Counterfactual Conditionals by Robert Brown; John Watling; Hypothetical Statements andPhenomenalism by Robert Brown; John WatlingReview by: Alan Ross AndersonThe Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Mar., 1954), pp. 70-71Published by: Association for Symbolic LogicStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2267680 .

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70 REVIEWS

would doubtless be accepted by most of those interested in the problem; but questions (especially regarding the notion of "evidence"), raised in recent years in connection with this naive formulation, are ignored. Rather it is held that "Every one knows, or on a little reflection can discover, what sort of evidence is offered for (1)." Four suggestions are offered as to what constitutes evidence for (1), all of which, in the reviewer's opinion, succumb readily to objections familiar from X 104(3), XII 139(1), XIII 57(2), XIV 133(1), XIV 184(10), XVI 63(3), none of which are mentioned by the author. Concluding remarks to the effect that some discussions of contrary-to-fact conditionals (among them presumably some of those just cited) are concerned with "formulating generalizations that are true," lead the reviewer to believe that the author confuses the question of whether an empirical theory is true, with the question of what constitutes evidence for such a theory.

The only reference to recent literature on the author's topic is to Bergmann's XVII 134. The author agrees with Bergmann that we should not demand that an ideal formal language contain an idiomatically accurate translation of every term or grammatical structure in a natural language such as English. The reviewer is in general sympathetic with this position, but he would argue (following e.g. Lewis XIII 40) that subjunctive and counterfactual conditionals pervade our thinking sufficiently to warrant a more adequate analysis or justification than that provided by the author (or by Bergmann).

ALAN Ross ANDERSON

ROBERT BROWN and JOHN WATLING. Counter/actual conditionals. Mind, n. s. vol. 61 (1952), p.p 222-233.

ROBERT BROWN and JOHN WATLING. Hypothetical statements and phenomenalism. Synthese, vol. 8 (1950-2), pp. 355-366.

In the first paper, the authors wish to argue that the problem of replacing counter- factual conditionals by indicative statements having the same meaning (as proposed by Chisholm XIV 184(10)) is misconceived, and that we cannot and need not eliminate counterfactual conditionals. Their view is supported in the first section of the paper by such statements as: "the fact that counterfactuals are not directly testable... would be puzzling only if counterfactuals implied the falsity of their antecedents in- stead of presupposing that falsity," and "our evidence for asserting a counterfactual cannot be implied by that counterfactual. A counterfactual refers to its evidence statements in the sense that unless they are true or to some extent confirmed we cannot defend our counterfactual." No attempt is made to clarify the distinctions between presupposing,' 'implying,' and 'referring,' with the result that the first statement suggests that: a counterfactual is true only if its antecedent is false; whereas it is not the case that if a counterfactual is true then its antecedent is false. Similarly for the second statement. While one may appreciate the intent of these distinctions, they are much too vaguely expressed to admit of evaluation. The main point of the first section of the paper is that even though we cannot test counterfactuals, "we can give rational grounds for their assertion, namely, universal statements and initial condition state- ments." No attempt is made to explain the logical relation between the rational grounds and the counterfactual conditionals, or to take into account difficulties re- garding 'evidence,' raised in literature cited in the preceding review.

In a section devoted to criticism of Kneale XVI 64, the authors state that "certain restrictions must be put upon the kind of statements occurring as antecedent and consequent before a universal material implication can be said to be a general law. But without considering what these restrictions must be, it is still possible to argue that all scientific laws are expressible as material implications." In the reviewer's opinion, this thesis (especially in the absence of any explanation of 'expressible,' or of any specification of the required restrictions) risks triviality: a universal material

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REVIEWS 71

implication satisfying "certain restrictions" must surely be equivalent to a natural law, since the restrictions are presumably to be formulated for just that purpose. Moreover, the reviewer doubts that Kneale, in suggesting that universal material conditionals are in some cases irrelevant to natural laws, wishes to dispute the authors' position quoted above, as they claim. (See also Chisholm's review of Kneale, loc. cit.)

The remaining parts of the first article, dealing with Kneale on 'accidental' universal material conditionals, and with the thesis that conditionals provide only inference schemata, seem to the reviewer equally inconclusive.

The second article discusses Warnock XVII 78 and Berlin (cited by Warnock) on phenomenalism, and is within the field of this JOURNAL only for certain remarks on disposition terms and hypotheticals (especially in part III of the article). The gist of the argument is that the familiar objections to the use of material implication in defining disposition terms (as discussed e.g. in Carnap II 49, pp. 440-441) arise from mistakenly regarding e.g. (1) 'a is soluble' as the contradictory of (2) 'a is insoluble,' instead of regarding the two as "contraries." If (1) is taken as entailing 'a is put in water. D . a disappears,' and (2) as entailing 'a is put in water .D . -(a disappears),' then (1) and (2) are confirmed equally by (3) ',.-(a is put in water).' This result is paradoxical, according to the authors, only if (1) and (2) are assumed to be contra- dictories, and (3) is assumed to confirm both. Both these assumptions are rejected.

The authors' view that (1) and (2) are contraries strongly suggests that they may both be false, but no explanation is offered of the status of a vis-a-vis solubility, in such peculiar circumstances. Possibly the authors wish to say that if (1), on their interpretation, is held to be confirmed by (3), it does not follow that (2) is disconfirmed by (3); but if so, the point is obscurely made, and involves confusion of truth and confirmation (as distinguished e.g. by Carnap in XVII 139(2)). The authors favor the use of material implication in dealing with disposition terms, and although they reject the reduction sentences of Carnap II 49, they offer a strikingly similar alternative. Heavy reliance on an unexplained notion of entailment (which is evidently not material implication) makes it difficult to judge the relation between the authors' proposal and Carnap's.

These two articles are, in the reviewer's opinion, vitiated by failure to take into account most of the relevant literature on natural laws and confirmation.

ALAN Ross ANDERSON

BENSON MATES. Stoic logic. University of California publications in philosophy, vol. 26. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1953, 148 pp.

This is the fullest description yet of Stoic propositional logic. It will be welcomed by students of Greek philosophy and also by logicians interested in the history of their subject.

The arrangement of the topics covered by the author is as follows. He begins by giving an account of Stoic philosophers to be considered, and an evaluation of the ancient sources at our disposal (Chapter I). He then discusses the semantical theory of the Stoics (Chapter II), passes on to the Stoic definition and classification of prop- ositions, and introduces the Stoic notions of truth, necessity, and possibility (Chapter III). Various propositional connectives are dealt with in turn (Chapter IV) preceding the exposition of the five basic argument-types to which other non-simple arguments used to be reduced by the Stoics (Chapter V). Finally the author refutes some adverse criticism of Stoic logic by Prantl and Zeller, and discusses the confusion about the meaning of avvjuyE'vov (Chapter VI). Appendix A contains new translations of Greek and Latin passages which comprise our sources for Stoic logic (pp. 95-131), while Appendix B lists the Stoic technical terms. There is also a bibliography, an index to passages cited or translated, and a general index.

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