BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID:-//Grails iCalendar plugin//NONSGML Grails iCalendar plugin//EN VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260609T194511Z DTSTART;TZID=Australia/Melbourne:20160930T100000 DTEND;TZID=Australia/Melbourne:20160930T120000 SUMMARY:Contra Counterfacts UID:20260611T213023Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-bd7db559-gt5qm TZID:Australia/Melbourne LOCATION:Old Quad\, Parkville\, Australia\, 3010 DESCRIPTION:

Alan Há\;jek (ANU) will present "Contra Counterfacts". The talk will be at 2pm in G14 Old Quad.

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Abstract: &lsquo\;If Oswald hadn&rsquo\;t killed Kennedy\, then Kennedy would have lived to the age of 81 years and 269 days.&rsquo\;

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&lsquo\;If I were to toss this coin 1000 times\, then it would land 572 heads&rsquo\;.

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These counterfactuals presumably are not true with the exact numbers that I have used. But according to an increasingly influential view\, there are true counterfactuals just like them&mdash\;there are exact numbers that render them true. The view goes back to the Molinist doctrine of God&rsquo\;s &lsquo\;middle knowledge&rsquo\;\; but versions of it are becoming increasingly influential thanks to recent papers by Hawthorne\, Moss\, and Stefá\;nsson. On \;Stefá\;nsson's version\, for example\, there are primitive modal facts&mdash\;what he calls counterfacts&mdash\;that serve as truth-makers for counterfactual claims. To be sure\, we are typically ignorant of such counterfacts (unlike God\, according to the Molinists)\; yet we may often have good evidence of them&mdash\;or so \;Stefá\;nsson \;argues.

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I have long argued that most counterfactuals are false\, either because of indeterminism or indeterminacy. The thesis that there are counterfacts\, if true\, would defang my arguments. But like the counterfactuals themselves\, the thesis is false&mdash\;or so I shall argue.

ORGANIZER;CN=Shawn Standefer: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR