Pragmatic conditionals, conditional pragmatics, and the pragmatic component of conditional reasoning

Abstract

This chapter argues that the pragmatic knowledge based component of the human reasoning system remains relatively unexplored. Moreover, the conversational use to which conditionals are put must also be addressed by the psychology of reasoning. It categorizes pragmatic conditionals, pointing out that their practical uses usually entail a decision-theoretic interpretation, in which actions and their consequences may vary in utility for a speaker or a hearer. The chapter examines a range of utility conditionals, including promises, inducements, and deontic conditionals, pointing out the pragmatic commitments they licence. It goes on to investigate conditional pragmatics, i.e., the pragmatic implicatures that conditionals might invite. It then introduces the conditional field, the complex of factors including co-tenable conditions and alternatives that make up what Rescher (2007) calls the 'enthymematic background' to a simple conditional statement, and which provides the most investigated pragmatic effects on human conditional reasoning. The final section on interactions between these pragmatic components provides fertile ground for further explorations of pragmatic effects in conditional inference.