The Full Theory of Conditional Elements: Enumerating, Exemplifying, and Evaluating Each of the Eight Conditional Elements

Abstract

This paper presents a unified, more-or-less complete, and largely pragmatic theory of indicative conditionals as they occur in natural language, which is entirely truthfunctional and does not involve probability. It includes material implication as a specialand the most important-case, but not as the only case. The theory of conditional elements, as we term it, treats if-statements analogously to the more familiar and less controversial other truth-functional compounds, such as conjunction and disjunction.

Austinian Ifs Revisited — And Squared Away with the Equivalence Thesis and the Theory of Conditional Elements

“…The second explanation, endorsed in Fulda (2010) and explained further in Hernández and Fulda (2012), fits just fine with the theory of conditional elements, but not nearly as well with the Equivalence Thesis. This is the view that in pure Austinian ifs such as (1), the antecedent plays no truthfunctional role, with both the semantics and the pragmatics collocated solely in the consequent.…”

“…But this is not what my former colleague meant, because it does not explain at all the purpose of the antecedent as given -which, on his stated view, does require a magical world. Now, I don't deny what I endorsed in Fulda (2010), namely Thomson (1990: 69) ''Plainly then, it will not do to import the reasons for which the conditional is asserted into the meaning of the conditional.'' The point here, however, is to give not simply the meaning or truth conditions of the entire sentence but of both parts of it, and the first part creates problems with an ordinary world.…”

“…The best explanation that is both simple and elegant is based on Fogelin (1972) as modified by Fulda (1999Fulda ( , 2009, which is further modified here. I abandoned that explanation in the discussion in Fulda (2010) due to a most elementary error missed by not only this author, but also by the generally high caliber of referees who were of material assistance in my numerous other papers in both of those jour nals. I cannot say what happened in 1999, since that paper was accepted almost as is.…”