"If Oswald had not killed Kennedy" – Spohn on Counterfactuals

Wolfgang Spohn's theory of ranking functions is an elegant and powerful theory of the structure and dynamics of doxastic states. In two recent papers, Spohn has applied it to the analysis of conditionals, claiming to have presented a unified account of indicative and subjunctive (counterfactual) conditionals. I argue that his analysis fails to account for counterfactuals that refer to indirect causes. The strategy of taking the transitive closure that Spohn employs in the theory of causation is not available for counterfactuals. I have a close look at Spohn's treatment of the famous Oswald-Kennedy case in order to illustrate my points. I sketch an alternative view that seems to avoid the problems

Status of Dark Matter Searches (Rapporteur Talk)

This article reviews the status of the field of dark matter as of summer 2017, when it was discussed at 35th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2017) in Busan, Korea. It is the write-up of a rapporteur talk on the status of dark matter searches given at the conference.Comment: 24 pages, 18figures, 35th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2017