Conditionals (was,Re: Grice . . .)

CEP7 at aol.com CEP7 at aol.com
Mon Sep 21 16:54:53 EDT 1998



In a message dated 9/21/1998 3:09:40 PM, jbaima at silvermnt.com wrote:

<<BTW, one of the things that got me going on all this is the assertion that
some conditionals "assume the protasis false for the sake of argument."
This is a nonsensical statement since no inference can be made from a
negative protasis. Inferences can only be made from a positive protasis or
a false apodosis.>>

John,

This may or may not be true. It depends on the falsity of the apodosis. I
could construct an ironical statement such as "If Mark Mcwire was such a great
baseball player, he would have hit 65 homeruns." Here the protasis is assumed
false for the sake of argument because the apodosis is false. It is a
statement of satire. However, in terms of logic, you are probably correct
because one makes statements like this for rhetorical affect. Matt 24:20 and 1
Cor 11:31 may be an NT example. 



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