scholarly journals Three paradoxes and a reasonable inference

2016 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-25
Author(s):  
Vladan Djordjevic
Keyword(s):  
Indicative Conditionals ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
The Third ◽  
Famous Paper ◽  
Reasonable Inference

In a previous paper of mine I offered solutions to three paradoxes, two of which were solved in Stalnaker?s famous paper ?Indicative Conditionals? in terms of his distinction between valid and reasonable inference. In a sense my solutions to the two paradoxes are very similar. In this paper I explain why, despite the similarity, I looked for a different solution and new distinctions. After explaining the similarity, I argue that my distinctions point to a more basic phenomenon, which I try to show by applying the distinctions to problems that cannot be solved in terms of Stalnaker?s distinction. The third paradox is one such problem. Beside that, each of the paradoxes, originally formulated in terms of indicative conditionals, can be formulated in terms of counterfactual conditionals. I solve these cases in exactly the same way, while Stalnaker?s distinction is not applicable to them.

Conditionals and Abduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 161-166
Author(s):  
Timothy Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Past Tense ◽  
Indicative Conditionals ◽  
Cognitive Differences ◽  
Indicative Conditional ◽  
Counterfactual Conditional ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
The Past ◽  
Testing Of Hypotheses ◽  
New Evidence

The chapter gives a preliminary sketch of some cognitive differences between indicative conditionals and counterfactual conditionals relevant to the testing of hypotheses by experiment. They especially concern cases where the indicative conditional can be decided without new evidence while the counterfactual conditional cannot. They also show that the antecedent of a ‘counterfactual’ conditional need not be presupposed to be false. Differences connected with the past tense morphology of ‘would’ are explored. Cases are given where the morphology should be understood as expressing a ‘fake past’, modal rather than temporal.

Indicative conditionals

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Actual Situation ◽  
Indicative Conditionals ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Correct Account ◽  
As If

Examples of indicative conditionals are ‘If it rained, then the match was cancelled’ and ‘If Alex plays, Carlton will win’. The contrast is with subjunctive or counterfactual conditionals, such as ‘If it had rained, then the match would have been cancelled’, and categoricals, such as ‘It will rain’. Despite the ease with which we use and understand indicative conditionals, the correct account of them has proved to be very difficult. Some say that ‘If it rained, the match was cancelled’ is equivalent to ‘Either it did not rain, or the match was cancelled’. Some say that the sentence asserts that the result of ‘adding’ the supposition that it rained to the actual situation is to give a situation in which the match was cancelled. Some say that to assert that if it rained then the match was cancelled is to make a commitment to inferring that the match was cancelled should one learn that it rained. This last view is often combined with the view that indicative conditionals are not, strictly speaking, true or false; rather, they are more or less assertible or acceptable.

Counterfactuals and Probability

2021 ◽  
pp. 100-121
Author(s):  
Robert Stalnaker
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Objective Probability ◽  
Indicative Conditionals ◽  
Conditional Belief ◽  
Subjunctive Conditionals ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
The World

Dorothy Edgington has been a resolute defender of an NTV account of conditionals, according to which a conditional does not express a proposition that makes a categorical claim about the world, but instead make a qualified claim, or express a conditional belief, qualified by or conditional on the proposition expressed by the antecedent. Unlike some philosophers who defend an NTV view for indicative conditionals, but not for subjunctive or counterfactual conditionals, Edgington argues for the more radical thesis that both kinds of conditionals should be given a non-propositional analysis. This chapter considers Edgington’s NTV account of subjunctive conditionals, the role of objective probability in the account, and its relation to the possible-worlds propositional analysis of subjunctive conditionals.

scholarly journals How children and adults keep track of real information when thinking counterfactually

PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. e0242967
Author(s):  
Jesica Gómez-Sánchez ◽  
José Antonio Ruiz-Ballesteros ◽  
Sergio Moreno-Ríos
Keyword(s):  
Counterfactual Thinking ◽  
Epistemic Status ◽  
Great Ability ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
The Third ◽  
Potential Sources ◽  
As If

Thinking about counterfactual conditionals such as “if she had not painted the sheet of paper, it would have been blank” requires us to consider what is conjectured (She did not paint and the sheet was blank) and what actually happened (She painted and the sheet was not blank). In two experiments with adults (Study 1) and schoolchildren from 7 to 13 years (Study 2), we tested three potential sources of difficulty with counterfactuals: inferring, distinguishing what is real vs conjectured (epistemic status) and comprehending linguistic conditional expressions (“if” vs “even if”). The results showed that neither adults nor schoolchildren had difficulty in the comprehension of counterfactual expressions such as “even if” with respect to “if then”. The ability to infer with both of these develops during school years, with adults showing great ability. However, the third source factor is critical: we found that the key to young children’s difficulty with counterfactual thinking was their inability to differentiate real and conjectured information, while adults showed little difficulty with this.

scholarly journals Presuppositions and Antipresuppositions in Conditionals

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Leahy
Keyword(s):  
Scalar Implicature ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Indicative Conditionals ◽  
Subjunctive Conditionals ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Issue Content

Utterances of counterfactual conditionals are typically attended by the information that their antecedents are false. But there is as yet no account of the source of this information that is both detailed and complete. This paper describes the problem of counterfactual antecedent falsity and argues that the problem can be addressed by appeal to an adequate account of the presuppositions of various competing conditional constructions. It argues that indicative conditionals presuppose that their antecedents are epistemically possible, while subjunctive conditionals bear no presupposition. Given this arrangement, utterance of the counterfactual results in an antipresupposition, that is, a scalar implicature generated from the presuppositions of competing alternatives rather than from the at-issue content of competing alternatives. The content of the antipresupposition is the negation of the presupposition of the competing indicative, i.e., that the antecedent of the conditional is known to be false by the speaker.

