Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - 2007 - Volume 30, Issue 5-6  

Open Peer Commentary

Semifactual: Byrne's account of even-if

Simon J. Handleya1 and Aidan Feeneya2

a1 Centre for Thinking and Language, Department of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Drake's Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, United Kingdom

a2 Department of Psychology, Durham University, Queen's Campus, Stockton-on-Tees TS17 6BH, United Kingdom shandley@plymouth.ac.uk aidan.feeney@durham.ac.uk http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/dynamic.asp?page=staffdetails&id=shandley http://www.dur.ac.uk/aidan.feeney

Abstract

Byrne's approach to the semifactual conditional captures the reasoning data. However, we argue that it does not account for the processes or principles by which people arrive at representations of even-if conditionals, upon which their reasoning is said to be based. Drawing upon recent work on the suppositional conditional we present such an account.

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