Cworld, where closeness is a matter of similarity, or else ii there are no aworlds. Thirty years after lewiss paper, this book brings together some of the most important recent work connectingor, in some cases, disputing the connection betweencounterfactuals and causation, including the complete version of lewiss whitehead lectures, causation as influence, a major reworking of his original paper. This amendment explicitly invokes the notion of causal independence, thus. Counterfactuals and explanation boris kment on the received view, counterfactuals are analyzed using the concept of closeness between possible worlds. There are two prominent competing ways to understand the relation between the antecedent and the class of possible worlds that the counterfactual is about. Modal knowledge and counterfactual knowledge abstract. Counterfactuals is david lewis forceful presentation of and sustained argument for a particular view about propositions which express contrary to fact conditionals, including his famous defense of realism about possible worlds. While not an easy read it was definitely enjoyable with well written sections and really helped illuminate david lewiss thoughts on counterfactuals and made it all seem a little less mysterious to me. A counterfactual is interpreted as a statement about how things occur in other possible worlds governed by the same laws of nature.
The resulting logic is the weakest logic of causal counterfactuals that respects lewiss principles, sits in between the logic developed by galles and pearl and the logic developed by halpern, and stands to galles and pearls logic in the same fashion as lewiss stands to stalnakers. If the nearest qworld were nearer than the nearest pworld, then it would follow that q. Properties of counterfactuals in his excellent book on counterfactuals, lewis 5 clar ifies the distinction between counterfactuals and standard logical implications by listing some of the properties that distinguish them. A lewisian logic of causal counterfactuals springerlink. A c is true at w iff there are no possible aworlds, or some aworld where c is true is closer to w than any aworld where c is false. Counterfactuals university of california, berkeley. Lewis emphasizes that d2a has to do with singular cases and with counterfactuals about probabilities rather than with conditional probabilities. He made significant contributions to philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, decision theory, epistemology, metaethics and aesthetics. Lewiss theory would allow miracles to disrupt precisely those ties between antecedent and consequent characteristics that the rival theory would take as establishing a counterfactual connection. Counterfactuals and the second law1 barry loewer i will be discussing a kind of conditional or counterfactual typically expressed in english by subjunctive conditionals. Lewis, david, counterfactuals and comparative possibility.
Counterfactual thinking cft is a specific type of human thought involving mental representations of alternatives to past situations by perceiving the immediate environment to an imagined perspective 12. If he speaks of salamis, then it must be as if the persians might still win. David lewis 1973 analyzes the truth conditions and logic of counterfactuals in terms of possible worlds possible world semantics. Counterfactuals without possible worlds ever since the pioneering work of stalnaker and lewis1, it has been customary to provide a semantics for counterfactuals statements in terms of possible worlds. Counterfactuals and explanation princeton university. Jan 24, 2001 counterfactuals is david lewis s forceful presentation of and sustained argument for a particular view about propositions which express contrarytofact conditionals, including his famous defense of realism about possible worlds. David lewis theories of causation and their influence. Of time travel david lewis t ime travel, i maintain, is possible.
One criticism of david lewiss account of counterfactuals is that it sometimes assigns the wrong truthvalue to a counterfactual when. C lewis uses the comparative similarity of possible worlds in his account of counterfactuals. David lewis stanford encyclopedia of philosophyspring 20. They prove only this much, which few would have doubted. This helps him to avoid common cause problems and also to allow for the conceptual possibility of a wholly deterministic world. Counterfactual causality and empirical research in. Lewis account of necessity that it fails in just this way.
Counterfactuals definition of counterfactuals by the free. Since its original publication in 1973, it has become a classic of contemporary philosophy, and is essential reading. The term counterfactual conditional was coined by nelson goodman in 1947, extending roderick chisholms 1946 notion of a contrarytofact conditional. In the last dozen years or so, our understanding of modality has been. Counterfactuals david lewis counterfactuals is david lewis forceful presentation of and sustained argument for a particular view about propositions which express contrary to fact conditionals, including his famous defense of realism about possible worlds. If it had been the case that p, then it would have been the case that q is true at a world w just in case q is true at all the possible pworlds closest to w. Hence, lewis account, so the objection continues, makes it a mystery why we should bother to think about modal facts. Counterfactuals is david lewis s forceful presentation of and sustained argument for a particular view about propositions which express contrarytofact conditi. David lewis counterfactuals and comparative possibility in the last dozen years or so, our understanding of modality has been much improved by means of possibleworld semantics.
Lewis taught briefly at ucla and then at princeton from 1970 until his death. Lewis taught briefly at ucla and then at princeton from 1970 until his. Counterfactual meaning in the cambridge english dictionary. The lewis account explains why counterfactuals dont contrapose, that is, why p. Download it once and read it on your kindle device, pc, phones or tablets. Lewis accepts this and argues that any explication of counterfactuals must therefore either be stated in. While not an easy read it was definitely enjoyable with well written sections and really helped illuminate david lewis s thoughts on counterfactuals and made it all seem a little less mysterious to me.
