Material Consequence and Counterfactuals

Abstract

A conclusion is a “material consequence” of reasons if it follows necessarily from them in accordance with a valid form of argument with content. The corresponding universal generalization of the argument’s associated conditional must be true, must be a covering generalization, and must be true of counterfactual instances. But it need not be law-like. Pearl’s structural model semantics is easier to apply to such counterfactual instances than Lewis’s closest-worlds semantics, and gives intuitively correct results.