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Counterfactual contamination
Goldstein, Simon Hawthorne, John
Goldstein, Simon
Hawthorne, John
Author
Abstract
Many defend the thesis that when someone knows p, they couldn’t easily have been wrong about p. But the notion of easy possibility in play is relatively under-theorized. One structural idea in the literature, the principle of Counterfactual Closure (CC), connects easy possibility with counterfactuals: if it easily could have happened that p, and if p were the case then q would be the case, then it follows that it easily could have happened that q. We first argue that, while CC is false, there is a true restriction of it to cases involving counterfactual dependence on a coin flip. The failure of CC falsifies a model where the easy possibilities are counterfactually similar to actuality. Next, we show that extant normality models, where the easy possibilities are the sufficiently normal ones, are incompatible with the restricted CC thesis involving coin flips. Next, we develop a new kind of normality theory that can accommodate the restricted version of CC. This new theory introduces a principle of Counterfactual Contamination, which says, roughly, that any world is fairly abnormal if at that world very abnormal events counterfactually depend on a coin flip. Finally, we explain why coin flips and other related events have a special status. A central take-home lesson is that the correct principle in the vicinity of Safety is importantly normality-theoretic rather than (as it is usually conceived) similarity-theoretic.
Keywords
knowledge, safety, counterfactuals
Date
2022
Type
Journal article
Journal
Australasian Journal of Philosophy
Book
Volume
100
Issue
2
Page Range
262-278
Article Number
ACU Department
Dianoia Institute of Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
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Open Access Status
Published as green open access
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Open
Controlled
Controlled