The Meaning of If

Description

Despite its small stature, "if" occupies a central place both in everyday language and the philosophical lexicon. In allowing us to talk about hypothetical situations, "if" raises a host of thorny philosophical puzzles about language and logic. Addressing them requires tools from linguistics, logic, probability theory, and metaphysics. Justin Khoo uses these tools to navigate a maze of interconnected issues about conditionals, some of which include: the nature of linguistic communication, the relationship between logical and natural languages, and the relationship between different kinds of modality. According to Khoo's theory, conditionals form a unified class of expressions which share a common semantic core that encodes inferential dispositions. Thus, rather than represent the world, conditionals are devices used to communicate how we are disposed to infer. Khoo shows that this theory can be extended to predict the probabilities of conditionals, as well as how different kinds of conditionals differ both semantically and pragmatically. Khoo's book will make for a significant contribution to the literature on conditionals and should be of interest to philosophers, linguists, and computer scientists. Cover The Meaning of If Copyright Dedication Contents Preface Introduction Part I: Framework Part II: Probabilities Part III: Subjunctive vs. Indicative Part I: Framework 1: Bounding Puzzles 1.1 Indicative Bounding 1.2 Subjunctive Bounding 1.3 Zooming Out 2: Situating the Puzzles in the Literature Terminological Disclaimer 2.1 Indicative Bounding 2.1.1 Denying Conditionalization+ 2.1.2 Denying Weak Sufficiency 2.1.3 Denying Strength Assertability The Restrictor Gambit Bifurcation 2.2 Subjunctive Bounding 2.2.1 Denying Conditionalization− 2.2.2 Denying Weakness 2.2.3 Denying Strong Sufficiency 2.3 Summarizing Appendix 3: Domain Inferentialism 3.1 Inferential Dispositions 3.1.1 Conditionals and Inferential Dispositions 3.1.2 Belief and Inferential Dispositions 3.1.3 Grounding Inferential Dispositions 3.1.4 Constitutivism vs. Rationalism 3.2 Leaving Open the Possibility of Conditionals 3.3 Resolving the Bounding Puzzles 3.3.1 Subjunctive Bounding Resolved 3.3.2 Indicative Bounding Resolved 3.4 Comparisons with Nearby Theories 3.4.1 Factualist Indeterminacy 3.4.2 Non-Factualist Invariantism 4: Sequence Semantics 4.1 From Selection Functions to Sequences 4.2 Refined Contents and Inferential Dispositions 4.3 Factual Determination 4.4 Refined Belief 4.5 Applications 4.5.1 Non-Factual Ignorance 4.5.2 Subjunctive Bounding 4.5.3 Indicative Bounding 4.6 Summary and Next Steps Part II: Probabilities 5: Probabilities of Conditionals 5.1 Preliminaries 5.2 Diachronic Triviality 5.2.1 Denying Closure 5.3 Synchronic Triviality 5.3.1 Right-Nested Conditionals 5.3.2 Left-Nested Conditionals 5.4 Tenability Appendix A: Trivalent Approaches to Triviality Appendix B: Calculating Left-Nested Probabilities 6: Partition Dependence 6.1 Introducing Partition Dependence 6.2 Partition Semantics 6.3 Partitional Pragmatics 6.3.1 Applying the Partitional Constraint 6.3.2 Overriding the Default 6.4 Conclusion Appendix: Comparison with Moss Part III: Subjunctive vs. Indicative 7: Subjunctive Conditionals: The Role of Tense 7.1 Against the Modal Past 8: Temporal Past 8.1 Deriving the Semantic Properties 8.2 Non-Standard Predictions 8.2.1 Epistemic Subjunctives 8.2.2 Metaphysical Indicatives 8.2.3 How Are the Two Readings Related? 8.3 Objections and Replies 8.3.1 Backwards Subjunctives 8.3.2 Temporally Unusual Antecedents/Consequents 8.3.3 The Problem of Hindsight 8.3.4 Wishes and Weak Necessity 8.4 Temporal Past: Deriving the Pragmatic Differences 8.4.1 Leahy’s Antipresupposition Theory 8.4.2 Looking Elsewhere 8.5 Summary Appendix 9: Sufficiency Networks 9.1 Goodman’s Puzzle 9.2 Sufficiencies and Interventions 9.2.1 Fix: Governance 9.3 Challenges to Interventionism 9.4 The Historical-Sufficiency Theory of Subjunctive Conditionals 9.4.1 Building Metaphysical Domains (Informally) 9.4.2 Building Metaphysical Domains (Formally) 9.5 What Makes for Backtracking? 9.5.1 The Pragmatics of Conditional Time 9.6 Elusive Miracles 9.7 Beyond the Possible 9.8 Summary 10: Subjunctive Probabilities 10.1 Probabilities for Subjunctives 10.2 Triviality for Subjunctives 10.2.1 Williams 2012 10.2.2 Santorio’s Triviality Result 10.3 Subjunctive Tenability Conclusion Bibliography Index of Names Index of Terms