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Single Idea 13854

[filed under theme 10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / e. Supposition conditionals ]

Full Idea

It is often necessary to suppose (or assume) that some epistemic possibility is true, and to consider what else would be the case, or would be likely to be the case, given this supposition. The conditional expresses the outcome of such thought processes.

Gist of Idea

Conditionals express what would be the outcome, given some supposition

Source

Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 1)

Book Ref

'A Philosophical Companion to First-Order Logic', ed/tr. Hughes,R.I.G. [Hackett 1993], p.29

A Reaction

This is the basic Edgington view. It seems to involve an active thought process, and imagination, rather than being the static semantic relations offered by possible worlds analyses. True conditionals state relationships in the world.

The 28 ideas from Dorothy Edgington

13764 Are conditionals truth-functional - do the truth values of A and B determine the truth value of 'If A, B'? [Edgington]
13765 'If A,B' must entail ¬(A & ¬B); otherwise we could have A true, B false, and If A,B true, invalidating modus ponens [Edgington]
13768 Validity can preserve certainty in mathematics, but conditionals about contingents are another matter [Edgington]
13770 There are many different conditional mental states, and different conditional speech acts [Edgington]
14270 Simple indicatives about past, present or future do seem to form a single semantic kind [Edgington]
14269 Maybe forward-looking indicatives are best classed with the subjunctives [Edgington]
14271 Non-truth-functionalist say 'If A,B' is false if A is T and B is F, but deny that is always true for TT,FT and FF [Edgington]
14272 I say "If you touch that wire you'll get a shock"; you don't touch it. How can that make the conditional true? [Edgington]
14274 Inferring conditionals from disjunctions or negated conjunctions gives support to truth-functionalism [Edgington]
14273 Conditional Proof is only valid if we accept the truth-functional reading of 'if' [Edgington]
14276 The truth-functional view makes conditionals with unlikely antecedents likely to be true [Edgington]
14275 Truth-function problems don't show up in mathematics [Edgington]
14278 Truth-functionalists support some conditionals which we assert, but should not actually believe [Edgington]
14281 A thing works like formal probability if all the options sum to 100% [Edgington]
14282 On the supposition view, believe if A,B to the extent that A&B is nearly as likely as A [Edgington]
14284 Conclusion improbability can't exceed summed premise improbability in valid arguments [Edgington]
14287 Does 'If A,B' say something different in each context, because of the possibiites there? [Edgington]
14290 Doctor:'If patient still alive, change dressing'; Nurse:'Either dead patient, or change dressing'; kills patient! [Edgington]
13855 A conditional does not have truth conditions [Edgington]
13853 It is a mistake to think that conditionals are statements about how the world is [Edgington]
13854 Conditionals express what would be the outcome, given some supposition [Edgington]
13857 Truth-functional possibilities include the irrelevant, which is a mistake [Edgington]
13859 X believes 'if A, B' to the extent that A & B is more likely than A & ¬B [Edgington]
12185 Logical necessity is epistemic necessity, which is the old notion of a priori [Edgington, by McFetridge]
12207 Metaphysical possibility is discovered empirically, and is contrained by nature [Edgington]
12206 Broadly logical necessity (i.e. not necessarily formal logical necessity) is an epistemic notion [Edgington]
12208 An argument is only valid if it is epistemically (a priori) necessary [Edgington]
12205 There are two families of modal notions, metaphysical and epistemic, of equal strength [Edgington]