{"title":"The Ramsey Test and Evidential Support Theory","authors":"Michal Sikorski","doi":"10.1007/s10849-022-09364-z","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Ramsey Test is considered to be the default test for the acceptability of indicative conditionals. I will argue that it is incompatible with some of the recent developments in conceptualizing conditionals, namely the growing empirical evidence for the <i>Relevance Hypothesis</i>. According to the hypothesis, one of the necessary conditions of acceptability for an indicative conditional is its antecedent being positively probabilistically relevant for the consequent. The source of the idea is <i>Evidential Support Theory</i> presented in Douven (2008). I will defend the hypothesis against alleged counterexamples, and show that it is supported by growing empirical evidence. Finally, I will present a version of the Ramsey test which incorporates the relevance condition and therefore is consistent with growing empirical evidence for the relevance hypothesis.</p>","PeriodicalId":48732,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Logic Language and Information","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2022-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Logic Language and Information","FirstCategoryId":"94","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10849-022-09364-z","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"COMPUTER SCIENCE, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
The Ramsey Test is considered to be the default test for the acceptability of indicative conditionals. I will argue that it is incompatible with some of the recent developments in conceptualizing conditionals, namely the growing empirical evidence for the Relevance Hypothesis. According to the hypothesis, one of the necessary conditions of acceptability for an indicative conditional is its antecedent being positively probabilistically relevant for the consequent. The source of the idea is Evidential Support Theory presented in Douven (2008). I will defend the hypothesis against alleged counterexamples, and show that it is supported by growing empirical evidence. Finally, I will present a version of the Ramsey test which incorporates the relevance condition and therefore is consistent with growing empirical evidence for the relevance hypothesis.
期刊介绍:
The scope of the journal is the logical and computational foundations of natural, formal, and programming languages, as well as the different forms of human and mechanized inference. It covers the logical, linguistic, and information-theoretic parts of the cognitive sciences.
Examples of main subareas are Intentional Logics including Dynamic Logic; Nonmonotonic Logic and Belief Revision; Constructive Logics; Complexity Issues in Logic and Linguistics; Theoretical Problems of Logic Programming and Resolution; Categorial Grammar and Type Theory; Generalized Quantification; Information-Oriented Theories of Semantic Structure like Situation Semantics, Discourse Representation Theory, and Dynamic Semantics; Connectionist Models of Logical and Linguistic Structures. The emphasis is on the theoretical aspects of these areas.