The counterfactual scenario is completely inaccessible. For example if I say "If the Germans had won WW2" How is it possible to say anything true about this scenario? There is no truth of the matter because X didn't happen. — Andrew4Handel

I've myself wondered if a robust theory of truth such as the correspondence theory can adequately incorporate counterfactual statements into their stable (not to mention certain types of future-tensed statements).

If I say, "if I were to strike this porcelain dish with a hammer, then it would shatter," or "if I had struck this porcelain dish with a hammer, then it would have shattered," both of these utterances seem to be truth-apt (that is, possessing a truth value), yet what do they "correspond" to? There is no event or state of affairs to which these utterances map onto (or to which they fail to do so), and yet they seem quite clearly true, given our knowledge of hammers and the mechanical properties of thin sheets of porcelain. Likewise, they would just as clearly seem to be false had I substituted "titanium" for "porcelain."

Perhaps something like the coherence theory of truth is better-equipped to handle them.

Perhaps something like the coherence theory of truth is better-equipped to handle them. — Arkady

Maybe one the main problems afflicting the correspondence theory of truth is the way in which it seems to presuppose a form of uncritical metaphysical realism. If the "holding" of a state of affairs, and the truth of the proposition somehow expressing this state of affairs, merely give rise to some sort of a "correspondence" of the former with the latter, then the issue of the conceptual structure of "reality" that makes this correspondance possible is rendered problematic. On the other hand, some apparently innocuous statements of the so called correspondence theory could be construed on the lines of a deflationary (or 'identity') theory of truth. This is how some philosophers (e.g. Jennifer Hornsby or Sebasian Rödl) construe Aristotle's claim that “to say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true” (1011b25). Thus construed, the theory doesn't entail nor presuppose any sort of problematic dualism of (conceptualized) propositions and (unconceptualized) states of affairs.

Back to the original question, then, if we admit of conceptually structured states of affairs, what "corresponds" to the truth of counterfactual conditional statements could be their being logical consequences of the things having real albeit unactualized powers. If our metaphysics admits of objects that have among their real properties not only "occurrent" qualities (either "primary" or "secondary") such as geometrical shapes or color, but also real albeit unactualized powers, then the proposition that "if I were to strike this porcelain dish with a hammer, then it would shatter" could be said to be true if the ascription of a real power, of which it is a logical consequence, "corresponds" to a truth about this power (in the deflationary sense of "corresponds"). That is, to say that it is true that a dish is liable to shatter when struck -- ascribing some sort of a "passive power" to the dish -- just is to say that it is liable to shatter when struck. And if that is the case, then any proposition that logically follows from this also is true, and this includes a definite range of counterfactual conditional statements. It is then the truth of this whole range of counterfactual statements that "corresponds" (in the deflationary sense) to something's having real unactualized powers.

What's the difference between a deflationary and a non-deflationary correspondence?

From a pragmatic realist (i.e., pragmaticist) standpoint, subjunctive conditionals are true when the laws of nature that they express are real generals; i.e., they are operative regardless of what anyone thinks about them. Peirce famously demonstrated this during a lecture by holding up a stone and stating that everyone in the audience knew that if he were to let it go, it would fall to the ground; and this was true even if he never actually let go of the stone. Similarly, a quality is a real possibility; e.g., if one were to shine broad-spectrum light on a red object, it would predominantly reflect it at wavelengths between 620 and 750 nm. Again, this is true even if no one ever actually conducts such an experiment.

What about a statement about some future (or hypothetical) quantum event?

What about a statement about some future (or hypothetical) quantum event? — Michael

The probability can be known in advance. Changing from determinism to probability doesn't change the fact that there is an apparent order to events, because what makes the probabilities come out the way they do?

What's the difference between a deflationary and a non-deflationary correspondence? — Michael

The deflationary truth theorists make claims that sound very much like the things correspondence theorists say, but they chip away some of the metaphysically tendentious interpretations of those claims. For instance, a deflationary theorist might happily acknowledge that "snow is white" is true (or can be used to express a true proposition, in English) if and only if snow is white. But she doesn't claim this to imply that there must exist two metaphysically distinct sorts of things -- abstract propositions on the one side, and concrete elements of reality (i.e. states of affair) on the other side -- that somehow problematically correspond to one another. So, I wasn't defending correspondence theories, but merely suggesting that a correspondance theorist might make use of a strategy similar to the one a deflationary theorist might make use of to explain in a realist fashion the meaning of counterfactual conditional statements.

