Scientific counterfactuals as make-believe

Area of Science:

• Philosophy of Science
• Cognitive Science
• Scientific Reasoning

Background:

• Scientific reasoning frequently involves counterfactuals, including those with impossible antecedents (counterpossibles).
• Existing frameworks struggle to evaluate the meaning and truth-values of such counterfactuals.
• The concept of 'fiction' as imagination, rather than falsity, is key to understanding these counterfactuals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To defend the 'make-believe view' of scientific counterfactuals.
• To provide a naturalized, fiction-based account for evaluating scientific counterfactuals.
• To demonstrate that evaluating scientific counterfactuals is fundamentally about scientific representation.

Main Methods:

• Develops a 'make-believe' framework for scientific counterfactuals, drawing on philosophical and cognitive science insights.
• Defines counterfactual truth within a 'game of make-believe' where imagining the consequent is prescribed.
• Integrates theoretical and experimental analytic philosophy with cognitive science approaches.

Main Results:

• The make-believe view allows evaluation of scientific counterfactuals independently of the possibility of their antecedents.
• This account assigns non-trivial truth-values to counterfactuals, including counterpossibles.
• Scientific counterfactual evaluation is reframed as a practice-based issue of scientific representation.

Conclusions:

• The make-believe view offers a robust account of scientific counterfactuals and reasoning.
• It reconciles the use of impossible antecedents in scientific thought experiments.
• Scientific counterfactuals are best understood through the lens of imaginative pretense and representation.