tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post102262371675887252..comments2024-03-27T20:37:09.185-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: ConditionalsAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-66101864769582391792009-08-20T18:07:15.087-05:002009-08-20T18:07:15.087-05:00Hmmm; I've never thought of q because p as a c...Hmmm; I've never thought of q because p as a candidate for not being conditional. I take q because p to be merely a specification of q if p, where the underlying relation is causal (or, more broadly, causally explanatory). (Likewise, q given p is merely a specification of q if p where the underlying relation is logical, e.g., {insert conclusion here} given {insert conjunction of premises here}.) Otherwise how would we explain the fact that q because p is often represented as q if p? It seems the most natural way to take this is to say that q if p is the genus, so to speak, and q because p is a species in which q and p have a particular kind of relation to each other.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-65741163813027103312009-08-20T11:03:58.208-05:002009-08-20T11:03:58.208-05:00I've never thought of "because" as a...I've never thought of "because" as a conditional. Do you want to expand?Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-69796832466027116932009-08-20T10:52:05.123-05:002009-08-20T10:52:05.123-05:00Perhaps it depends on what conditional locutions w...Perhaps it depends on what conditional locutions we are considering. "If p, q" is very generic: it doesn't establish any particular sort of relation between p and q. But there are more domain-specific conditional locutions, e.g., when considering explanation<br /><br />q because p<br /><br />"The reaction occurred if the chemicals were mixed" is consistent with the relation being symmetrical -- perhaps the two are merely correlated effects of something else. But "The reaction occurred because the chemicals were mixed" establishes an asymmetry between the two propositions. "Either the reaction occurred or the chemicals were not mixed" won't preserve the asymmetry, and English doesn't seem to have a disjunctive locution that would.<br /><br />Of course, that's not strong enough to allow us to conclude that there is any "irreducibly conditional aspect of reality"; we'd need to know not merely that English in fact does not have domain-specific disjunctions to correspond to domain-specific conditionals but that it couldn't in fact do so because they can't be made. And that would be a hard thing to argue either way, I'd imagine.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.com