Conditionals that discuss what would have been if things were otherwise
"Counterfactual" redirects here. For other uses, see Counterfactual (disambiguation).
Counterfactual conditionals (also subjunctive or X-marked) are conditional sentences which discuss what would have been true under different circumstances, e.g. "If Peter believed in ghosts, he would be afraid to be here." Counterfactuals are contrasted with indicatives, which are generally restricted to discussing open possibilities. Counterfactuals are characterized grammatically by their use of fake tense morphology, which some languages use in combination with other kinds of morphology including aspect and mood.
Counterfactuals are one of the most studied phenomena in philosophical logic, formal semantics, and philosophy of language. They were first discussed as a problem for the material conditional analysis of conditionals, which treats them all as trivially true. Starting in the 1960s, philosophers and linguists developed the now-classic possible world approach, in which a counterfactual's truth hinges on its consequent holding at certain possible worlds where its antecedent holds. More recent formal analyses have treated them using tools such as causal models and dynamic semantics. Other research has addressed their metaphysical, psychological, and grammatical underpinnings, while applying some of the resultant insights to fields including history, marketing, and epidemiology.
and 27 Related for: Counterfactual conditional information
Counterfactualconditionals (also subjunctive or X-marked) are conditional sentences which discuss what would have been true under different circumstances...
among conditionals is that between indicative and counterfactualconditionals, exemplified by the following English examples: Indicative conditional: If...
an imperative. Special tense morphology can be used to form a counterfactualconditional. Some linguists have argued that other superficially distinct...
underlie rational thought, including reasoning from counterfactualconditionals. More recently, counterfactual thinking has gained interest from a psychological...
sufficient operator Corresponding conditionalCounterfactualconditional Indicative conditional Strict conditional Note that the horseshoe symbol Ɔ has...
dependent on some condition, possibly counterfactual. It may refer to a distinct verb form that expresses the conditional set of circumstances proper in the...
consequences Indicative conditional, a conditional sentence expressing "if A then B" in a natural language Counterfactualconditional, a conditional sentence indicating...
including: Indicative conditional Counterfactualconditional Biscuit conditionalConditional (computer programming), a conditional statement in a computer programming...
the English would have written. The conditional perfect is used to refer to a hypothetical, usually counterfactual, event or circumstance placed in the...
be true. Indicatives are typically defined in opposition to counterfactualconditionals, which have extra grammatical marking which allows them to discuss...
(1959), A New Latin Syntax. Ancient Greek conditional clauses Conditional sentence Counterfactualconditional Kennedy (1962), p. 189; Gildersleeve & Lodge...
contrasted with counterfactuality: what might have occurred, but did not. A counterfactualconditional or subjunctive conditional is a conditional (or "if–then")...
of CounterfactualConditionals", The Journal of Philosophy, Vol.44, No.5, (27 February 1947), pp. 113–128; Brown, R, & Watling, J., "Counterfactual Conditionals"...
the counterfactualconditional 'if the agent had wanted to do otherwise, then he would have done otherwise' is true. Importantly, this counterfactual conditional...
term "subjunctive conditional" is sometimes used instead of "counterfactualconditional". But the paradigmatic cases of counterfactual thinking involve...
antecedent of the conditional, then the presupposition is blocked. Otherwise, it is allowed to project up to the entire conditional. Here is an example:...
existence. These permanent possibilities could be analysed into counterfactualconditionals, such as "if I were to have y-type sensations, then I would also...
In quantum mechanics, counterfactual definiteness (CFD) is the ability to speak "meaningfully" of the definiteness of the results of measurements that...
Aphrodite had not quickly observed him" Latin conditional clauses Conditional sentence Counterfactualconditional Smyth. A Greek grammar for colleges. § 2698...
should not be confused with Robert K. Shope's 1978 "conditional fallacy", which deals with counterfactual examples that beg the question. In general, it cannot...
(then-clause) of counterfactualconditional sentences. The modal would (or should as a first-person alternative) is used to produce the conditional construction...
avoid vacuous truths by using alternative conditionals (such as the case of the counterfactualconditional). Many programming environments have a mechanism...
November 1998) was an American philosopher, known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, irrealism, and aesthetics. Goodman...
preserves as much information as possible. The evaluation of a counterfactualconditional a > b {\displaystyle a>b} can be done, according to the Ramsey...
off / depart); /aʁa-qɨɣɨ-pi/ (if you get off / depart): Confer counterfactualconditional. Sireniki can compress it into an adverbial participle: it is...
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