Abstract
I aim to show that standard theories of counterfactuals are mistaken, not in detail, but in principle, and I aim to say what form a tenable theory must take. Standard theories entail a categorical interpretation of counterfactuals, on which to state that, if it were that A, it would be that C is to state something, not relative to any supposition or hypothesis, but categorically. On the rival suppositional interpretation, to state that, if it were that A, it would be that C is to state that it would be that C relative to the supposition that it were that A. The two interpretations make incompatible predictions concerning the correct evaluation of counterfactuals. I argue that the suppositional interpretation makes the correct prediction.
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Notes
Whereas I speak of questions without answers, Field speaks of indeterminate sentences. Field says that “for an agent to treat A as potentially indeterminate is for him to have degrees of belief in it and its negation that add to less than 1” (2000, p. 8).
Stalnaker (1968, pp. 33–34) says, “Consider a possible world in which A is true, and which otherwise differs minimally from the actual world. ‘If A, then B’ is true (false) just in case B is true (false) in that possible world.”
Not all counterfactuals violate Field’s Principle. Suppose again that, because Harry is a borderline case of baldness, there is no answer to the question of whether Harry is bald. Now consider whether, if Harry had had the very same hair situation, but had been a fraction of an inch taller, he would have been bald. One is inclined to say that there is no answer to the question. Suppose that this is right. Then how confident should we be that Harry would have been bald, and how confident should we be that he would not have been bald? Here I think one should have no confidence that he would have been bald and no confidence that he would not have been bald. For, because a minor difference in height is irrelevant to whether a person qualifies as bald, however confident one is that Harry would have been bald, one should be equally confident that Harry is bald; and however confident one is that Harry would not have been bald, one should be equally confident that Harry is not bald. And we have already concluded that, on the present supposition, one should have zero confidence that Harry is bald and zero confidence that he is not bald.
In my 2006 I defend a particular version of the suppositional view as it applies to indicative conditionals; in an unpublished manuscript (“Zif Would Have Been If: A Suppositional View of Counterfactuals”), I defend that version as it applies to counterfactual conditionals. In the present paper, my aim is simply to show that some version of the suppositional view must be correct for counterfactuals (and therefore that all standard views of counterfactuals are false).
On a related note, the suppositional view explains what is plausible about its rival categorical theories. These theories purport to give the truth conditions of what is categorically stated by counterfactuals. They do a bad job of this, since nothing is categorically stated by counterfactuals. Still, they may do a relatively good job of tracking the conditions under which what is stated by a counterfactual has a high degree of probability, conditional on what is supposed.
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Colorado at Boulder. For helpful comments and discussion, I am grateful to members of those audiences, and to Yuval Avnur, George Bealer, David Christensen, Hartry Field, Michael Huemer, William Lycan, Adam Morton, Adam Pautz, Derk Pereboom, and a referee for Philosophical Studies.
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Barnett, D. The myth of the categorical counterfactual. Philos Stud 144, 281–296 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9210-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9210-8