Michael Brinkman

(? - 2026)

This thesis investigates whether natural language conditionals can be systematically organized into a coherent taxonomy based on their logical structures. Examining material, strict, probabilistic, counterfactual, and counterpossible conditionals, it explores both successful and failed attempts at reduction between types. While some reductions prove viable (notably from counterpossible to counterfactual conditionals) the project encounters fundamental limits. The thesis argues that English "if… then" statements likely do not possess a unified logical form but rather most likely represent a heterogeneous cluster unified by pragmatic and linguistic convention. Attempts at clarification through formal logic cannot fully resolve what genuinely constitutes a conditional versus what merely appears to be one. The work concludes that the conditional problem resists complete taxonomic resolution, suggesting that conditionality may be better understood as a family of related but irreducibly distinct logical structures rather than variations on a single core concept.