Speaker: Kai von Fintel (MIT), presenting joint work with (An)Thony Gillies (University of Arizona)
Title: Yo-yo conditionals and counterfactual supposition
Time: Wednesday, October 28, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:
There are two ways of articulating counterfactual thought experiments about what would have been the case if some (specific) things had been the case: counterfactual supposition and counterfactual conditionals. We introduce a novel puzzle about a class of iterated counterfactual thought experiments, the problem of yo-yo conditionals like If it had rained then if it hadn’t rained the seats would be wet. We show that yo-yo conditionals raise serious issues for all extant theories of counterfactual conditionals. There are some fixes we can and will consider, but lurking there’s a hard problem that we find both intriguing and infuriating.