The Ontology of Counter Factual Causality and Conditional研究.pdfVIP

PhilosophyStudy,ISSN 2159—5313 July2014，Vo1．4，No．7，492—496．doi：10．17265／2159—5313／2014．07．005 毒 LI薯 I-iIN G TheOntologyofCounterFactualCausalityandConditional MaduabuchiDukor NnamdiAzikiweUniversity Theauthorisinterestedhereintheexaminationoftheontologicaljustificationforcounterfactualcausalityand conditiona1．Ontologymetaphysicallyhastodowithwhatexistsandwhatdoesnotexist．Intermsofrealism，itis aboutobjectsintheirassociatedandindividualexistence．Itisanattempttofurtherhtesearchofradequate philosophyofcausality scientificlaw,andtheory ofconfimr ation and establishalinkamong i~then “’’and counterfactua1． Keywords：conditional，causality,counterfactual，ontology,science，explanation 1．IntrOductiOn Intheoriesconcerning “causeandeffect．”anetworkofproblemsisencounteredwhichIconsidertobe ontologicalproblemsofconditions，causality，and counterfactua1．The differentpointofviewsaboutthe meaningandtruthvalueofacounterfactualpresupposesanontologicalproblem．Forinstances，somebelieve that “counterfactualsarenottruth—functiona1．A truth functionalcompound isonewhoseturth valuesare completelydeterminedineverypossiblecasebythetruthvalueofitscomponents”(RobertAudi1995)．Onthe otherhand，NelsonGoodmanopinedthatconsideredastruth— functi0nalcompounds．“allcounterfactualsare ofcoursetrue，sincetheirantecedentsarefalse”(1988)，e．g．，ifthatpieceofbutterhadbeenheatedto150” it wouldnothavemelted．Theproblemsofcounterfactualsareequallyaproblem offactualconditionals．forany counterfactualcanbetransposedintoaconditionalwithatureantecedentandconsequent．e．g．．sincethatbutter doesnotmelt．itisnotheatedto150F．Theontologicalquestionconcernsthenatureofthegeneralstatements thatenableustoinfertheconsequentuponthebasisoftheantecedentandthestatemento