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. 2022;200(1):1-12.
doi: 10.1007/s11229-022-03518-z. Epub 2022 Feb 17.

Williamson on indicatives and suppositional heuristics

Francesco Berto  1   2
Affiliations

Williamson on indicatives and suppositional heuristics

Francesco Berto. Synthese. 2022.

Abstract

Timothy Williamson has defended the claim that the semantics of the indicative 'if' is given by the material conditional. Putative counterexamples can be handled by better understanding the role played in our assessment of indicatives by a fallible cognitive heuristic, called the Suppositional Procedure. Williamson's Suppositional Conjecture has it that the Suppositional Procedure is humans' primary way of prospectively assessing conditionals. This paper raises some doubts on the Suppositional Procedure and Conjecture.

Keywords: Acceptability of conditionals; Adams‘ Thesis; Conditional probabilities; Indicative conditionals.

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References

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    1. Berto F, Özgün A. Indicative conditionals: Probabilities and relevance. Philosophical Studies. 2021;178:3697–730. doi: 10.1007/s11098-021-01622-3. - DOI

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