Concept
Counterfactual thinking
Overview
Counterfactual thinking is a concept in psychology that involves the human tendency to create possible alternatives to life events that have already occurred; something that is contrary to what actually happened. Counterfactual thinking is, as it states: "counter to the facts". These thoughts consist of the "What if?" and the "If only..." that occur when thinking of how things could have turned out differently. Counterfactual thoughts include things that – in the present – could not have happened because they are dependent on events that did not occur in the past.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
To say that thinking occurs with reference to situations which are still going on, and incomplete, is to say that thinking occurs when things are uncertain or doubtful or problematic. Only what is finished, completed, is wholly assured. Where there is reflection there is suspense.
John Dewey, Democracy and Education
Close in meaning to Counterfactual thinking; the term itself is not named.
While the mere current of ideas is something which just happens within us, the process of elimination and of confirmation by means of statement of real ground and basis of connection is an activity which mind as such exercises. It is this distinction which marks off thought as activity from any psychical event and from the associative mechanism as receptive happenings. One is concerned with mere _de facto_…
John Dewey, Studies in Logical Theory
Close in meaning to Counterfactual thinking; the term itself is not named.
There is no doubt but this principle sometimes takes place, and produces those inferences we draw from contrary phaenomena: though I am perswaded, that upon examination we shall not find it to be the principle, that most commonly influences the mind in this species of reasoning. When we follow only the habitual determination of the mind, we make the transition without any reflection, and interpose not a moment's…
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
Close in meaning to Counterfactual thinking; the term itself is not named.
Related ideas
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
- Psychology
- Plato
- Merriam-Webster
- Aristotle
- Modal logic
- Counterfactual conditional
- Nicholas Rescher
- Epistemology
Place in the tradition
Part of Free will.