The Ramsey Test and Evidential Support Theory

Abstract

The Ramsey Test is considered to be the default test for the acceptability of indicative conditionals. I will argue that it is incompatible with some of the recent developments in conceptualizing conditionals, namely the growing empirical evidence for the Relevance Hypothesis. According to the hypothesis, one of the necessary conditions of acceptability for an indicative conditional is its antecedent being positively probabilistically relevant for the consequent. The source of the idea is Evidential Support Theory presented in Douven ( 2008). I will defend the hypothesis against alleged counterexamples, and show that is it supported by growing empirical evidence. Finally, I will present a version of the Ramsey test which incorporates the relevance condition and therefore is consistent with growing empirical evidence for the relevance hypothesis.

Coherence, not conditional meaning, accounts for the relevance effect

“…These perspectives have been reflected in recent debates about the semantics and pragmatics of indicative conditionals (for a recent discussion Oaksford and Chater, 2020 ; Berto, 2022 ; Sikorski, 2022 ). Both sides take as a starting point the suggestion of Ramsey ( 1990 ) that we evaluate “If A, C” by supposing that A is true.…”