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(2007) Synthese 154 (2).
We show that truth conditions for counterfactuals need not always be given in terms of a vague notion of similarity. To this end, we single out the important class of historical counterfactuals and give formally rigorous truth conditions for these counterfactuals, employing a partial ordering relation called “comparative closeness” that is defined in the framework of branching space-times. Among other applications, we provide a detailed analysis of counterfactuals uttered in the context of lost bets. In an appendix we compare our theory with the branching space-times based reading of counterfactuals recently proposed by Belnap.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-005-0617-x
Full citation:
Placek, T. , Müller, T. (2007). Counterfactuals and historical possibility. Synthese 154 (2), pp. 173-197.
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