Tenability Pursuit

Recently Hájek prophesied that “as fans of the Friday the 13th series know, you should never be surprised if Jason suddenly reappears in a new guise – and the same is true for Stalnaker’s Thesis” (Hájek, 2011, p. 14). So what better day to pick for a plea for the thesis than today? Obviously, a new guise is also needed for the thesis; it cannot live on in the way as it is understood in the triviality results. In this article I investigate the possibilities for the thesis if one follows (van Fraassen, 1976) in assuming that the meaning of a conditional may be context-sensitive. Several triviality proofs among which two new ones will be discussed, thereby investigating the necessity for, and identity of the context-sensitivity. These findings are then compared to the tenability results by van Fraassen, and I will argue that his logic CE does not yet take into account the context-sensitivity fully and correctly. Finally, also some direct arguments, not based on the thesis, in favor of context-sensitivity are presented.