Abstract
The Ramseyan thesis that the probability of an indicative conditional is equal to the corresponding conditional probability of its consequent given its antecedent is both widely confirmed and subject to attested counterexamples (e.g., McGee, in Analysis 60(1):107–111, 2000; Kaufmann, in J Philos Logic 33:583–606, 2004). This raises several puzzling questions. For instance, why are there interpretations of conditionals that violate this Ramseyan thesis in certain contexts, and why are they otherwise very rare? In this paper, I raise some challenges to Stefan Kaufmann’s account of why the Ramseyan thesis sometimes fails, and motivate my own theory. On my theory, the proposition expressed by an indicative conditional is partially determined by a background partition, and hence its probability depends on the choice of such a partition. I hold that this background partition is contextually determined, and in certain conditions is set by a salient question under discussion in the context. I argue that the resulting theory offers compelling answers to the puzzling questions raised by failures of the Ramseyan thesis.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams E. (1970) Subjunctive and indicative conditionals. Foundations of Language, 6(1): 89–94
Adams E. (1975) The logic of conditionals (Vol. 86). Synthese Library Boston, D. Reidel
Bacon, A. (2015). Stalnaker’s thesis in context. The Review of Symbolic Logic, 8(1), 131–163.
Bar-Hillel M. (1980) The base-rate fallacy in probability judgments. Acta Psychologica, 44: 211–233
Barker S. J. (1998) Predetermination and tense probabilism. Analysis, 58(4): 290–296
Bennett J. (2003) A philosophical guide to conditionals. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Bradley R. (2012) Multidemonsional possible-world semantics for conditionals. Philosophical Review, 121(4): 539–571
Chalmers D., Hájek A. (2007) Ramsey + Moore = God. Analysis, 67(72): 170–172
Douven I. (2008) Kaufmann on the probabilities of conditionals. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 37(3): 259–266
Douven I. (2013) The probabilities of conditionals revisited. Cognitive Science, 37(4): 711–730
Dowell J. (2011) A flexible contextualist account of epistemic modals. Philosophers’ Imprint, 11(14): 1–25
Edgington D. (1991) The mystery of the missing matter of fact. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 65: 185–209
Edgington D. (1995) On conditionals. Mind, 104: 235–329
Edgington D. (1997) Truth, objectivity, counterfactuals, and Gibbard. Mind, 106(421): 107–116
Edgington, D. (2004). Counterfactuals and the benefit of hindsight. In P. Noordhof & P. Dowe (Eds.), Cause and chance: Causation in an indeterministic world (pp. 12–28). New York: Routledge.
Ellis B. (1978) A unified theory of conditionals. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 7(1): 107–124
Evans, J. St. B. T., & Over, D. E. (2004). If. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Frank, A. (1997). Context dependence in modal constructions. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Stuttgart.
Gardenfors P. (1988) Knowledge in flux: Modeling the dynamics of epistemic states. MIT Press, Cambridge
Geurts, B. (2004). On an ambiguity in quantified conditionals. http://ncs.ruhosting.nl/bart/papers/conditionals.pdf.
Geurts B. (2005) Entertaining alternatives: Disjunctions as modals. Natural Language Semantics, 13: 383–410
Gibbard, A. (1981). Two recent theories of conditionals. In W. L. Harper, R. Stalnaker, & G. Pearce (Eds.), Ifs (pp. 211-247). Dordrecht: Reidel.
Gigerenzer G., Hoffrage U. (1995) How to improve Bayesian reasoning without instruction: Frequency formats. Psychological Review, 102(4): 684–704
Glanzberg M. (2007) Context, content, and relativism. Philosophical Studies, 136: 1–29
Groenendijk, J., & Stokhof, M. (1984). Studies on the semantics of questions and the pragmatics of answers. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Amsterdam.
Groenendijk, J., & Stokhof, M. (1997). Questions. In J. van Benthem & A. ter Meulen (Eds.), Handbook of logic and language (pp. 1055-1124). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Hájek A. (1989) Probabilities of conditionals—revisited. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 18: 423–428
Hájek A. (1994) Triviality on the cheap? In: Eells E., Skyrms B. (eds) Probability and Conditionals Belief Revision and Rational Decision. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 113–140
Hájek A. (2011) Triviality pursuit. Topoi, 30: 3–15
Hájek A. (2012) The fall of “adams’ thesis”. Journal of Logic, Language, and Information, 21: 145–161
Hájek A., Hall N. (1994) The hypothesis of the conditional construal of conditional probability. In: Eells E., Skyrms B. (eds) Probability and conditionals. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 75–111
Hawthorne J. (2005) Chance and counterfactuals. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 70(2): 396–405
Hoffrage U., Lindsey S., Hertwig R., Gigerenzer G. (2000) Communicating statistical information. Science, 290(5500): 2261–2262
Jackson F. (1979) On assertion and indicative conditionals. Philosophical Review, 88: 565–89
Jackson F. (1987) Conditionals. Blackwell, Oxford
Jeffrey R. (1991) Matter-of-fact conditionals. Aristotelian Society: Supplemental, 65: 161–183
Kahneman D., Tversky A. (1973) On the psychology of prediction. Psychological Review, 80: 237–251
Kahneman D., Tversky A. (1982) Evidence impact of base rates. In: Kahneman D., Slovic P., Tversky A. (eds) Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 153–160
Kaufmann S. (2004) Conditioning against the grain: Abduction and indicative conditionals. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 33: 583–606
