Branden Fitelson (Northeastern) will present "How to Model the Epistemic Probabilities of Conditionals" in Old Arts 224 at 11 on 30 August. \;
\nTitle: How to Model the Epistemic Probabilities of Conditionals
Abstract: \;David Lewis (and others) have famously argued against Adams's Thesis (that the probability of a conditional is the \;conditional probability of its consequent\, given it antecedent) by proving various "triviality results." In this paper\, I argue for \;two theses -- one negative and one positive. The negative thesis is that the "triviality results" do not support the rejection of \;Adams's Thesis\, because Lewisian "triviality based" arguments against Adams's Thesis rest on an implausibly strong understanding of \;what it takes for some credal constraint to be a rational requirement (an understanding which Lewis himself later abandoned in other \;contexts). The positive thesis is that there is a simple (and plausible) way of modeling the epistemic probabilities of \;conditionals\, which (a) obeys Adams's Thesis\, and (b) avoids all of the existing triviality results.