But she doesn't claim this to imply that there must exist two metaphysically distinct sorts of things -- abstract propositions on the one side, and concrete elements of reality (i.e. states of affair) on the other side -- that somehow problematically correspond to one another. — Pierre-Normand

She doesn't, but that doesn't change the fact that you have a sentence in a human language on one side and the state of affairs which makes the sentence true on the other. And so the question is still how the snow being white makes the sentence true, because a sentence isn't a state of affairs, no matter what theory of truth one espouses.

So deflationary theorists still have to account for how we know that the snow is white.

From a pragmatic realist (i.e., pragmaticist) standpoint, subjunctive conditionals are true when the laws of nature that they express are real generals; i.e., they are operative regardless of what anyone thinks about them. Peirce famously demonstrated this during a lecture by holding up a stone and stating that everyone in the audience knew that if he were to let it go, it would fall to the ground; and this was true even if he never actually let go of the stone. Similarly, a quality is a real possibility; e.g., if one were to shine broad-spectrum light on a red object, it would predominantly reflect it at wavelengths between 620 and 750 nm. Again, this is true even if no one ever actually conducts such an experiment. — aletheist

This is very similar the the suggestion that I made though it appeals to a conception of laws that rests on a metaphysics of events and Humean causation while my one suggestion was made on the background of a metaphysics of substances and powers (and substance/agent causation).

A deflationary theorist can make a further move and say, just go outside and look and you'll see that the snow is white. And indeed we will, if it is white. But that just puts us back into naive realism, before accounting for the problem of perception, questions of skepticism, consciousness, the mind/body problem, and anything else that might be a problem for knowing about states of affairs.

She doesn't, but that doesn't change the fact that you have a sentence in a human language on one side and the state of affairs which makes the sentence true on the other. And so the question is still how the snow being white makes the sentence white, because a sentence a state of affairs, no matter what theory of truth one espouses.

So deflationary theorists still have to account for how we know that the snow is white. — Marchesk

I don't think you meant to say "makes the sentence white", but rather "makes the sentence true".

Indeed, the deflationary theorists also have to discharge this burden. But I think they do, by means of broadly Kantian accounts of (intuition dependent) conceptual abilities and theories of judgment. (See for instance McDowell's Mind and World, or Sebastian Rödl's Categories of the Temporal.)

I don't think you meant to say "makes the sentence white", but rather "makes the sentence true". — Pierre-Normand

I fixed it after re-reading. But kind of interesting typo. The white from the snow gets into the sentence to make it true, or something! Just kidding, or not, given some of the epic discussions on truth and perception from the old forum.

But I think they do, by means of broadly Kantian accounts of (intuition dependent) conceptual abilities and theories of judgment. — Pierre-Normand

I see. So a deflationary view of truth is based on Kantian categories of thought, or can be.

I see. So a deflationary view of truth is based on Kantian categories of thought. — Marchesk

Well, lets say that it is post-critical in the Kantian sense, and not reliant on anything as crude as naive realism. Many deflationary theorists may only make some minimalist formal points about the semantics of "... is true", and hence aren't committed to any sort of metaphysics or epistemology. But what I had in mind were specific developments of deflationary theories (by McDowell, Wiggins, Hornsby and Rödl) that address the epistemological problem that you raised, and that are broadly neo-Kantian in the way they explain conceptual abilities.

Many deflationary theorists may only make some minimalist formal points about the semantics of "... is true", and hence aren't committed to any sort of metaphysics or epistemology. — Pierre-Normand

So what is the point of deflationary truth? That there is nothing metaphysically significant about truth or propositions? So all one needs to do is give a decent account of knowing, and I suppose some account of how language works, or cognition, and that's all there is to it?

So what is the point of deflationary truth? That there is nothing metaphysically significant about truth or propositions? So all one needs to do is give a decent account of knowing, and I suppose some account of how language works, and that's all there is to it? — Marchesk

I think the main point of the deflationary theories of truth is negative. It is to show that meaningful uses of the "...is true" predicate in natural language don't have the metaphysical implications that the correspondence theorists (who also often are naive, or "dogmatic", realists) take them to have.

Of course, when this negative point has been made, then the correspondence theorist is entitled to ask the deflationary theorist what alternative metaphysics/epistemology she might be proposing instead.

(This is somewhat side-tracking us from the problem of counterfactuals raised in the OP, though.)

(This is somewhat side-tracking us from the problem of counterfactuals raised in the OP) — Pierre-Normand

Alright, so to get back on track, what makes a counterfactual true for a deflationary theorist? If Pierce had dropped the stone during a lecture, it would have fallen. That's a true statement, correct?

