The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will meet on October 20th from 2:00-4:00 in-person at the Graduate Center (Room 8203) for a talk by Eno Agolli (CUNY).

Title: All counterpossibles are false

Abstract: Counterpossibles are conditionals with impossible antecedents. All analyses of conditionals today agree that some counterpossibles are true. In this paper, I advance — to my knowledge for the first time — absurdism, the view that all counterpossibles are false. I do that in two steps. First, I show that there exists indeed an alternative analysis of conditionals which entails absurdism and which is well-motivated. The alternative analysis construes conditionals as plural definite descriptions of possible worlds and it is motivated by an impressively thoroughgoing parallelism between conditionals and definite plurals. Second, I show that absurdism itself is independently motivated, as it provides desirable logical results, a better rationale for positing pragmatic repair for counterpossibles, and ties in with a contemporary current of general skepticism toward counterfactuals.