Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:06:33.475Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

CLASSICAL COUNTERPOSSIBLES

Part of: General logic Philosophical aspects of logic and foundations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2020

ROHAN FRENCH ,
PATRICK GIRARD  and
DAVID RIPLEY
ROHAN FRENCH
Affiliation:
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIADAVIS, CA, 95616, USAE-mail: [email protected]
PATRICK GIRARD
Affiliation:
SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES, PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLANDAUCKLAND1142, NEW ZEALANDE-mail: [email protected]
DAVID RIPLEY
Affiliation:
PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT MONASH UNIVERSITY SOPHIS BUILDING 11 MONASH UNIVERSITY VIC 3800, AUSTRALIAE-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We present four classical theories of counterpossibles that combine modalities and counterfactuals. Two theories are anti-vacuist and forbid vacuously true counterfactuals, two are quasi-vacuist and allow counterfactuals to be vacuously true when their antecedent is not only impossible, but also inconceivable. The theories vary on how they restrict the interaction of modalities and counterfactuals. We provide a logical cartography with precise acceptable boundaries, illustrating to what extent nonvacuism about counterpossibles can be reconciled with classical logic.

Keywords

counterpossiblescounterfactualsmodalitiesmodal logicconditional logicimpossible worlds

MSC classification

Primary: 03A99: None of the above, but in this section
Secondary: 03B45: Modal logic (including the logic of norms)
Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Symbolic Logic , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 259 - 275
Check for updates
Copyright
© Association for Symbolic Logic, 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baron, S., Colyvan, M., & Ripley, D. (2017). How mathematics can make a difference. Philosophers’ Imprint, 17(3), 1–29.Google Scholar
Bernstein, S. (2016). Omission impossible. Philosophical Studies, 173(10), 2575–2589.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berto, F., French, R., Priest, G., & Ripley, D. (2017). Williamson on counterpossibles. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 47, 693–713.Google ScholarPubMed
Bjerring, J. C. (2014). On counterpossibles. Philosophical Studies, 168(2), 327–353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackburn, P., de Rijke, M., & Venema, Y. (2001). Modal Logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brogaard, B. & Salerno, J. (2013). Remarks on counterpossibles. Synthese, 190(4), 639–660.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chellas, B. F. (1975). Basic conditional logic. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 4(2), 133–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Girard, P. (2020). Dialetheic conditional modal logic. In Baskent, Ç., and Ferguson, T., editors. Graham Priest on Dialetheism and Paraconsistency, Outstanding Contributions to Logic. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 271–284.Google Scholar
Hale, B. (1996). Absolute necessities. Philosophical Perspectives, 10, 93–117.Google Scholar
Kim, S., & Maslen, C. (2006). Counterfactuals as short stories. Philosophical Studies, 129(1), 81–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kratzer, A. (1979). Conditional necessity and possibility. In Bäuerle, R., Egli, U., and von Stechow, A., editors. Semantics from Different Points of View. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer, pp. 117–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. (1973). Counterfactuals. Oxford: Blackwell Google Scholar
Mares, E. D. (1997). Who’s afraid of impossible worlds? Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 38(4), 516–526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mares, E. D. & Fuhrmann, A. (1995). A relevant theory of conditionals. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 24(6), 645–665.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nolan, D. (1997). Impossible worlds: A modest approach. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 38(4), 535–572.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stalnaker, R. C. (1968). A Theory of Conditionals. In Harper W. L., Stalnaker R., and Pearce G. editors. IFS: Conditionals, Belief, Decision, Chance and Time, The University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, vol 15. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Vetter, B. (2016). Counterpossibles (not only) for dispositionalists. Philosophical Studies, 173(10), 2681–2700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, T. (2020). Counterpossibles. In Armour-Garb, B. and Kroon, F., editors. Philosophical Fictionalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zagzebski, L. (1990). What if the impossible had been actual? In Beaty, M. D., editor. Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 165–183.Google Scholar