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Notes
In working with this toy example, I might seem to be leaving out both inferences in which no premise is left undischarged (as in conditional proof or reductio ad absurdum) and inferences that proceed on the basis of suppositions. I focus on this toy example both because the issues about inference that interest me are best brought out by ignoring these complexities for now, and because what I say extends naturally to them, as Wright shows explicitly in his comments.
I am in no way implying that the Taking Condition is a solution to the problem of deviant causal chains or that that problem no longer arises. That problem is still with us: the ‘taking’ on which I am insisting has to cause the conclusion ‘in the right way.’
On this point see Wright (2001) and Broome ibid.
For a nice exposition of this point, drawn from my 2003 see Dogramaci ms.
I learned this example from David Barnett.
I have not tracked down a reference for this view in the literature. It was suggested to me in discussion by Tim Scanlon as a view that he was sympathetic to, although I wouldn’t want to commit him to it on such a slender basis.
See also Wright (2007) on what he calls the ‘Modus Ponens model’ of following a rule.
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Boghossian, P. What is inference?. Philos Stud 169, 1–18 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-9903-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-9903-x