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Intrinsicality and the Conditional

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

R.E. Jennings*
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University, B.C., V5A 1S6

Extract

In [3] I argued for a particular kind of semantics for subjunctive conditionals. The arguments were based upon some linguistic considerations of the general character of what we mean when we say such and such. I urged that a semantics for subjunctive conditionals ought to provide a distinct representation of the subjunctive mood of a sentence, and should take seriously the fact that subjunctive conditionals admit distinctions of tense. The envisaged semantics took the subjunctive conditional to be about occasions, and the central problem discussed was, accordingly, how to represent what must count as the same occasion in spite of whatever changes were required to make the antecedent of the conditional true.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1986

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References

[1]Bennett, J.Counterfactuals and Possible Worlds,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 4 (1974), 381402CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2]Gabbay, D.M. Investigations in Modal and Tense Logics with Application to Problems in Philosophy and Linguistics (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co. 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[3]Jennings, R.E.The Subjunctive in Conditionals and Elsewhere,’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 63 (1982), 146–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4]Lewis, D. Counterfactuals (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1973)Google Scholar
[5]Stalnaker, R.C.A Theory of Conditionals,’ in Rescher, N. ed., Studies in Logical Theory (American Philosophical Quarterly Monograph Series, Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1968), 98112Google Scholar