Is Stalnaker’s Semantics Complete?

Abstract It is shown that one common formulation of Stalnaker’s semantics for conditionals is incomplete: it has no sound and (strongly) complete proof system. At first, this seems to conflict with well-known completeness results for this semantics (e.g., Stalnaker and Thomason 1967, Stalnaker 1970 and Lewis 1973, ch. 6). As it turns out, it does not: these completeness results rely on another closely-related formulation of the semantics that is provably complete. Specifically, the difference comes down to how the Limit Assumption is stated. I close with some remarks about what this means for the logic of conditionals.

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Publication Details

Journal
Erkenntnis
Published
2025-02-18
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-025-00927-7
Primary Topic
Philosophy and Theoretical Science
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Is Stalnaker’s Semantics Complete?

Alexander W. Kocurek
Erkenntnis
Philosophy and Theoretical Science
article

Is Stalnaker’s Semantics Complete?

Alexander W. Kocurek
article en

Abstract

Abstract It is shown that one common formulation of Stalnaker’s semantics for conditionals is incomplete: it has no sound and (strongly) complete proof system. At first, this seems to conflict with well-known completeness results for this semantics (e.g., Stalnaker and Thomason 1967, Stalnaker 1970 and Lewis 1973, ch. 6). As it turns out, it does not: these completeness results rely on another closely-related formulation of the semantics that is provably complete. Specifically, the difference comes down to how the Limit Assumption is stated. I close with some remarks about what this means for the logic of conditionals.

ErkenntnisVol. 91(3)
University of California San Diego (US)
Australian Research Council
Openalex Percentile: Top 97%
Philosophy and Theoretical Science
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