Joe Salerno

Joe Salerno has given a talk at Philform seminar yesterday, on "Counterpossible Conditionals"

ABSTRACT: Subjunctive conditionals with impossible antecedents (or counterpossibles) are standardly treated as vacuously true---the classical lore being that if an impossibility were to obtain, then anything would be the case. We'll discuss and develop a non-vacuous reading for (some) counterpossibles. The account provides resources for capturing some illusive philosophical notions---including the intuitive difference between essence and necessity, and an intuitive account of epistemic possibility.