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CLASSICAL COUNTERPOSSIBLES

Part of: General logic Philosophical aspects of logic and foundations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2020

ROHAN FRENCH ,
PATRICK GIRARD  and
DAVID RIPLEY
ROHAN FRENCH
Affiliation:
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIADAVIS, CA, 95616, USAE-mail: rohan.french@gmail.com
PATRICK GIRARD
Affiliation:
SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES, PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLANDAUCKLAND1142, NEW ZEALANDE-mail: p.girard@auckland.ac.nz
DAVID RIPLEY
Affiliation:
PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT MONASH UNIVERSITY SOPHIS BUILDING 11 MONASH UNIVERSITY VIC 3800, AUSTRALIAE-mail: davewripley@gmail.com
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Abstract

We present four classical theories of counterpossibles that combine modalities and counterfactuals. Two theories are anti-vacuist and forbid vacuously true counterfactuals, two are quasi-vacuist and allow counterfactuals to be vacuously true when their antecedent is not only impossible, but also inconceivable. The theories vary on how they restrict the interaction of modalities and counterfactuals. We provide a logical cartography with precise acceptable boundaries, illustrating to what extent nonvacuism about counterpossibles can be reconciled with classical logic.

Keywords

counterpossiblescounterfactualsmodalitiesmodal logicconditional logicimpossible worlds

MSC classification

Primary: 03A99: None of the above, but in this section
Secondary: 03B45: Modal logic (including the logic of norms)
Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Symbolic Logic , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 259 - 275
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Copyright
© Association for Symbolic Logic, 2020

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