It implies that no version of the counterfactual analysis of event causa. David lewis counterfactuals and comparative possibility in the last dozen years or so, our understanding of modality has been much improved by means of possibleworld semantics. Yet counterexamples have emerged, which suggest a need to invoke causal independence, and thus threaten conceptual circularity. Counterfactual causality and empirical research in. David lewiss second book was counterfactuals 1973a. In lewiss usage in contrast to mine, causal depend. David kellogg lewis september 28, 1941 october 14, 2001 was an american philosopher. Statistical mechanics and the asymmetry of counterfactual.
On lewis, schaffer and the nonreductive evaluation of. If it had been the case that p, then it would have been the case that q is true at a world w just in case q is true at all the possible pworlds closest to w. One criticism of david lewiss account of counterfactuals is that it sometimes assigns the wrong truthvalue to a counterfactual when. David lewis theories of causation and their influence. Counterfactuals is david lewis s forceful presentation of and sustained argument for a particular view about propositions which express contrarytofact conditionals, including his famous defense of realism about possible worlds. Containing thirteen papers in all, the book includes both new essays and previously published papers, some of them with extensive new postscripts reflecting lewis s current thinking. Lewis taught briefly at ucla and then at princeton from 1970 until his death. Since its original publication in 1973, it has become a classic of contemporary philosophy, and is essential reading. The truth of a counterfactual does not just depend on the state of the world the way a direct observation does. Forrest and armstrong, in an argument against david lewis theory. Causation as influence david lewis the journal of philosophy, vol.
Counterfactuals and explanation princeton university. Download it once and read it on your kindle device, pc, phones or tablets. David lewis and his followers suppose that we need a model containing the principles by which the system operates a nomological model to assess counterfactuals but not a causal model. Pdf causation is still poorly understood in strategy research, and confusion prevails around key concepts such as competitive advantage. David lewiss semantics for counterfactuals remains the standard view. Counterfactual dependence and times arrow citeseerx.
On the plurality of worlds, by david lewis louis derosset february 27, 2012 david lewis is one of the most in uential philosophers of our age, and on the plurality of worlds henceforth, opw is his magnum opus. Philosophers such as david lewis and robert stalnaker modeled counterfactuals using the possible world semantics of modal logic. Causation and counterfactuals by john david collins. Counterfactuals, causal independence and conceptual circularity.
Apr 24, 20 i argue that david lewiss attempt, in his counterfactual dependence and times arrow, to explain the fixity of the past in terms of counterfactual independence is unsuccessful. Combining l with 1c4c resolves the seven counterexamples above. Counterfactuals is david lewis forceful presentation of and sustained argument for a particular view about propositions which express contrary to fact conditionals, including his famous defense of realism about possible worlds. Counterfactuals roughly, statements of the form if c hadnt occurred, e wouldnt have occurred are intrinsically interesting for lewis, but also unite several strands of his system.
Much of the material was presented at the whitehead lectures at harvard, 2009, the townsend lectures at berkeley, 2010, the nagel lecture at columbia, 2010, a conference on propositions and samesaying at sydney university, 2010, and at talks to the philosophy departments of university of miami and virginia commonwealth university. In the last dozen years or so, our understanding of modality has been. Counterfactuals stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Moreover, he lewis stalnaker approach o ers no way of inferring noncounterfactual sentences from counterfactuals. Second and more important, lewis has mischaracterized the objection, or at least he has not presented the most sympathetic version of it. David lewis was famous among other things for the metaphilosophical claim that.
Pdf on laws and counterfactuals in causal reasoning. Lewis, david, counterfactuals and comparative possibility. Lewis counterfactual theory of causation summary an account only of deterministic, token causation. Krabbe, note on a completeness theorem in the theory of. Lewis and stalnaker on subjunctive conditionals 02. He is also closely associated with australia, whose philosophical community he visited almost annually for more than thirty years. The semantics of a conditional a b are given by some function on the relative closeness of worlds where a is true and b is true, on the one hand, and worlds where a is true but b is not, on the other. This is the second volume of philosophical essays by one of the most innovative and influential philosophers now writing in english. He was best known for his work in metaphysics and ontology, and all of this work was heavily grounded in his theory of alternate worlds, the use of counterfactuals as a philosophic method for understanding truth were around long before lewis. A defense of conditional excluded middle this paper is.