Alright, so to get back on track, what makes a counterfactual true for a deflationary theorist? If Pierce had dropped the stone during a lecture, it would have fallen. That's a true statement, correct? — Marchesk

Yes. The deflationary theorist then would seem to be faced with the same problem that the correspondence theorist was faced with, as andrew4handel explained in the OP. For the deflationary theorist might, at first blush, attempt to explain it thus:

"If Pierce had dropped the stone during a lecture, it would have fallen." is true iff if Pierce had dropped the stone during a lecture, it would have fallen.

Though I am not a logician, it's not even entirely clear to me if there is an unambiguous meaning to the "if and only if, if" complex logical connective that shows up here (even after scope disambiguation). In any case, the strategy that I had suggested might work to simplify the modal semantics a bit (as well as the metaphysics of counterfactual conditionals) is to construe the sentence's meaning as being parasitic on the meaning of a categorical statement about the real power of something. What makes "If Pierce had dropped the stone during a lecture, it would have fallen." true is that "Pierce has the power to see to it that the stone drops during a lecture." is true, since the first sentence can be derived from the second as a material inference from the second one. (i.e., a "material inference", in Wilfrid Sellars's sense, warranted by the conceptual content of the term "power"). And finally, what makes the second sentence about Pierce's power true is that Pierce indeed has this power, as can be ascertained empirically through testing this power of his in some specific circumstances.

The probability can be known in advance. Changing from determinism to probability doesn't change the fact that there is an apparent order to events, because what makes the probabilities come out the way they do? — Marchesk

Consider the statement "the particle will be at position p at time t". Presumably this statement is either true or false. According to aletheist (as I understand him), we can make sense of statements about the future being true (or false) by referring to the laws of nature which necessitate a particular outcome given the initial conditions. But (assuming that the randomness of quantum mechanics is an ontological fact and not just an epistemic limitation), the laws of nature do not necessitate a particular outcome given the initial conditions (at the quantum scale).

So either the statement "the particle will be at position p at time t" isn't either true or false or something other than a reference to the laws of nature is required to explain its truth value.

So either the statement "the particle will be at position p at time t" isn't either true or false or something other than a reference to the laws of nature is required to explain its truth value. — Michael

Do laws of nature preclude probabilistic outcomes? The coin flip is 50/50. I can predict that in advance. But what makes it 50/50?

It goes to the question of what's behind probability in the world. Saying it's uncaused doesn't explain anything. Why 50/50 and not some other probability?

Do laws of nature preclude probabilistic outcomes? The coin flip is 50/50. I can predict that in advance. But what makes it 50/50? — Marchesk

But the statement we're considering is "the coin will land hands", not "the coin has a 0.5 chance of landing heads". If the former is true, what makes it true? Certainly not the laws of nature, as the laws of nature aren't deterministic (assuming for the sake of argument that the "coin flip" is some quantum event).

But the statement we're considering is "the coin will land hands", not "the coin has a 0.5 chance of landing heads". If the former is true, what makes it true? Certainly not the laws of nature, as the laws of nature aren't deterministic (assuming for the sake of argument that the "coin flip" is some quantum event). — Michael

Perhaps it would be better to frame the experiment explicitly in terms of a particle whose spin is prepared in superposition?

According to the laws of nature, if you perform a measurement on the particle, you will deterministically obtain "heads" in one branch of a decohered wavefunction, and "tails" in the other. If you take the experiment a stage further, and declare ahead of time that you will visit the north pole on "heads" and the south pole on "tails" then after the experiment a statement of the form "Had I measured 'heads' I would have gone to the north pole" is true.

Strangely, the refusal to collapse the wavefunction, solves not only a number of "paradoxes" in QM but also solves fundamental problems in other fields - e.g we now understand the ontological status of counterfactuals, and can now in certain cases calculate their truth value.

What makes "If Pierce had dropped the stone during a lecture, it would have fallen." true is that "Pierce has the power to see to it that the stone drops during a lecture." is true — Pierre-Normand

No, what makes the first statement true is not some "power" that Peirce has. Rather, it is the fact that there is a real tendency in the universe for things with mass (such as a stone and the earth) to move toward each other in the absence of some intervening object (such as a man's body).

Consider the statement "the particle will be at position p at time t". Presumably this statement is either true or false. — Michael

This thread is about counterfactuals, which I prefer to call subjunctive conditionals; your example does not qualify, so the statement is either true or false only if the future is already actual. A relevant statement would be, "If such-and-such were to happen, then the particle would be at position p at time t."

