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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.
| 13853 | It is a mistake to think that conditionals are statements about how the world is [Edgington] |
| 13855 | A conditional does not have truth conditions [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] |