Kaufmann S. (2005) Conditional predictions. Linguistics and Philosophy, 28: 181–231
Kaufmann S. (2009) Conditionals right and left: Probabilities for the whole family. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 38: 1–53
Khoo J. (2013) A note on Gibbard’s proof. Philosophical Studies, 166(1): 153–164
Khoo J. (2013) Conditionals, indeterminacy, and triviality. Philosophical Perspectives, 27(1): 260–287
King J. C. (2013) Supplementives, the coordination account, and conflicting intentions. Philosophical Perspectives, 27: 288–311
King, J. C. (2013b). The metasemantics of contextual sensitivity. In A. Burgess & B. Sherman (Eds.), New essays in metasemantics (pp. 97–118). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kratzer A. (1977) What ‘must’ and ‘can’ must and can mean. Linguistics and Philosophy, 1: 337–355
Kratzer A. (1981) The notional category of modality. In: Eikmeyer H. J., Rieser H. (eds) Words, worlds, and contexts. New approaches in words semantics Berlin, de Gruyter, pp 38–74
Kratzer A. (1986) Conditionals. Chicago Linguistics Society, 22(2): 1–15
Kratzer A. (1991) Modality. In: Stechow A., Wunderlich D. (eds) Handbuch Semantik. de Gruyter, Berlin, pp 639–650
Kratzer A. (2012) Collected papers on modals and conditionals. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Lewis D. (1976) Probabilities of conditionals and conditional probabilities. The Philosophical Review, 85: 297–315
Lewis D. (1981) Causal decision theory. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 59: 5–30
Lewis D. (1986) On the plurality of worlds. Blackwell, Oxford
Lewis D. (1986) Probabilities of conditionals and conditional probabilities. II. The Philosophical Review, 95: 581–589
McDermott M. (1999) Counterfactuals and access points. Mind, 108: 291–334
McGee V. (1985) A counterexample to modus ponens. The Journal of Philosophy, 82(9): 462–471
McGee V. (1989) Conditional probabilities and compounds of conditionals. Philosophical Review, 98: 485–542
McGee V. (2000) To tell the truth about conditionals. Analysis, 60(1): 107–111
Moss S. (2012) On the pragmatics of counterfactuals. Nous, 46(2): 561–86
Moss S. (2015) On the semantics and pragmatics of epistemic vocabulary. Semantics & Pragmatics, 8(5): 1–81
Perry J. (2009) Directing intentions. In: Almog J., Leonardi P. (eds) The philosophy of David Kaplan. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 187–201
Pollock J. L. (1981) A refined theory of counterfactuals. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 10: 239–266
Ramsey P. F. (1931) The foundations of mathematics and other logical essays. Kegan Paul,Trench Trubner & Co, London
Roberts, C. (1996). Information structure in discourse: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. In J.H. Yoon & A. Kathol (Eds.), Ohio State University working papers in linguistics (Vol. 49). Columbus: The Ohio State University.
Roberts C. (2012) Information structure in discourse: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. Semantics & Pragmatics, 5(6): 1–69
Roberts C. (2012) Information structure: Afterword. Semantics & Pragmatics, 5(7): 1–19
Rothschild D. (2013) Do indicative conditionals express propositions. Nous, 47(1): 49–68
Schulz M. (2014) Counterfactuals and arbitrariness. Mind, 123(492): 1021–1055
Skyrms B. (1988) Conditional chance. In: Fetzer J. H. (eds) Probability and causality. Studies in epistemology, logic, pp 161–178
Skyrms B. (1990) The dynamics of rational deliberation. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Sorensen R. (1988) Blindspots. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Sorensen R. (2001) Vagueness and contradiction. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Stalnaker R. (1968) A theory of conditionals. In: Rescher N. (eds) Studies in logical theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 98–112
Stalnaker R. (1970) Probability and conditionals. Philosophy of Science, 37(1): 64–80
Stalnaker R. (1975) Indicative conditionals. Philosophia, 5: 269–86
Stalnaker R. (1976) Possible worlds. Nous, 10: 65–75
Stalnaker R. (1978) Assertion. In: Cole P. (eds) Syntax and semantics 9: Pragmatics. Academic Press, New York, pp 315–332
Stalnaker, R. (1980). A defense of conditional excluded middle. In W. L. Harper, G. Pearce, & R. Stalnaker (Eds.), Ifs (pp. 97–104). Dordrecht: Reidel.
Stalnaker R. (1984) Inquiry. MIT Press, Cambridge
Stalnaker R., Jeffrey R. (1994) Conditionals as random variables. In: Eells E., Skyrms B. (eds) Probabilities and conditionals: Belief revision and rational decision. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 31–46
Stalnaker, R. (2011). Conditional propositions and conditional assertions. In A. Egan & B. Weatherson (Eds.), Epistemic modality (pp. 227–248). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Starr W. B. (2014) What ’if’? Philosophers’ Imprint, 14(10): 1–27
van Fraassen B. (1976) Probabilities of conditionals. In: Harper L. W., Hooker C. (eds) Foundations of probability theory, statistical inference, and statistical theories of science. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp 261–300
van Fraassen B. (1980) Review of Brian Ellis, rational belief systems. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 10: 497–511
Warmbrod K. (1983) Epistemic conditionals. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 64: 249–265
Willer M. (2010) New surprises for the Ramsey test. Synthese, 176: 291–300
Williams G. J. R. (2008) Conversation and conditionals. Philosophical Studies, 138: 211–223
Williamson T. (1994) Vagueness. Routledge, New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Khoo, J. Probabilities of conditionals in context. Linguist and Philos 39, 1–43 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-015-9182-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-015-9182-z