Inductive Reasoning With Difference-Making Conditionals
Meliha Sezgin, Gabriele Kern-Isberner, Hans Rott · PhilSci-Archive (University of Pittsburgh) · 2020
In belief revision theory, conditionals are often interpreted via the Ramsey test. However, the classical Ramsey Test fails to take into account a fundamental feature of conditionals as used in natural language: typically, the antecedent is relevant to the consequent. Rott has extended the Ramsey Test by introducing so-called difference-making conditionals that encode a notion of relevance. This paper explores difference-making conditionals in the framework of Spohn’s ranking functions. We show that they can be expressed by standard conditionals together with might conditionals. We prove that this reformulation is fully compatible with the logic of difference-making conditionals, as introduced by Rott. Moreover, using c-representations, we propose a method for inductive reasoning with sets of difference-making conditionals and also provide a method for revising ranking functions by a set of difference-making conditionals.