Contrastive explanations, crystal balls and the inadmissibility of historical information

Abstract

I argue for the falsity of what I call the "Admissibility of Historical Information Thesis". According to the AHIT propositions that describe past events are always admissible with respect to propositions that describe future events. I first demonstrate that this demand has some counter-intuitive implications and then argue that the source of the counter-intuitiveness is a wrong understanding of the concept of chance. I also discuss the relation between the failure of the AHIT and the existence of contrastive explanations for chancy events.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 92,953

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

  • Only published works are available at libraries.

Similar books and articles

On the Inadmissibility of Some Historical Information.Ittay Nissan-Rozen - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 97 (2):479-493.
Holistic explanations of events.Aviezer Tucker - 2004 - Philosophy 79 (4):573-589.
The demand for contrastive explanations.Nadine Elzein - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (5):1325-1339.
Contrastive causation.Jonathan Schaffer - 2005 - Philosophical Review 114 (3):327-358.
No Crystal Balls.Jack Spencer - 2018 - Noûs 54 (1):105-125.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-09-07

Downloads
13 (#1,064,266)

6 months
2 (#1,258,417)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Ittay Nissan-Rozen
Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references