Probabilities of conditionals in context

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• 作者：Justin Khoo
• 关键词：Conditionals ; Probability ; Context ; Questions ; Indeterminacy
• 刊名：Linguistics and Philosophy
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：February 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：39
• 期：1
• 页码：1-43
• 全文大小：924 KB
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• 作者单位：Justin Khoo (1)
  
  1. Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, 32-d808, Cambridge, MA, 02139-4307, USA
  
• 刊物类别：Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
• 刊物主题：Linguistics
  Semantics
  Syntax
  Computational Linguistics
  Philosophy of Language
  Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
  
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1573-0549

文摘

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. Keywords Conditionals Probability Context Questions Indeterminacy