Table of Contents

Introduction Conditionals in Everyday Life and in Philosophy; I: The History of Philosophical Treatments of Conditionals; I: Ancient History; II: Medieval and Post-medieval History; III: Rediscovery of the Material Conditional; IV: Rediscovery of the Strict Conditional; V: Subjunctive Conditionals and Covering Laws; VI: Belief and Probability; VII: Possible Worlds; II: A New Treatment of Conditionals; VIII: Inference, Entailment, and the Purposes of Theories; IX: Problems with the Ramsey Test, Possible Worlds, and Probability; X: Various Visions of Possible Worlds; XI: Laws and Conditions; XII: Counterfactual Dependence and Backtracking; XIII: Patterns of Dependence; XIV: Objective Dependence; XV: A Problem with Validity

About the Author

David Sanford is Professor of Philosophy at Duke University, North Carolina, USA.

Reviews

'If Then Q is recommended reading for all who want to work in this suprisingly rich field.' - Australasian Journal of Philosophy; 'Some delightfully insightful comments on the probability account of conditionals, on the Ramsey test, and especially on possible world semantics... it also provides a healthy dose of humbling realism.' - Journal of Philosophy of Science; 'Undergraduates will find the book useful as a resource. It covers a lot of ground mentioning most of the issues and positions that need to be addressed in a course on conditionals over the years. This is a good place to learn about conditionals or to have one's ideas about them challenged.' - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic; 'A useful starting point for a course on conditionals. The introductions to the issues are clear and well-illustrated with examples.' - Dialogue 'I can recommend Sanford's book as a throughly well-informed, intelligent and original contribution to the field.' - Philosophical Books