Dear all,

The next LIRa session will take place on Thursday, February 28th. Please, find the details below:

Speaker: Katrin Schulz

Date and Time: Thursday, February 28th 2019, 16:30-18:00

Venue: ILLC Seminar Room F1.15, Science Park 107.

Title: Conditionals, Causality and Conditional Probability.

Abstract. The appropriateness, or acceptability, of a conditional does not just 'go with'  the corresponding conditional probability. A condition of dependence is required as well (cf. Douven, 2008, 2016; Skovgaard-Olsen et al., 2016). In this talk a particular notion of dependence is proposed. It is shown that under both a forward causal and a backward evidential (or diagnostic) reading of the conditional, this appropriateness condition reduces to conditional probability under some natural circumstances. Because this is in particular the case for the so-called diagnostic reading of the conditional, this analysis might help to explain some of Douven and Verbrugge's (2010) empirical observations.

(Joint work with Robert van Rooij)

Hope to see you there!

The LIRa team