Symposia and Lectures

We explore two puzzling phenomena involving the interaction of conditionals, disjunction, and conjunction. The first is Simplification of Disjunctive Antecedents (SDA), the inference from 'if p or q, r' to 'if p, r and if q, r', which often, but not always, appears valid. The second is the observation of McDermott 1996 that certain conjunctions and disjunctions of conditionals are, strangely, interpreted as being equivalent to each other: thus 'If the die lands even, it will land two, and if the die lands odd, it will land three', and likewise 'If the die lands even, it will land two, or if the die lands odd, it will land three', both have prominent readings where they are true just in case the die lands two or three, and false otherwise. We develop a unified account of these phenomena, based on attention to the setting of the contextual accessibility relation for conditionals. Not only does this account explain both phenomena in a conservative way, but it improves on extant accounts in a number of ways: it extends immediately to the wide-scope version of SDA, and it captures subjunctive versions of McDermott's cases. Joint work with Snow Zhang (Berkeley). 

Abstract (coming soon)

Abstract (coming soon)