Alex Kockurek (Berkeley) will present "Counterlogicals" remotely at 11 in Arts West 211\, West Wing. \;
\nAbstract: \;Much of the recent literature on counterfactuals has revolved around \;counterpossibles\, i.e.\, counterfactuals with metaphysically impossible antecedents\, and whether they generally express non-vacuous propositions. \; \;In this talk\, we focus on a special class of counterpossibles\, viz.\, those whose antecedent is logically (or metalogically) impossible. \; \;These are known as \;counterlogicals. \; \;Examples include: \;
\n(1) \;If the Liar sentence were both true and not true\, the one true logic would be paraconsistent.
\n(2) \;If France were and were not a monarchy\, it would be a monarchy. \;
\n(3) \;If Aristotle were not self-identical\, his argument for the law of noncontradiction in \;Metaphysics Gamma \;would have failed. \;
\nWe defend a view according to which all counterlogicals are vacuously true. \; The appearance of non-vacuous counterlogicals is really due to a kind of metalinguistic shift in the meanings of logical vocabulary. \; This view is motivated by a broadly Quinean view about the nature of logical disagreement\, in which logical disagreements are of a metalinguistic nature. \; We will show how this account is independently motivated by observations surrounding metalinguistic negotiation more generally. \; Then we show how our account does better than its rivals in two respects: \; our view\, but not its rivals\, allows us to maintain that meaning is compositional and to keep a non-trivial logic of counterfactuals. This is joint work with \;Ethan Jerzak.
ORGANIZER;CN=Shawn Standefer: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR