ABSTRACT
Traditionally, the semantics for counterfactuals is thought to have a limited kind of context-sensitivity. This chapter examines the relationship between contextualism for counterfactuals and for knowledge, arguing that though a close relationship between a contextualist semantics for counterfactuals and one knowledge is elegant, it faces problems. It explores the various motivations for counterfactual contextualism. Counterfactuals enter into several puzzles that, if accepted at face value, appear to have the power to undermine the truth of nearly all contingent counterfactuals. For the vast majority of counterfactual conditionals, and for virtually all ordinary counterfactual conditionals, the antecedent is underdescribed in terms of the microphysical detail by which it occurs. The clash between woulds and mights is not the only way to get counterfactual skepticism off the ground. Hajek embraces counterfactual skepticism and proposes an error theory to account for the ordinary judgments.
