Event Detail

The purpose of this talk is to examine a philosophical framework for thinking about relevance, conditionals, and reason relations, which originates in the work of Wolfgang Spohn. Through two recent experiments, core claims of this framework were subjected to empirical testing utilizing new stimulus materials, which were developed especially for this task. Throughout history, the idea that there should somehow be a relationship between relevance and the meaning of conditionals has continued to capture the imagination of philosophers, but previous studies have failed to find supporting empirical evidence. Here the take-home message of the present talk will be that the reason might very well be that we have been looking in the wrong places.