

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dario Paape ◽  
Malte Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Computational Modeling ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Value Judgment ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Modeling Techniques ◽  
On Line ◽  
Truth Value

Using truth-value judgment tasks, we investigated the on-line processing of counterfactual conditionals such as "If kangaroos had no tails, they would topple over". Face-value plausibility of the counterfactual as well as the complexity of the antecedent were manipulated. Results show that readers' judgments deviate from face-value plausibility more often when the antecedent is complex, and when the counterfactual is plausible rather than implausible. We interpret our results based on the modal horizon assumption of von Fintel (2001) and argue that they are compatible with a variably strict semantics for counterfactuals (Lewis, 1973). We make use of computational modeling techniques to account for reaction times and truth-value judgments simultaneously, showing that implementing detailed process models deepens our understanding of the cognitive mechanisms triggered by linguistic stimuli.

Independent commissions and labour migration: The British MAC

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-32
Author(s):  
Philip L. Martin ◽  
Martin Ruhs
Keyword(s):  
Labour Force ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Foreign Workers ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Independent Evidence ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Labour Immigration ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
The Uk

The independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) was created in 2007 after a decade in which the share of foreign-born workers in the British labour force doubled to 13 per cent. The initial core mandate of the MAC was to provide “independent, evidence-based advice to government on specific skilled occupations in the labour market where shortages exist which can sensibly be filled by migration.” The MAC's answers to these 3-S questions, viz, is the occupation for which employers are requesting foreign workers skilled, are there labour shortages, and is admitting foreign workers a sensible response, have improved the quality of the debate over the “need” for foreign workers in the UK by highlighting some of the important trade-offs inherent in migration policy making. The MAC can clarify migration trade-offs in labour immigration policy, but cannot decide the ultimately political questions about whose interests should be prioritised and how competing policy objectives should be balanced.

The Argument from (A) to (Y)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ted Poston
Keyword(s):  
Bayesian Model ◽  
Independent Evidence ◽  
Strength Of Evidence ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Simple Summation

This chapter provides a Bayesian model of strength of evidence in cases in which there are multiple items of independent evidence. The author uses this Bayesian model to evaluate the strength of evidence for theism if, as Plantinga claims, there are two dozen or so arguments for theism. The model turns questions of the overall strength of multiple arguments into a simple summation problem. Moreover, it provides a clear framework for advancing questions about how relationships between the arguments bear on the overall strength of evidence for theism. The Bayesian model developed in this chapter has a wide-range of applications for modeling strength of evidence in cumulative case arguments.

How Art Works

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Winner
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Hard Work ◽  
Objective Truth ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Art Works ◽  
Truth Value

This book is an examination of what psychologists have discovered about how art works—what it does to us, how we experience art, how we react to it emotionally, how we judge it, and what we learn from it. The questions investigate include the following: What makes us call something art? Do we experience “real” emotions from the arts? Do aesthetic judgments have any objective truth value? Does learning to play music raise a child’s IQ? Is modern art something my kid could do? Is achieving greatness in an art form just a matter of hard work? Philosophers have grappled with these questions for centuries, and laypeople have often puzzled about them too and offered their own views. But now psychologists have begun to explore these questions empirically, and have made many fascinating discoveries using the methods of social science (interviews, experimentation, data collection, statistical analysis).

Internal categoricity and truth

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Button ◽  
Sean Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Model Theory ◽  
Lower Order ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Mathematical Truth ◽  
Object Language ◽  
Famous Result ◽  
Famous Paper ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Truth Operator

This chapter considers whether internal categoricity can be used to leverage any claims about mathematical truth. We begin by noting that internal categoricity allows us to introduce a truth-operator which gives an object-language expression to the supervaluationist semantics. In this way, the univocity discussed in previous chapters might seem to secure an object-language expression of determinacy of truth-value; but this hope falls short, because such truth-operators must be carefully distinguished from truth-predicates. To introduce these truth-predicates, we outline an internalist attitude towards model theory itself. We then use this to illuminate the cryptic conclusions of Putnam's justly-famous paper ‘Models and Reality’. We close this chapter by presenting Tarski’s famous result that truth for lower-order languages can be defined in higher-order languages.

Suppose and Tell

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Conditional Probability ◽  
Natural Deduction ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Modal Operator ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Deduction Rules ◽  
Psychological Sense

The book argues that our use of conditionals is governed by imperfectly reliable heuristics, in the psychological sense of fast and frugal (or quick and dirty) ways of assessing them. The primary heuristic is this: to assess ‘If A, C’, suppose A and on that basis assess C; whatever attitude you take to C conditionally on A (such as acceptance, rejection, or something in between) take unconditionally to ‘If A, C’. This heuristic yields both the equation of the probability of ‘If A, C’ with the conditional probability of C on A and standard natural deduction rules for the conditional. However, these results can be shown to make the heuristic implicitly inconsistent, and so less than fully reliable. There is also a secondary heuristic: pass conditionals freely from one context to another under normal conditions for acceptance of sentences on the basis of memory and testimony. The effect of the secondary heuristic is to undermine interpretations on which ‘if’ introduces a special kind of context-sensitivity. On the interpretation which makes best sense of the two heuristics, ‘if’ is simply the truth-functional conditional. Apparent counterexamples to truth-functionality are artefacts of reliance on the primary heuristic in cases where it is unreliable. The second half of the book concerns counterfactual conditionals, as expressed with ‘if’ and ‘would’. It argues that ‘would’ is an independently meaningful modal operator for contextually restricted necessity: the meaning of counterfactuals is simply that derived compositionally from the meanings of their constituents, including ‘if’ and ‘would’, making them contextually restricted strict conditionals.

Twelfth Century AD

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lonnie G. Thompson ◽  
Alan L. Kolata
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Sediment Cores ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Lake Titicaca ◽  
Independent Evidence ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Ice Cap ◽  
Paleoclimate Records ◽  
Past Climate Change

Climate is a fundamental and independent variable of human existence. Given that 50 percent of the Earth’s surface and much of its population exist between 30oN and 30oS, paleoenvironmental research in the Earth’s tropical regions is vital to our understanding of the world’s current and past climate change. Most of the solar energy that drives the climate system is absorbed in these regions. Paleoclimate records reveal that tropical processes, such as variations in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), have affected the climate over much of the planet. Climatic variations, particularly in precipitation and temperature, play a critical role in the adaptations of agrarian cultures located in zones of environmental sensitivity, such as those of the coastal deserts, highlands, and altiplano of the Andean region. Paleoclimate records from the Quelccaya ice cap (5670 masl) in highland Peru that extend back ~1800 years show good correlation between precipitation and the rise and fall of pre-Hispanic civilizations in western Peru and Bolivia. Sediment cores extracted from Lake Titicaca provide independent evidence of this correspondence with particular reference to the history of the pre-Hispanic Tiwanaku state centered in the Andean altiplano. Here we explore, in particular, the impacts of climate change on the development and ultimate dissolution of this altiplano state.

Probabilities as Truth-Value Estimates

1961 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 414-417
Author(s):  
Hugues Leblanc
Keyword(s):  
Truth Value
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