Gundersen on Counterfactuals and Tracking
-
Joshua A. Smith
Abstract
In a recent article, Lars Bo Gundersen has suggested a new semantics for counterfactuals (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 85: 1-20, 2004). The new semantics gives up on the idea that the actual world must be at the center of world orderings. Instead, statistically normal worlds are at the center. Part of the motivation for this idea is that a very influential account of knowledge, so-called ‘tracking’ accounts, seem right, but suffer serious problems with more traditional semantics for counterfactuals. Gundersen's semantics, if correct, helps tracking accounts with certain problems, but leads to new problems that seem intractable. So while Gundersen's semantics might be correct, those who endorse tracking accounts of knowledge should be loath to endorse it.
© Philosophia Press 2005
Articles in the same Issue
- The Dialectic of Perspectivism, I
- Science Studies and Moral Challenges. Making it explicit: an updating of science studies
- Incorporating Feminist Standpoint Theory
- Contractualist Account of Reasons for Being Moral Defended
- Enjoying the Law. On a possible conflict between Kant's views on obedience and enjoyment
- Ethics in the Tractatus and Imaginative Understanding
- A Bee's-Eye View on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals
- Gundersen on Counterfactuals and Tracking
- Counterfactuals and Tracking – A Reply to Smith
- Book Review
- Robin May Schott, Discovering Feminist philosophy; Knowledge, ethics politics, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, pp. x +157
- Cecilia Sjöholm, The Antigone Complex, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2004, pp. 240
- Phenomenology and Psychiatry: A Contemporary Diagnosis Introducing the Work of Thomas Fuchs
- Gunnar Foss and Eivind Kasa (eds.), Forms of Knowledge and Sensibility: Ernst Cassirer and the Human Sciences, Høyskoleforlaget AS – Norwegian Academic Press, 2002, pp. 223
- Dan Zahavi, Søren Overgaard and Thomas Schwarz Wentzer (eds.), Den unge Heidegger, Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag 2003, 229 pp.
- Philosophical Aspects on Emotions, ed. Åsa Carlson, Stockholm: Thales, 2005. 351 pp.
Articles in the same Issue
- The Dialectic of Perspectivism, I
- Science Studies and Moral Challenges. Making it explicit: an updating of science studies
- Incorporating Feminist Standpoint Theory
- Contractualist Account of Reasons for Being Moral Defended
- Enjoying the Law. On a possible conflict between Kant's views on obedience and enjoyment
- Ethics in the Tractatus and Imaginative Understanding
- A Bee's-Eye View on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals
- Gundersen on Counterfactuals and Tracking
- Counterfactuals and Tracking – A Reply to Smith
- Book Review
- Robin May Schott, Discovering Feminist philosophy; Knowledge, ethics politics, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, pp. x +157
- Cecilia Sjöholm, The Antigone Complex, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2004, pp. 240
- Phenomenology and Psychiatry: A Contemporary Diagnosis Introducing the Work of Thomas Fuchs
- Gunnar Foss and Eivind Kasa (eds.), Forms of Knowledge and Sensibility: Ernst Cassirer and the Human Sciences, Høyskoleforlaget AS – Norwegian Academic Press, 2002, pp. 223
- Dan Zahavi, Søren Overgaard and Thomas Schwarz Wentzer (eds.), Den unge Heidegger, Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag 2003, 229 pp.
- Philosophical Aspects on Emotions, ed. Åsa Carlson, Stockholm: Thales, 2005. 351 pp.
