Evidence for the Jeffrey Table

Abstract

Abstract. Conditionals statements are a common and necessary component in natural languages. The research reported in this paper is on a fundamental question about singular conditionals. Is there an adequate account of people’s truth, falsity, and credibility (probability) judgments about these conditionals when their antecedents are false? Two experiments examined people’s quantitative credibility ratings and qualitative truth and falsity judgments for singular conditionals, if p then q, given false antecedent, not-p, cases. The results demonstrate that, when relevant knowledge about the conditional probability of q given p, P( q|p), is available to participants in not-p cases, they tend to make credibility ratings based on P( q|p), and to make “true” (or “false”) judgments at a high (or low) level of these credibility ratings. These findings favor the Jeffrey table account of these conditionals over the other existing accounts, including that of the de Finetti table.