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Full Idea
According to some theorists, the forward-looking 'indicatives' (those with a 'will' in the main clause) belong with the 'subjunctives' (those with a 'would' in the main clause), and not with the other 'indicatives'.
Gist of Idea
Maybe forward-looking indicatives are best classed with the subjunctives
Source
Dorothy Edgington (Conditionals (Stanf) [2006], 1)
Book Ref
'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.2
A Reaction
[She cites Gibbard, Dudman and 1988 Bennett; Jackson defends the indicative/subjunctive division, and recent Bennett defends it too] It is plausible to say that 'If you will do x' is counterfactual, since it hasn't actually happened.
Related Idea
Idea 14270 Simple indicatives about past, present or future do seem to form a single semantic kind [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] |
| 14274 | Inferring conditionals from disjunctions or negated conjunctions gives support to truth-functionalism [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] |
| 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] |
| 14282 | On the supposition view, believe if A,B to the extent that A&B is nearly as likely as A [Edgington] |
| 14281 | A thing works like formal probability if all the options sum to 100% [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] |