 Stalnaker’s theory is intended to apply to counterfactuals and indicative conditionals alike, but in the case of indicative conditionals, he claims, the selection function is subject to a pragmatic constraint, set in the framework of the dynamics of conversation. At any stage in a conversation, many things are taken for granted by speaker and hearer, i.e. many possibilities are taken as already ruled out. The remaining possibilities are live. He calls the set of worlds which are not ruled out — the live possibilities — the context set. For indicative conditionals, antecedents are typically live possibilities, and we focus on that case. The pragmatic constraint for indicative conditionals says that if the antecedent \(A\) is compatible with the context set (i.e. true at some worlds in the context set) then for any world \(w\) in the context set, the nearest \(A\)-world to \(w\) — i.e. the world picked out by the selection function — is also a member of the context set. Roughly, if \(A\) is a live possibility (i.e. not already ruled out), then for any world \(w\) which is a live possibility, the nearest \(A\)-world to \(w\) is also a live possibility. Or: things which are taken to be epistemically possible count as closer to actuality than things which are not.