Conditionals

Conditionals
Author: Frank Jackson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 256
Release: 1991
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

This collection of readings introduces the reader to the most interesting current work on conditionals. Particular attention is paid to possible worlds semantics for conditionals; the role of conditional probability in helping us to understand conditionals; implicature and the materialconditional; and subjective versus indicative conditionals. The volume brings together important papers by Frank Jackson, V. H. Dudman, Dorothy Edgington, Nelson Goodman, H. P. Grice, David Lewis, and Robert Stalnaker. Oxford Readings in Philosophy is a series designed to bring together important recent writings in major areas of philosophical inquiry, selected from a variety of sources, mostly periodicals, which may not be conveniently available to the university student or the general reader. The editor ofeach volume contributes an introductory essay on the items chosen and on the questions with which they deal. A selective bibliography is appended as a guide to further reading.

Conditionals

Conditionals
Author: Renaat Declerck
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 556
Release: 2012-08-09
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110851741

This book is an extremely detailed and comprehensive examination of conditional sentences in English, using many examples from actual language-use. The syntax and semantics of conditionals (including tense and mood options) and the functions of conditionals in discourse are examined in depth, producing an all-round linguistic view of the subject which contains a wealth of original observations and analyses. Not only linguists specializing in grammar but also those interested in pragmatics and the philosophy of language will find this book a rewarding and illuminating source.

Conditionals

Conditionals
Author: Michael Woods
Publisher: Clarendon Press
Total Pages: 166
Release: 1997-05-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191587826

Conditionals has at its centre an extended essay on this problematic and much-debated subject in the philosophy of language and logic, which the widely respected Oxford philosopher Michael Woods had been preparing for publication at the time of his death in 1993. Woods discusses the distinction between different kinds of conditionals, and then goes on to cover a range of topics, including assertibility, conditional probability, possible-worlds theories, and conditional commands and questions. He ends up sketching a new theory of counterfactual conditionals. This essay is edited for publication by Wood's friend and colleague David Wiggins, and accompanied by a commentary specially written by a leading expert on the topic, Dorothy Edgington. The masterful and original treatment of conditionals presented in this book will demand the attention of all philosophers working in this area.

Conditionals, Information, and Inference

Conditionals, Information, and Inference
Author: Gabriele Kern-Isberner
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2005-05-13
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3540322353

Conditionals are fascinating and versatile objects of knowledge representation. On the one hand, they may express rules in a very general sense, representing, for example, plausible relationships, physical laws, and social norms. On the other hand, as default rules or general implications, they constitute a basic tool for reasoning, even in the presence of uncertainty. In this sense, conditionals are intimately connected both to information and inference. Due to their non-Boolean nature, however, conditionals are not easily dealt with. They are not simply true or false — rather, a conditional “if A then B” provides a context, A, for B to be plausible (or true) and must not be confused with “A entails B” or with the material implication “not A or B.” This ill- trates how conditionals represent information, understood in its strict sense as reduction of uncertainty. To learn that, in the context A, the proposition B is plausible, may reduce uncertainty about B and hence is information. The ab- ity to predict such conditioned propositions is knowledge and as such (earlier) acquired information. The ?rst work on conditional objects dates back to Boole in the 19th c- tury, and the interest in conditionals was revived in the second half of the 20th century, when the emerging Arti?cial Intelligence made claims for appropriate formaltoolstohandle“generalizedrules.”Sincethen,conditionalshavebeenthe topic of countless publications, each emphasizing their relevance for knowledge representation, plausible reasoning, nonmonotonic inference, and belief revision.

On Conditionals

On Conditionals
Author: Elizabeth Closs Traugott
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009-06-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780521113274

On Conditionals provides the first major cross-disciplinary account of conditional (if-then) constructions. Conditional sentences directly reflect the language user's ability to reason about alternatives, uncertainties, and unrealised contingencies. An understanding of the conceptual and behavioural organisation involved in the construction and interpretation of these kinds of sentences therefore provides fundamental insights into the inferential strategies and the cognitive and linguistic processes of human beings. The present volume brings together studies from several perspectives - philosophical, linguistic and psychological - and aims to emphasise the intrinsic connections between the issues to be addressed and to point to new directions for interdisciplinary work.

A Philosophical Guide to Conditionals

A Philosophical Guide to Conditionals
Author: Jonathan Bennett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2003
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199258872

The author, one of the world's leading authorities on the subject of conditional sentences, distils many years' work and teaching into 'A Philosophical Guide to Conditionals', an authoritative treatment of the subject.

The Epistemology of Indicative Conditionals

The Epistemology of Indicative Conditionals
Author: Igor Douven
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2016
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1107111455

Addresses central questions concerning conditionals by combining the methods of formal epistemology with those of cognitive psychology.

Cognition and Conditionals

Cognition and Conditionals
Author: Mike Oaksford
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2010
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199233292

The conditional, if...then, is probably the most important term in natural language and forms the core of systems of logic and mental representation. Cognition and Conditionals is the first volume for over 20 years that brings together recent developments in the cognitive science and psychology of conditional reasoning.

Conditionals in Nonmonotonic Reasoning and Belief Revision

Conditionals in Nonmonotonic Reasoning and Belief Revision
Author: Gabriele Kern-Isberner
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2003-06-29
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3540446001

Conditionals are omnipresent, in everyday life as well as in scientific environments; they represent generic knowledge acquired inductively or learned from books. They tie a flexible and highly interrelated network of connections along which reasoning is possible and which can be applied to different situations. Therefore, conditionals are important, but also quite problematic objects in knowledge representation. This book presents a new approach to conditionals which captures their dynamic, non-proportional nature particularly well by considering conditionals as agents shifting possible worlds in order to establish relationships and beliefs. This understanding of conditionals yields a rich theory which makes complex interactions between conditionals transparent and operational. Moreover,it provides a unifying and enhanced framework for knowledge representation, nonmonotonic reasoning, belief revision,and even for knowledge discovery.

Knowledge and Conditionals

Knowledge and Conditionals
Author: Robert C. Stalnaker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2019-06-27
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0192538292

Robert C. Stalnaker presents a set of essays on the structure of inquiry. In the first part he focuses on the concepts of knowledge, belief, and partial belief, and on the rules and procedures we use - or ought to use - to determine what to believe, and what to claim that we know. In the second part he examines conditional statements and conditional beliefs, their role in epistemology, and their relations to causal and explanatory concepts, such as dispositions, objective chance, relations of dependence, and independence. A central concern of the book is the interaction of different cognitive perspectives - the ways in which the attitudes of rational agents are or should be influenced by critical reflection on their present cognitive situation, on their own cognitive situations at other times, and on the cognitive situations of others with whom they interact. The general picture that is developed is naturalistic, following Hume in rejecting a substantive role for pure reason in the defense of inductive rules, and in giving causal concepts a central role in the description and explanation of our cognitive practices. However, Stalnaker rejects the side of Hume that aims to reduce concepts involving natural necessity to more basic descriptive concepts. Instead, he argues that the development of inductive rules and practices takes place in interaction with the development of concepts for giving a theoretical description of the world.