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Single Idea 14417

[filed under theme 10. Modality / B. Possibility / 9. Counterfactuals ]

Full Idea

A counterfactual is not appropriately about the way anything is, …but about how something would be, had other things differed from how they actually are. As a result, true counterfactuals have neither truthmakers nor a superveniece base.

Gist of Idea

Counterfactuals aren't about actuality, so they lack truthmakers or a supervenience base

Source

Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.IV)

Book Ref

Merricks,Trenton: 'Truth and Ontology' [OUP 2007], p.166

A Reaction

Might not the truthmakers for counterfactuals reside in the dispositional facts about actuality? We assess the truth of counterfactuals in degrees, so something must determine our views.

The 73 ideas from Trenton Merricks

17960 Eternalism says all times are equally real, and future and past objects and properties are real [Merricks]
17961 Growing block has a subjective present and a growing edge - but these could come apart [Merricks, by PG]
14229 Merricks agrees that there are no composite objects, but offers a different semantics [Merricks, by Liggins]
6123 Empirical investigation can't discover if holes exist, or if two things share a colour [Merricks]
6124 I say that most of the objects of folk ontology do not exist [Merricks]
6130 'Composition' says things are their parts; 'constitution' says a whole substance is an object [Merricks]
6125 We can eliminate objects without a commitment to simples [Merricks]
6128 Objects decompose (it seems) into non-overlapping parts that fill its whole region [Merricks]
6127 'Unrestricted composition' says any two things can make up a third thing [Merricks]
6131 Composition as identity is false, as identity is never between a single thing and many things [Merricks]
6132 Composition as identity is false, as it implies that things never change their parts [Merricks]
6133 If my counterpart is happy, that is irrelevant to whether I 'could' have been happy [Merricks]
6134 Is swimming pool water an object, composed of its mass or parts? [Merricks]
6136 Eliminativism about objects gives the best understanding of the Sorites paradox [Merricks]
6135 A crumbling statue can't become vague, because vagueness is incoherent [Merricks]
6137 Clay does not 'constitute' a statue, as they have different persistence conditions (flaking, squashing) [Merricks]
6138 It seems wrong that constitution entails that two objects are wholly co-located [Merricks]
6140 Maybe the word 'I' can only refer to persons [Merricks]
6141 There is no visible difference between statues, and atoms arranged statuewise [Merricks]
6143 Prolonged events don't seem to endure or exist at any particular time [Merricks]
6142 The 'folk' way of carving up the world is not intrinsically better than quite arbitrary ways [Merricks]
6144 You hold a child in your arms, so it is not mental substance, or mental state, or software [Merricks]
6145 Intrinsic properties are those an object still has even if only that object exists [Merricks]
6147 The hypothesis of solipsism doesn't seem to be made incoherent by the nature of mental properties [Merricks]
6146 Before Creation it is assumed that God still had many many mental properties [Merricks]
6148 Human organisms can exercise downward causation [Merricks]
6149 Free will and determinism are incompatible, since determinism destroys human choice [Merricks]
6150 The 'warrant' for a belief is what turns a true belief into knowledge [Merricks]
14472 If atoms 'arranged baseballwise' break a window, that analytically entails that a baseball did it [Merricks, by Thomasson]
14469 Overdetermination: the atoms do all the causing, so the baseball causes no breakage [Merricks]
19200 Propositions are standardly treated as possible worlds, or as structured [Merricks]
19202 Propositions are necessary existents which essentially (but inexplicably) represent things [Merricks]
19201 Propositions can be 'about' an entity, but that doesn't make the entity a constituent of it [Merricks]
19203 A sentence's truth conditions depend on context [Merricks]
19204 True propositions existed prior to their being thought, and might never be thought [Merricks]
19205 'Snow is white' only contingently expresses the proposition that snow is white [Merricks]
19207 Sentence logic maps truth values; predicate logic maps objects and sets [Merricks]
19206 'Cicero is an orator' represents the same situation as 'Tully is an orator', so they are one proposition [Merricks]
19208 The Converse Barcan implies 'everything exists necessarily' is a consequence of 'necessarily, everything exists' [Merricks]
19209 Simple Quantified Modal Logc doesn't work, because the Converse Barcan is a theorem [Merricks]
19210 The standard view of propositions says they never change their truth-value [Merricks]
19211 Early Russell says a proposition is identical with its truthmaking state of affairs [Merricks]
19212 Unity of the proposition questions: what unites them? can the same constituents make different ones? [Merricks]
19213 We want to explain not just what unites the constituents, but what unites them into a proposition [Merricks]
19214 In twinning, one person has the same origin as another person [Merricks]
19217 I don't accept that if a proposition is directly about an entity, it has a relation to the entity [Merricks]
19215 Arguers often turn the opponent's modus ponens into their own modus tollens [Merricks]
14390 Truthmaker isn't the correspondence theory, because it offers no analysis of truth [Merricks]
14391 If the correspondence theory is right, then necessary truths must correspond to something [Merricks]
14392 Fregeans say 'hobbits do not exist' is just 'being a hobbit' is not exemplified [Merricks]
14393 The totality state is the most plausible truthmaker for negative existential truths [Merricks]
14395 If a ball changes from red to white, Truthmaker says some thing must make the change true [Merricks]
14394 It is implausible that claims about non-existence are about existing things [Merricks]
14396 If 'truth supervenes on being', worlds with the same entities, properties and relations have the same truths [Merricks]
14397 Truthmaker demands not just a predication, but an existing state of affairs with essential ingredients [Merricks]
14398 Truthmaker says if an entity is removed, some nonexistence truthmaker must replace it [Merricks]
14400 If truth supervenes on being, that won't explain why truth depends on being [Merricks]
14402 If 'Fido is possibly black' depends on Fido's counterparts, then it has no actual truthmaker [Merricks]
14403 If Truthmaker says each truth is made by the existence of something, the theory had de re modality at is core [Merricks]
14406 Presentists say that things have existed and will exist, not that they are instantaneous [Merricks]
14407 Presentist should deny there is a present time, and just say that things 'exist' [Merricks]
14405 How can a presentist explain an object's having existed? [Merricks]
14408 Truthmaker needs truths to be 'about' something, and that is often unclear [Merricks]
14410 You believe you existed last year, but your segment doesn't, so they have different beliefs [Merricks]
14411 Maybe only presentism allows change, by now having a property, and then lacking it [Merricks]
14412 Speculations about non-existent things are not about existent things, so Truthmaker is false [Merricks]
14414 I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but is it about me? [Merricks]
14413 Some properties seem to be primitive, but others can be analysed [Merricks]
14415 A ground must be about its truth, and not just necessitate it [Merricks]
14416 An object can have a disposition when the revelant conditional is false [Merricks]
14417 Counterfactuals aren't about actuality, so they lack truthmakers or a supervenience base [Merricks]
14418 Being true is not a relation, it is a primitive monadic property [Merricks]
14419 Deflationism just says there is no property of being truth [Merricks]