Links to Papers

Note for Brown students: Some of the links to the papers require that your IP address is seen as being from Brown. You either need to be on campus or use the VPN software that Brown provides. You never need to pay any money for access to articles. For non-Brown readers, for some papers, you will need access through a library that has a subscription to the relevant journal.

Email me with any additional papers you are interested in covering or if you spot any errors.

Indicatives

Week 1: Goals. Conversational Implicature. Paradoxes of the material conditional. Readings: Bennett, Ch. 1-2; Grice, Logic and Conversation, Chapters 2-3; Advanced Reading: Edgington, "On Conditionals, section 1";

Week 2: The Material Conditional: Bennett, Ch 3; Edgington, "On Conditionals, section 2"; Advanced Reading: Stephen Barker, "Material Implication and General Indicative Conditionals"

Week 3: Adams' Probability Logic: Adams, Ch. 1-7.

Week 4: The Triviality Proofs: Bennett, Ch. 4-5, Adams, Ch. 8; Advanced Reading: Edgington, "On Conditionals, section 6"; David Lewis, "Probabilities of Conditionals and Conditional Probabilities"; The 3 chapters by Hajek and Hall in Eells, E., and Skyrms, B. (eds). (1994). Probability and Conditionals: Belief Revision and Rational Decision.

Week 5: Sly Pete Conditionals & Truth Value Gaps: Bennett, Ch. 6-7. William Lycan, Real Conditionals, Ch 8. Advanced Reading: The Sly Pete example is originally in A. Gibbard, "Two Recent Theories of Conditionals," in W. L. Harper, R. Stalnaker, and G. Pearce (eds), Ifs, 211-47. (No Link)

Week 6: Modus Ponens: Vann McGee, "A Counterexample to Modus Ponens"; E. J. Lowe, "Not a Counterexample to Modus Ponens," D. E. Over, "Assumptions and the Supposed Counterexamples to Modus Ponens," Bernard Katz, "On a Supposed Counterexample to Modus Ponens," Sinnott-Armstrong, "A Defense of Modus Ponens," William Lycan, Real Conditionals, Ch 3. Advanced reading: Vann McGee, "Conditional Probabilities and Compounds of Conditionals."

Subjunctives

Week 7: Counterfactual Logic: Bennett, Ch 10-12; Robert Stalnaker, "A Theory of Conditionals"; David Lewis, Counterfactuals, Ch. 1, 4.

Week 8: Counterfactuals and Laws: Nelson Goodman, "The Problem of Counterfactual Conditionals"; Bennett, Ch. 14, 20-21. Further reading: Barry Loewer, "Cotenability and Counterfactual Logics."

Week 9: Probability and Subjunctives: Bennett, Ch 15-16. Stephen Barker, "Counterfactuals, Probabilistic Counterfactuals and Causation."

Week 10: Counterfactual Asymmetry: Bennett, Ch 18-19. Hawthorne, "Chance and Counterfactuals."

Week 11: Classification of Conditionals: Subjunctives vs. Indicatives. Bennett, Ch 22-23; Ch 7. Edgington, On Conditionals, sections 1 and 10; Adam Morton, "Indicative Versus Subjunctive in Future Conditionals"

Week 12: Conditional Logic: Gauker, Ch 3-4.

Week 13: Counterfactuals for Epistemology: Sosa, "How to Defeat Opposition to Moore."