Counterpossibles in Semantics and Metaphysics [Special Issue]
Issue: Issue 04 • Author/s: Timothy Williamson
Topics: Epistemology, Philosophical logic
This paper defends from recent objections and misunderstandings the orthodox view that subjunctive conditionals with impossible antecedents are true. It explains apparent counterexamples as cases where a normally reliable suppositional heuristic for assessing conditionals gives incorrect results, which some theorists take at face value.
Game Counterpossibles [Special Issue]
Issue: Issue 11 • Author/s: Felipe Morales Carbonell
Topics: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophical logic
Counterpossibles, counterfactuals conditional with impossible antecedents, are notoriously contested; while the standard view makes them trivially true, some authors argue that they can be non-trivially true. In this paper, I examine the use of counterfactuals in the context of games, and argue that there is a case to be made for their non-triviality in a restricted sense. In particular, I examine the case of retro problems in chess, where it can happen that one is tasked with evaluating counterfactuals about illegal positions. If we understand illegality as a type of…