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Lecture notes 9/10: conditionals

Conditionals

Outline:

1.  Conditionals, deliberation, providence, and the problem of evil
2.  Dualism about conditionals
3.  Subjunctive (counterfactual) conditionals: Lewis, Stalnaker, bivalence, conditional excluded middle, “might” counterfactuals
4.  Indicative conditionals

-the paradox of ICs
-the main views:
-material conditional reading, Grice & Jackson varieties
-Stalnaker
-McDermott
-not truth-conditional
-conditional assertion

Some kinds of conditionals:
-indicative, subjunctive, counterfactual, material, biscuit, Queen of England/Dutchman, deliberative

Some References:

  • Ernest Adams, “Subjunctive and Indicative Conditionals,” Foundations of Language 6 (1970): 89-94
  • Ernest Adams, The Logic of Conditionals (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1975)
  • Jonathan Bennett, “Farewell to the Phlogiston Theory of Conditionals,” Mind 97 (1988): 509- 527  [J]
  • Jonathan Bennett, “Classifying Conditionals: The Traditional Way is Right,” Mind 104 (1995): 331-354
  • Keith DeRose, “Can It Be That It Would Have Been Even Though It Might Not Have Been?” Philosophical Perspectives 13 (1999): 385-413 [I]
  • K. DeRose & R. Grandy, “Conditional Assertions and ‘Bisquit’ Conditionals,” Noûs 33 (1999): 405-420 [I]
  • V.H. Dudman, “Conditional Interpretations of If-Sentences,” Australasian Journal of Linguistics 4 (1984): 143-204
  • Dorothy Edgington, “On Conditionals,” Mind 104 (1995): 235-329 [J]
  • Allan Gibbard, “Two Recent Theories of Conditionals,” in Harper, Stalnaker, Pearce, ed., Ifs (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1981), pp. 211-247
  • H.P. Grice, “Logic and Conversation,” in Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (Harvard UP, 1989).
  • Mark Heller, “Might Counterfactuals and Gratuitous Differences,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 73 (1995): 91-101.
  • Frank Jackson, “On Assertion and Indicative Conditionals,” Philosophical Review 88 (1979): 565-589  [J]
  • Frank Jackson, Conditionals (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987)
  • Frank Jackson, ed., Conditionals (Oxford UP, 1991)
  • Frank Jackson, “Classifying Conditionals,” Analysis 50 (1990): 134-147*
  • Frank Jackson, “Classifying Conditionals II,” Analysis 51 (1991): 137-143*
  • David Lewis, Counterfactuals (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973)
  • David Lewis, “Probabilities of Conditionals and Conditional Probabilities,” Philosophical Review 85 (1976): 297-315 [J]
  • David Lewis, “Counterfactual Dependence and Time’s Arrow,” ” Noûs 13 (1979): 455-476 [J]  Reprinted, with “Postscript” in Lewis, Philosophical Papers, Vol. II (Oxford UP, 1986)
  • David Lewis, “Probabilities of Conditionals and Conditional Probabilities II,” Philosophical Review 95 (1986): 581-589 [J]
  • Michael McDermott, “On the Truth Conditions of Certain ‘If’-Sentences,” Philosophical Review 105 (1996): 1-37 [J]
  • Robert Stalnaker, Inquiry (MIT Press, 1984)
  • Robert Stalnaker, “Indicative Conditionals,” Philosophia 5 (1975): 269-286.  Reprinted in the Jackson anthology.
  • Timothy Williamson, “Bivalence and Subjunctive Conditionals,” Synthese 75 (1988): 405-421

*newly added

(Very) Rough & incomplete draft of my “Does God Know What We Would Freely Do?”  is on-line at: https://campuspress.yale.edu/keithderose/does-god-know-what-we-would-freely-do/

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