Prioritised ceteris paribus logic for counterfactual reasoning

Patrick Girard

Marcus A. Triplett

pp. 1681-1703

in: Andrew McFarland (ed), Causation in the metaphysics of science, Synthese 195 (4), 2018.

Abstract

The semantics for counterfactuals due to David Lewis has been challenged by appealing to miracles. Miracles may skew a given similarity order in favour of those possible worlds which exhibit them. Lewis responded with a system of priorities that mitigates the significance of miracles when constructing similarity relations. We propose a prioritised ceteris paribus analysis of counterfactuals inspired by Lewis’ system of priorities. By analysing the couterfactuals with a ceteris paribus clause one forces out, in a natural manner, those possible worlds which do not satisfy the requirements of the clause, thus excluding miracles. If no world can satisfy the ceteris paribus clause in its entirety, then prioritisation is triggered to select worlds that maximise agreement on those things which are favoured most.

Cited authors

Lewis David