kontrafaktische

Kontrafaktische refers to counterfactual statements—claims about how things would be under conditions that differ from what actually occurred. In philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive science, such statements are used to analyze hypotheticals, causal reasoning, and language structure. They contrast with factual statements about the actual world and with simple predictions about the future, by asserting an alternative past or set of circumstances.

The dominant theoretical approach treats counterfactuals with possible-worlds semantics. A statement like “If A, then B” is considered true in the actual world only if, in the closest possible world where A holds, B would also hold. This framework, associated with philosophers such as David Lewis and Robert Stalnaker, emphasizes dependence on the antecedent and on a notion of similarity between worlds. Debates focus on how to define closeness, the role of causation, and the influence of background facts.

Applications span several domains. In philosophy of language and metaphysics, counterfactuals illuminate conditional reasoning and causation. In history and social sciences, contrafactual analysis explores alternative outcomes of events and policies. In artificial intelligence, counterfactual explanations describe minimal changes to an input that would alter a model’s prediction, aiding interpretability and accountability.

Examples illustrate the variety and complexity of contrafactuals. “If the asteroid had missed Earth, life would have evolved differently.” “If I had left earlier, I would not have missed the train.” Many counterfactuals rely on specific causal assumptions, and the truth conditions of such statements can be sensitive to the chosen logical framework, making the topic a persistent area of debate.