Counterfactuals and Probability

By Moritz Schulz

Moritz Schulz explores counterfactual thought and language: what would have happened if things had gone a different way. Counterfactual questions may concern large scale derivations (what would have happened if Nixon had launched a nuclear attack) or small scale evaluations of minor derivations (what would have happened if I had decided to join a different profession). A common impression, which receives a thorough defence in the book, is that oftentimes we find it impossible to know what would have happened. However, this does not mean that we are completely at a loss: we are typically capable of evaluating counterfactual questions probabilistically: we can say what would have been likely or unlikely to happen.

Schulz describes these probabilistic ways of evaluating counterfactual questions and turns the data into a novel account of the workings of counterfactual thought.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019878595X
• ISBN13: 9780198785958
• Release Date: April 2017
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.6"