Levelling counterfactual scepticism

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a novel response to counterfactual scepticism, the thesis that most ordinary counterfactual claims are false. In the process we aim to shed light on the relationship between debates in the philosophy of science and debates concerning the semantics and pragmatics of counterfactuals. We argue that science is concerned with many domains of inquiry, each with its own characteristic entities and regularities; moreover, statements of scientific law often include an implicit ceteris paribus clause that restricts the scope of the associated regularity to circumstances that are 'fitting' to the domain in question. This observation reveals a way of responding to scepticism while, at the same time, doing justice both to the role of counterfactuals in science and to the complexities inherent in ordinary counterfactual discourse and reasoning. Keywords Counterfactuals • Counterfactual scepticism • Ceteris paribus laws • Contextualism • HájekCounterfactual scepticism, the thesis that most counterfactuals are false, has received a fair amount of attention recently. The discussion of counterfactual scepticism and how one should react to it, either by resisting it somehow or by accepting it and living with the consequences, yields insights into the nature and utility of counterfactuals and counterfactual reasoning.

Counterfactual skepticism is (just) skepticism

“…And there is no obvious threat to Humean Supervenience: at any world, lots of different random selections are compatible with our use of language; and so no one selection function picks out the counterfactual facts. 36 I believe the same questions face the antecedent contextualism of Steele and Sandgren (2020). (I borrow the name from Loewenstein (2021b).…”

Does Chance Undermine Would?

“…At any rate, it is hard to deny Chance Ensures Could and Clash: both seem like incredibly plausible principles. And most of the responses to the argument from chance do not question these principles but instead attempt to block the move from Chance Undermines Would to counterfactual skepticism-e.g., by positing an ambiguity in couldcounterfactuals (Lewis, 1986), giving counterfactuals a probabilistic semantics (Edgington, 2008;Leitgeb, 2012aLeitgeb, ,b, 2013, appealing to context-shifts when woulds and their contrary could-nots are assessed (Ichikawa, 2011;Lewis, 2016;Sandgren and Steele, 2020), or stipulating the existence of primitive counterfacts explaining the truth of would-counterfactuals (Hawthorne, 2005;Stefánsson, 2018). Almost none of the responses to the argument from chance deny Chance Ensures Could or Clash.…”

“…There have been a number of attempts to resist these conclusions (e.g., Lewis 1986;DeRose 1999;Bennett 2003;Hawthorne 2005;Edgington 2008;Ichikawa 2011;Leitgeb 2012aLeitgeb ,b, 2013Moss 2013;Lewis 2016;Stefánsson 2018;Sandgren and Steele 2020). By and large, they accept the chance-undermines-would principle but deny that it entails counterfactual skepticism (by positing, e.g., ambiguity, context-shifts, primitive counterfacts, etc.).…”

Should we be skeptics or contextualists about counterfactual conditionals?

“…Naïve antecedent-contextualist reinterpretation of (1): If Sophie had gone to the parade and nothing highly improbable or atypical had happened, she would have seen Pedro. Sandgren and Steele (2020) have developed a sophisticated antecedent-contextualist account. On their view, counterfactuals should be understood relative to a domain of scientific inquiry, although this is to be interpreted loosely.…”