[SydPhil] University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Alan Hájek, (Australian National University)

[Ryan Cox]

 Hi everyone,

This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Alan Hájek, (Australian National University)

The title of the talk is "A Chancy Theory of Counterfactuals". Here is an abstract for the talk:

I have long argued against the Stalnaker/Lewis ‘similarity’ accounts of counterfactuals. Roughly, they say that the counterfactual if p were the case, q would be the case is true if and only if at the most similar p-worlds, q is true. Most philosophers agree with this. I disagree. I will summarise my main arguments against this entire approach and add some new ones. I will offer a paradigm shift based on conditional chances. The counterfactual is true iff the chance of q, given p, equals 1 at a time shortly, but not too shortly, before the truth value of p was settled. I will argue that this account has many advantages over the similarity accounts. What are the chances? I will present my version of a propensity account, and I will argue that it avoids the main objections that have been levelled against propensities. In short, I offer a conditional propensity account of counterfactuals.

The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Nov 19 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (Quadrangle N494).

Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox at sydney.edu.au

Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox at sydney.edu.au