Alessandro Zucchi
Stalnaker’s minimal change semantics for conditionals fails to support the import-export law, according to which (a) and (b) are logically equivalent:
- (a) if A, then if B, then C
- (b) if A and B, then C
However, natural language conditionals seem to abide by the law. McGee (1985) outlines a minimal change semantics for conditionals that supports it. I argue that, in fact, the equivalence between (a) and (b) does not hold unrestrictedly, and I suggest that the facts follow from the interaction between the semantics of conditionals and the ways suppositions may affect the context. I conclude by describing the consequences of my account for the issue of the validity of modus ponens.