Contrary to Fact: Cause, Chance, Natural Law, and their relation to Counterfactuals.

与事实相反：原因、机会、自然法及其与反事实的关系。

• 批准号: AH/E001114/1
• 负责人: Stephen Barker
• 金额: $ 3.03万
• 依托单位: University of Nottingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2007 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FE001114%2F1
• 关键词: Contrary; Fact; Cause; Chance; Natural

Counterfactuals are conditionals in which we trace out how things would, might or could have been if reality had been different. If kangaroos had no tails, they would topple over. If things had been different yesterday, they would have been different today. If this sugar had been put in water, it would have dissolved. Such thought experiments are linked to our concepts of causality, natural necessity, disposition, chance, and the direction of time. The fact that kangaroos would have toppled over if they had tails seems to imply that their having tails is part of what causes them to stay upright, that the both not toppling over and having tails is a non-accidental facts. The fact that things would have been different today, if they had been different yesterday if things had been different today, seems to imply that the past has the present as its effect, and not vice versa. That the sugar would have dissolved if it had been place in water indicates that the sugar has a disposition to dissolve in water. The enigma of counterfactuals is the dual fact that they are judgements about what is contrary to fact, the non-actual, but are, at the same time, intimately linked to our deepest modal and temporal commitments about the actual. To crack the enigma we need to know what guides our formation of counterfactual judgements, and what makes them true. The currently dominant view about how to answer these questions is that associated with David Lewis. Lewis's conception of counterfactuals is a child of the possible-worlds semantics that came to prominence in the 70s. For Lewis, a basic would-counterfactual is analysed in these terms: If P had been the case Q would have been is true iff in the nearest possible worlds in which P is true, Q is true. Here nearness in worlds is fixed by similarity of fact and natural law. Natural law is anterior to counterfactuals. Laws in themselves make no reference to causation or intrinsic modal features of the actual world. With the semantics of counterfactuals configured in this way, theorists have deployed them as analytical tools. Causation is then analysed in terms of counterfactual dependency, and dispositions. I criticize this cluster of views and then: (a) I propose an alternative view of counterfactuals/a constructive, inferential approach/in which relations between fact-sized things (events) determine the outcomes of counterfactual judgements, rather than worlds and similarity relations between them. (b) I outline the implications of this view for how we understand causation and natural necessity, developing a chance view of causation, and an expressivist treatment of law that is neither Humean nor Necessitarian. (c) I offer a theory of chance that draws on expressivism and interventionist theories (of cause), which allows for a middle path between non-Humean and Humean truthmakers for chance statements. But there is a twist. Counterfactuals re-appear again in the explication of chance. Thus counterfactuals are both at the top of the analytic chain and at the bottom. However, I show how there is no circularity since the concepts of analysis in play differ between truth-conditional reduction and expressive reduction.

反事实是一种条件句，在这种条件句中，我们可以追溯出如果现实是不同的，事情会是、可能会是或本来会是什么样子。如果袋鼠没有尾巴，它们会摔倒的。如果昨天的情况不同，今天也会不同。如果把这种糖放在水里，它就会溶解。这种思想实验与我们的因果关系、自然必然性、性格、机会和时间方向的概念有关。如果袋鼠有尾巴的话，它们会摔倒，这一事实似乎暗示着它们有尾巴是使它们保持直立的原因之一，不摔倒和有尾巴都是非偶然的事实。如果今天的事情不同，如果昨天的事情不同，今天的事情就会不同，这一事实似乎意味着过去具有现在的效果，而不是相反。如果把糖放在水中，糖就会溶解，这表明糖有溶解于水的倾向。反事实之谜在于双重事实，即它们是对与事实相反的非现实事物的判断，但同时又与我们对现实事物最深刻的模态和时间承诺密切相关。为了解开这个谜团，我们需要知道是什么引导我们形成反事实判断，又是什么使它们成为真的。目前关于如何回答这些问题的主流观点与大卫刘易斯有关。刘易斯的反事实概念是可能世界语义学的产物，该语义学在70年代开始流行。对于刘易斯来说，一个基本的会反事实是这样分析的：如果P是这种情况，Q会是真的当且仅当在P为真的最近可能世界中，Q为真。在这里，世界的接近性是由事实和自然法则的相似性所决定的。自然法先于反事实。法律本身并不涉及因果关系或现实世界的内在模态特征。有了这样的反事实语义，理论家们就把它们作为分析工具来使用。因果关系，然后分析的反事实的依赖，和处置。我批评这一簇的观点，然后：（a）我提出了一个替代的反事实/建设性的，推理的方法/在事实大小的事情（事件）之间的关系决定的结果，反事实判断，而不是世界和它们之间的相似关系。(b)我概述了这一观点对我们如何理解因果关系和自然必然性的影响，发展了因果关系的偶然观，以及一种既不是休谟也不是必然主义的表现主义的法律处理。(c)我提供了一个理论的机会，借鉴表现主义和干预主义理论（原因），这使得非休谟和休谟真理制造者之间的机会声明的中间道路。但有一个转折。反事实在对偶然性的解释中再次出现。因此，反事实既位于分析链的顶端，也位于底端。然而，我展示了如何没有循环，因为在游戏中的分析概念不同的真值条件还原和表达还原。

项目成果

The ultimate argument against dispositional monist accounts of laws

• DOI: 10.1093/analys/ans114
• 发表时间: 2012-10-01
• 期刊: ANALYSIS
• 影响因子: 1.6
• 作者: Barker, Stephen;Smart, Ben
• 通讯作者: Smart, Ben

Can Counterfactuals Really Be about Possible Worlds ?

反事实真的可以与可能的世界有关吗？

• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0068.2010.00810.x
• 发表时间: 2011
• 期刊: Noûs
• 作者: Barker S

The Emperor's New Metaphysics of Powers

• DOI: 10.1093/mind/fzt082
• 发表时间: 2013-07-01
• 期刊: MIND
• 影响因子: 1.8
• 作者: Barker, Stephen

Heraclitus's Dream

赫拉克利特的梦

• 作者: Stephen Barker