But the statement we're considering is "the coin will land hands", not "the coin has a 0.5 chance of landing heads". — Michael

Again, no; the statement that we are considering is, "If such-and-such were to happen, then the coin would land heads." Alternatively, as a probabilistic example, "If this is a perfectly fair coin, and I were to flip it infinitely many times, then it would land heads for 50% of the tosses."

Though I am not a logician, it's not even entirely clear to me if there is an unambiguous meaning to the "if and only if, if" complex logical connective that shows up here (even after scope disambiguation). In any case, the strategy that I had suggested might work to simplify the modal semantics a bit (as well as the metaphysics of counterfactual conditionals) is to construe the sentence's meaning as being parasitic on the meaning of a categorical statement about the real power of something. What makes "If Pierce had dropped the stone during a lecture, it would have fallen." true is that "Pierce has the power to see to it that the stone drops during a lecture." is true, since the first sentence can be derived from the second as a material inference from the second one. (i.e., a "material inference", in Wilfrid Sellars's sense, warranted by the conceptual content of the term "power"). And finally, what makes the second sentence about Pierce's power true is that Pierce indeed has this power, as can be ascertained empirically through testing this power of his in some specific circumstances.

What about: "If Pierce had the power to see to it that the stone drops during a lecture, then, if Pierce had dropped the stone during a lecture, it would have fallen."

It seems just as true as the first sentence, but not to be ultimately grounded in some existent having any latent power.

No, what makes the first statement true is not some "power" that Peirce has. Rather, it is the fact that there is a real tendency in the universe for things with mass (such as a stone and the earth) to move toward each other in the absence of some intervening object (such as a man's body). — aletheist

There are many ways to translate statements about occurrences governed by real laws (either deterministic or probabilistic) conceived to be governing sequences of event into statements about occurrences conceived as manifesting the actualization of powers in specific circumstances. Pierce would not have the specific power that I ascribed to him if the masses involved didn't have the power to draw themselves closer to one another. My proposal isn't changed much if you would rspeak of real tendencies rather than of real powers, although I think powers of substances can't always be analysed dispositionally without some loss of meaning. But this caveat isn't really relevant to the issue raised by the OP.

This thread is about counterfactuals, which I prefer to call subjunctive conditionals; your example does not qualify, so the statement is either true or false only if the future is already actual. A relevant statement would be, "If such-and-such were to happen, then the particle would be at position p at time t."

...

Again, no; the statement that we are considering is, "If such-and-such were to happen, then the coin would land heads." — aletheist

Right, then a counterfactual quantum event rather than a future quantum event. How do you account for its truth, given that the laws of nature do not necessitate a particular outcome? Or would you say that such statements don't have a truth-value?

Or if you believe in metaphysical libertarianism, a counterfactual like "if I hadn't told you this then you wouldn't have chosen to do that"?

Perhaps it would be better to frame the experiment explicitly in terms of a particle whose spin is prepared in superposition?

According to the laws of nature, if you perform a measurement on the particle, you will deterministically obtain "heads" in one branch of a decohered wavefunction, and "tails" in the other. If you take the experiment a stage further, and declare ahead of time that you will visit the north pole on "heads" and the south pole on "tails" then after the experiment a statement of the form "Had I measured 'heads' I would have gone to the north pole" is true.

Strangely, the refusal to collapse the wavefunction, solves not only a number of "paradoxes" in QM but also solves fundamental problems in other fields - e.g we now understand the ontological status of counterfactuals, and can now in certain cases calculate their truth value. — tom

I can't be in two different branches of a decohered wavefunction. I'm only ever in one.

This thread is about counterfactuals, which I prefer to call subjunctive conditionals; — aletheist

It seems to me that some authors use the phrase "counterfactual conditional" to mean the same as "subjunctive conditional", but it also occurs frequently that the former phrase is restricted to those subjunctive conditionals that have a false antecedent. In recent years, I've also noticed that the adjective "counterfactual" has been used in the wider cultures (e.g. in op-eds.) to mean roughly the same as "false", which I find annoying.

I can't be in two different branches of a decohered wavefunction. I'm only ever in one. — Michael

Maybe you think you are in charge, or that physics doesn't apply to you because you are special?

For the rest of us, Unitary Quantum Mechanics solves the problem of the ontological status of counterfactuals.

I can't be in two different branches of a decohered wavefunction. I'm only ever in one. — Michael

Indeed. If there ends up there being two "copies" of you, you never find yourself in a situation where you are both of them.

Indeed. If there ends up there being two "copies" of you, you never find yourself in a situation where you are both of them. — Pierre-Normand

It's called decoherence.