scholarly journals Presuppositions and Antipresuppositions in Conditionals

2015 ◽  
pp. 257
Author(s):  
Brian Leahy
Keyword(s):  
Scalar Implicature ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Indicative Conditionals ◽  
Subjunctive Conditionals ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Issue Content

Utterances of counterfactual conditionals are typically attended by the information that their antecedents are false. But there is as yet no account of the source of this information that is both detailed and complete. This paper describes the problem of counterfactual antecedent falsity and argues that the problem can be addressed by appeal to an adequate account of the presuppositions of various competing conditional constructions. It argues that indicative conditionals presuppose that their antecedents are epistemically possible, while subjunctive conditionals bear no presupposition. Given this arrangement, utterance of the counterfactual results in an antipresupposition, that is, a scalar implicature generated from the presuppositions of competing alternatives rather than from the at-issue content of competing alternatives. The content of the antipresupposition is the negation of the presupposition of the competing indicative, i.e., that the antecedent of the conditional is known to be false by the speaker.

Progress report on 21-cm observations at low latitude between longitudes (l 11) 0° and 66°

1967 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 177-179
Author(s):  
W. W. Shane
Keyword(s):  
Preliminary Report ◽  
Progress Report ◽  
Galactic Centre ◽  
Low Latitude ◽  
The Third ◽  
Introductory Lecture ◽  
Centre Region

In the course of several 21-cm observing programmes being carried out by the Leiden Observatory with the 25-meter telescope at Dwingeloo, a fairly complete, though inhomogeneous, survey of the regionl11= 0° to 66° at low galactic latitudes is becoming available. The essential data on this survey are presented in Table 1. Oort (1967) has given a preliminary report on the first and third investigations. The third is discussed briefly by Kerr in his introductory lecture on the galactic centre region (Paper 42). Burton (1966) has published provisional results of the fifth investigation, and I have discussed the sixth in Paper 19. All of the observations listed in the table have been completed, but we plan to extend investigation 3 to a much finer grid of positions.

The orbit of Pluto over a long interval of time

1966 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 227-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Brouwer
Keyword(s):  
Periodic Orbit ◽  
Numerical Integration ◽  
Restricted Problem ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
The Third ◽  
Circular Restricted Problem ◽  
Resonance Relation

The paper presents a summary of the results obtained by C. J. Cohen and E. C. Hubbard, who established by numerical integration that a resonance relation exists between the orbits of Neptune and Pluto. The problem may be explored further by approximating the motion of Pluto by that of a particle with negligible mass in the three-dimensional (circular) restricted problem. The mass of Pluto and the eccentricity of Neptune's orbit are ignored in this approximation. Significant features of the problem appear to be the presence of two critical arguments and the possibility that the orbit may be related to a periodic orbit of the third kind.

Monte Carlo Algorithms for Moments of Transition Arrays

1988 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 79-81
Author(s):  
A. Goldberg ◽  
S.D. Bloom
Keyword(s):  
Monte Carlo ◽  
State Vector ◽  
Basis Vector ◽  
Collective State ◽  
Dispersion Characteristics ◽  
Dipole Strength ◽  
The Third ◽  
Monte Carlo Algorithms ◽  
Third Moment ◽  
Very High

AbstractClosed expressions for the first, second, and (in some cases) the third moment of atomic transition arrays now exist. Recently a method has been developed for getting to very high moments (up to the 12th and beyond) in cases where a “collective” state-vector (i.e. a state-vector containing the entire electric dipole strength) can be created from each eigenstate in the parent configuration. Both of these approaches give exact results. Herein we describe astatistical(or Monte Carlo) approach which requires onlyonerepresentative state-vector |RV> for the entire parent manifold to get estimates of transition moments of high order. The representation is achieved through the random amplitudes associated with each basis vector making up |RV>. This also gives rise to the dispersion characterizing the method, which has been applied to a system (in the M shell) with≈250,000 lines where we have calculated up to the 5th moment. It turns out that the dispersion in the moments decreases with the size of the manifold, making its application to very big systems statistically advantageous. A discussion of the method and these dispersion characteristics will be presented.

Probe size and 5th-order aberration

1987 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 134-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhifeng Shao
Keyword(s):  
Electron Probe ◽  
Spherical Aberration ◽  
Wave Length ◽  
Cylindrical Symmetry ◽  
Electron Wave ◽  
Third Order ◽  
The Third ◽  
Probe Radius ◽  
Small Probe ◽  
Probe Size

A small electron probe has many applications in many fields and in the case of the STEM, the probe size essentially determines the ultimate resolution. However, there are many difficulties in obtaining a very small probe.Spherical aberration is one of them and all existing probe forming systems have non-zero spherical aberration. The ultimate probe radius is given byδ = 0.43Csl/4ƛ3/4where ƛ is the electron wave length and it is apparent that δ decreases only slowly with decreasing Cs. Scherzer pointed out that the third order aberration coefficient always has the same sign regardless of the field distribution, provided only that the fields have cylindrical symmetry, are independent of time and no space charge is present. To overcome this problem, he proposed a corrector consisting of octupoles and quadrupoles.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document