Cold war historiography vividly illustrates how the selection of the counterfactual question to be asked generally. Lewis 1986, a counterfactual conditional, a c, is true at w iff i there is an a. Counterfactual definition of counterfactual by the free. It then provides two broad surveys of research that places counterfactuals at the center of key philosophical issues. Pdf hume, causation and counterfactuals researchgate. On lewis, schaffer and the nonreductive evaluation of. The present paper expands on material in the first part of fine. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading counterfactuals.
Lewis s theory would allow miracles to disrupt precisely those ties between antecedent and consequent characteristics that the rival theory would take as establishing a counterfactual connection. How women with intimate partner violence ipv reason about others intentions. But it can be shown that their objections can be modifi ed to produce. Made it through the first 4 chapters with considerable effort while researching for a paper in scientific explanation. Counterfactuals and comparative possibility andrew m. On the standard semantics for counterfactuals stalnaker 1987. The paradoxes of time travel are oddities, not impossibilities. David lewis 19412001 was one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. Counterfactuals and comparative possibility springerlink. Lewis takes a strong realist line on possible worlds. Counterfactuals synonyms, counterfactuals pronunciation, counterfactuals translation, english dictionary definition of counterfactuals. David kellogg lewis september 28, 1941 october 14, 2001 was an american philosopher.
Counterfactuals, causal independence and conceptual. Lewiss theory works for such a counterfactual, because the consequent holds at each world at which antecedent holds. But what we are dealing with is a different kind of counterfactual from that in the kinds of everyday counterfactuals lewis was interested in for the production of the arrow of time. Counterfactuals, causal independence and conceptual circularity. Lewis on causation the linchpin of lewis views on causation is the counterfactual. Suppose now we adopt lewis version of the possible worlds semantics in which a non. Much of the material was presented at the whitehead lectures at harvard, 2009, the townsend lectures at berkeley, 2010, the nagel lecture at columbia, 2010, a conference on propositions and samesaying at sydney university, 2010, and at talks to the philosophy departments of university of miami and virginia commonwealth. Finally, i will examine the influence of lewis approach on presentday hot topics in metaphysics.
Counterfactuals without possible worlds ever since the. We think of a cause as something that makes a difference, and the difference it makes it. Its important to note that counterfactuals have, perhaps necessarily so, a certain vagueness. Causal relations holds in virtue of facts about counterfactual dependence. Roughly speaking, the idea is that the counterfactual from a to c should be taken to be true just in case all of the closest. Knowledge of counterfactuals timothy williamson here are two claims. These benefits are related to important concepts in philosophy of language and epistemology, such as, modality, counterfactuals and a uniform treatment to. David lewiss second book was counterfactuals 1973a. Les ebooks kindle peuvent etre lus sur nimporte quel appareil avec lappli gratuite kindle. More philosophers might find a possibleworld analysis of counterfactuals acceptable as an interim. If the match had not been struck, then it would not have lit.
The results of this section are not new, but may be unfamiliar to an ai audience. David lewis s semantics for counterfactuals remains the standard view. Jonathan schaffer 2004 proposes an ingenious amendment to david lewiss semantics for counterfactuals. Counterfactuals and policy analysis in structural models. Possible worlds semantics and truetrue counterfactuals. A difficulty for fines exact semantics for counterfactuals penultimate draft thanks in large part to the work of robert stalnaker and david lewis, philosophers standardly use possible worlds semantics for counterfactuals. Counterfactual conditionals were important to lewis for several. Counterfactuals is david lewiss forceful presentation of and sustained argument for a particular view about propositions which express contrarytofact conditionals, including his famous defense of realism about possible worlds. Counterfactual definition of counterfactual by merriamwebster. Counterfactual thinking is a concept in psychology that involves the human tendency to create possible alternatives to life events that have already occurred. Lewiss counterfactual theory of causation christian loew.
Lewis, david, counterfactuals and comparative possibility, journal of philosophical logic, 2. Roughly speaking, the idea is that the counterfactual from a to c. A difficulty for the possible worlds analysis of counterfactuals. Lewis 1979, a few years later, set out a method of avoiding the specifi c objections that bennett and fine advanced. A counterfactual conditional abbreviated cf, is a conditional with a false ifclause. The stalnakerlewis approach to counterfactuals request pdf. He is also closely associated with australia, whose philosophical community he visited almost annually for more than thirty years. The paper compares the suitability of two different epistemologies of counterfactualsec and wto elucidate modal knowledge. Yet counterexamples have emerged, which suggest a need to invoke causal independence, and thus threaten conceptual circularity. Suppose there are possible worlds, 1 ordered by comparative similarity. We think of a cause as something that makes a difference, and the difference it makes it makes must be a difference. I argue that, while both of them explain the data on our knowledge of. Lewis on counterfactuals lewis 1973a, 1973b, 1979, 1986b develops what remains the standard semantics for counterfactual conditionals.
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