Counterfactuals is david lewis forceful presentation of and sustained argument for a particular view about propositions which express contrary to fact conditionals, including his famous defense of realism about possible worlds and his theory of laws of nature. Jonathan schaffer 2004 proposes an ingenious amendment to david lewiss semantics. Pdf causation, counterfactuals and competitive advantage. But it is not this distinction between a lewis style merely nomological model and a causal model that i want to discuss here. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading counterfactuals. If he speaks of salamis, then it must be as if the persians might still win.
Counterfactuals is david lewiss forceful presentation of and sustained argument for a particular view about propositions which express contrarytofact conditi. This idea is commonly attributed to david lewis and robert stalnaker, but the actual history is a bit more nuanced. David lewis 1979 has argued that according to his possible worlds analysis of counterfactuals, backtracking counterfactuals of the form if event a were to happen at t a, then event b would happen at t b where t b precedes t a, are usually false if b does not actually happen at t b. Counterfactuals without possible worlds ever since the pioneering work of stalnaker and lewis1, it has been customary to provide a semantics for counterfactuals statements in terms of possible worlds. Suppose there are possible worlds, 1 ordered by comparative similarity.
I point out that there is an ambiguity in the claim that the past is counterfactually independent of the present or, more generally, that the earlier is counterfactually independent of the later. David lewis 19412001 was one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. Since its original publication in 1973, it has become a classic. A difficulty for the possible worlds analysis of counterfactuals. He made significant contributions to philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, decision theory, epistemology, metaethics and aesthetics. Lewis taught briefly at ucla and then at princeton from 1970 until his. Lewis, david, counterfactuals and comparative possibility, journal of philosophical logic, 2. David lewis 1986 defends an analysis of counterfactuals intended to yield this asymmetry. Counterfactuals and comparative possibility in the last dozen years or so, our understanding of modality has been much improved by means of possibleworld semantics.
David lewis is possibly the most famous and oft quoted philosopher of the 20th century. Made it through the first 4 chapters with considerable effort while researching for a paper in scientific explanation. The reason that we dont typically assert them is pragmatic. The guiding idea behind counterfactual analyses of causation is the thought that as david lewis puts it we think of a cause as something that makes a difference, and the difference it makes must be a difference from what would have happened without it. Thus it seems di cult to evaluate the truth of any particular counterfactual based on other evidence. Thirty years after lewiss paper, this book brings together some of the most important recent work connectingor, in some cases, disputing the connection betweencounterfactuals and causation, including the complete version of lewiss whitehead lectures, causation as influence, a major reworking of his original paper. Lewis on causation the linchpin of lewis views on causation is the counterfactual. David lewiss theory of conditionals is formulated in terms of a different. Counterfactuals, causal independence and conceptual. Counterfactuals university of california, berkeley. Lewis accepts this and argues that any explication of counterfactuals must therefore either be stated in. Counterfactuals and explanation boris kment on the received view, counterfactuals are analyzed using the concept of closeness between possible worlds.
Lewis and stalnaker on subjunctive conditionals david lewis. However, the most sympathetic rendition of the objection raises some serious questions, as i see it, about lewis s semantics for counterfactuals and how it is to be applied. Counterfactual theories of causation stanford encyclopedia. Counterfactuals, journal of philosophical logic 7 1978. Its important to note that counterfactuals have, perhaps necessarily so, a certain vagueness.
Pdf in his metaphysical summa of 1986, the plurality of worlds, david lewis famously defends a doctrine he. Possibleworld theories of counterfactuals bibliography. In a recent paper, pruss 20 proves the validity of the rule beta2 relative to lewiss semantics for counterfactuals, which is a significant step forward in the debate about the consequence argument. Counterfactuals and possible worlds nigel shardlow. Mar 30, 2012 the present paper expands on material in the first part of fine. His publications include convention reissued by blackwell 2002, on the. Jun 01, 2004 one philosophical approach to causation sees counterfactual dependence as the key to the explanation of causal facts.
If the match had not been struck, then it would not have lit. Counterfactuals and the fixity of the past springerlink. Counterfactuals without possible worlds ever since the. Counterfactuals, causal independence counterfactuals, causal independence and conceptual circularity j onathan s chaffer david lewiss semantics for counterfactuals remains the standard view. Roughly speaking, the idea is that the counterfactual from a to c should be taken to be true just in case all of the closest.
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