Deductive reasoning from uncertain conditionals

Deductive reasoning from uncertain conditionals.

This paper begins with a review of the literature on plausible reasoning with deductive arguments containing a conditional premise. There is concurring evidence that people presented with valid conditional arguments such as Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens generally do not endorse the conclusion, but rather find it uncertain, in case (1) the plausibility of the major conditional premise is debata...

Uncertain deductive reasoning

% correct per task (conclusion: If A, then B) P60 P70 P90 Pvl Pac MP90 MP70 MP80 MPvl MPac Paradox 1 62.50 81.25 68.75 68.75 68.75 62.50 87.50 81.25 75.00 93.75 Paradox 2 73.33 73.33 73.33 80.00 66.67 73.33 73.33 86.67 80.00 93.33 % correct per task (conclusion: If A, then not B) Paradox 1 75.00 68.75 62.50 75.00 43.75 81.25 87.50 87.50 68.75 87.50 Paradox 2 86.67 86.67 86.67 66.67 66.67 80.00 ...

Niki Pfeifer Reasoning about uncertain conditionals

There is a long tradition in formal epistemology and in the psychology of reasoning to investigate indicative conditionals. In psychology, the propositional calculus was taken for granted to be the normative standard of reference. Experimental tasks, evaluation of the participants’ responses and psychological model building, were inspired by the semantics of the material conditional. Recent emp...

Deductive reasoning with factual, possible, and counterfactual conditionals.

We compared reasoners' inferences from conditionals based on possibilities in the present or the past (e.g., "If Linda had been in Dublin then Cathy would have been in Galway") with their inferences based on facts in the present or the past (e.g., "If Linda was in Dublin then Cathy was in Galway"). We propose that people construct a richer representation of conditionals that deal with possibili...

Deduction with uncertain conditionals