New experimental evidence against the similarity approach to conditionals

Dean McHugh (University of Amsterdam)
Tomasz Klochowicz (University of Amsterdam)

The similarity approach to conditionals predicts Reciprocity to be valid: whenever A > B, B > A and A > C are true, B > C is true (where A > B denotes “if A, would B”). We ran an experiment to test the validity of this rule. Strikingly, half of our participants judged the rule invalid, i.e. judged in at least one scenario that it does not preserve truth. Our data also challenge Kratzer’s (2012) and Fine’s (2012) semantics of conditionals, but we show that McHugh’s (2022) aboutness approach can account for our data. We further compare our results with predictions from Ciardelli, Zhang & Champollion (2018) and Santorio (2018, 2019).