Contents
29 found
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  1. The Levels of the Empirical Sciences.Samuel Elgin - manuscript
    It is the aim of this paper to develop and defend an interpretation of level of scientific discipline within the truth-maker framework. In particular, I exploit the mereological relation of proper parthood, which is integral to truth-maker semantics, in order to provide an account of scientific level.
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  2. Topic-sensitive Two-dimensional Truthmaker Semantics.Hasen Khudairi - manuscript
    This paper endeavors to establish foundations for the interaction between hyperintensional semantics and two-dimensional indexing. I examine the significance of the semantics, by developing three, novel interpretations of the framework. The first interpretation provides a characterization of the distinction between fundamental and derivative truths. The second interpretation demonstrates how the elements of decision theory are definable within the semantics, and provides a novel account of the interaction between probability measures and hyperintensional grounds. The third interpretation concerns the contents of the (...)
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  3. Abstracta and Possibilia: Modal Foundations of Mathematical Platonism.Hasen Khudairi - manuscript
    This paper aims to provide modal foundations for mathematical platonism. I examine Hale and Wright's (2009) objections to the merits and need, in the defense of mathematical platonism and its epistemology, of the thesis of Necessitism. In response to Hale and Wright's objections to the role of epistemic and metaphysical modalities in providing justification for both the truth of abstraction principles and the success of mathematical predicate reference, I examine the Necessitist commitments of the abundant conception of properties endorsed by (...)
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  4. Modality and Hyperintensionality in Mathematics.Hasen Khudairi - manuscript
    This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of the nature of mathematical modality, and to the applications of the latter to unrestricted quantification and absolute decidability. Rather than countenancing the interpretational type of mathematical modality as a primitive, I argue that the interpretational type of mathematical modality is a species of epistemic modality. I argue, then, that the framework of two-dimensional semantics ought to be applied to the mathematical setting. The framework permits of a formally precise account of the (...)
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  5. Category Theory and Indefinite Extensibility.Hasen Khudairi - manuscript
    This essay endeavors to define the concept of indefinite extensibility in the setting of category theory. I argue that the generative property of indefinite extensibility for set-theoretic truths in category theory is identifiable with the Grothendieck Universe Axiom and the elementary embeddings in Vopenka's principle. The interaction between the interpretational and objective modalities of indefinite extensibility is defined via the epistemic interpretation of two-dimensional semantics. The semantics can be defined intensionally or hyperintensionally. By characterizing the modal profile of $\Omega$-logical validity, (...)
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  6. Modal Cognitivism and Modal Expressivism.Hasen Khudairi - manuscript
    This paper aims to provide a mathematically tractable background against which to model both modal cognitivism and modal expressivism. I argue that epistemic modal algebras, endowed with a hyperintensional, topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker semantics, comprise a materially adequate fragment of the language of thought. I demonstrate, then, how modal expressivism can be regimented by modal coalgebraic automata, to which the above epistemic modal algebras are categorically dual. I examine five methods for modeling the dynamics of conceptual engineering for intensions and (...)
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  7. Causal Modeling Semantics for Counterfactuals with Disjunctive Antecedents.Giuliano Rosella & Jan Sprenger - manuscript
    Causal Modeling Semantics (CMS, e.g., Galles and Pearl 1998; Pearl 2000; Halpern 2000) is a powerful framework for evaluating counterfactuals whose antecedent is a conjunction of atomic formulas. We extend CMS to an evaluation of the probability of counterfactuals with disjunctive antecedents, and more generally, to counterfactuals whose antecedent is an arbitrary Boolean combination of atomic formulas. Our main idea is to assign a probability to a counterfactual (A ∨ B) > C at a causal model M as a weighted (...)
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  8. Disjunctive Parts.Mark Jago - forthcoming - In Federico L. G. Faroldi & Frederik Van De Putte (eds.), Outstanding Contributions to Logic: Kit Fine. Springer.
    Fine (2017a) sets out a theory of content based on truthmaker semantics which distinguishes two kinds of consequence between contents. There is entailment, corresponding to the relationship between disjunct and disjunction, and there is containment, corresponding to the relationship between conjunctions and their conjuncts. Fine associates these with two notions of parthood: disjunctive and conjunctive. Conjunctive parthood is a very useful notion, allowing us to analyse partial content and partial truth. In this chapter, I extend the notion of disjunctive parthood (...)
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  9. Truthmaking, Satisfaction and the Force-Content Distinction.Friederike Moltmann - forthcoming - In Gabriele Mras & Michael Schmitz (eds.), Force, Content, and the Unity of the Proposition. Routledge.
    This paper presents a novel perspective on the force-content distinction making use of truthmaker semantics and an ontology of attitudinal objects, things that are neither acts (or states) nor propositions. It gives a novel norm-based definition of the notion of direction of fit, strictly linking truth and (non-action-guiding) correctness.
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  10. Outline of an Object-Based Truthmaker Semantics for Modals and Propositional Attitudes.Friederike Moltmann - forthcoming - In Dirk Kindermann, Peter Van Elswyk & Andy Egan (eds.), Unstructured Content. Oxford University Press.
    Against the background of standard possible-worlds semantics, this paper outlines a truthmaker approach to the semantics of attitude reports and modal sentences based on an ontology of attitudinal and modal objects.
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  11. Taste Fragmentalism.Giuseppe Spolaore, Samuele Iaquinto & Giuliano Torrengo - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-19.
    This paper explores taste fragmentalism, a novel approach to matters of taste and faultless disagreement. The view is inspired by Kit Fine’s fragmentalism about time, according to which the temporal dimension can be constituted—in an absolute manner—by states that are pairwise incompatible, provided that they do not obtain together. In the present paper, we will apply this metaphysical framework to taste states. In our proposal, two incompatible taste states (such as the state of rhubarb’s being tasty and the state of (...)
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  12. Two problems for Zylstra's truthmaker semantics for essence.Lisa Vogt - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    In his article ‘Making semantics for essence’ (Inquiry, 2019), Justin Zylstra proposed a truthmaker semantics for essence and used it to evaluate principles regarding the explanatory role of essence. The aim of this article is to show that Zylstra's semantics has implausible implications and thus cannot adequately capture essence.
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  13. A Semantics for the Impure Logic of Ground.Louis deRosset & Kit Fine - 2023 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 52 (2):415-493.
    This paper establishes a sound and complete semantics for the impure logic of ground. Fine (Review of Symbolic Logic, 5(1), 1–25, 2012a) sets out a system for the pure logic of ground, one in which the formulas between which ground-theoretic claims hold have no internal logical complexity; and it provides a sound and complete semantics for the system. Fine (2012b) [§§6-8] sets out a system for an impure logic of ground, one that extends the rules of the original pure system (...)
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  14. Counterfactuals, hyperintensionality and Hurford disjunctions.Hüseyin Güngör - 2023 - Linguistics and Philosophy 46 (1):169-195.
    This paper investigates propositional hyperintensionality in counterfactuals. It starts with a scenario describing two children playing on a seesaw and studies the truth-value predictions for counterfactuals by four different semantic theories. The theories in question are Kit Fine’s truthmaker semantics, Luis Alonso-Ovalle’s alternative semantics, inquisitive semantics and Paolo Santorio’s syntactic truthmaker semantics. These predictions suggest that the theories that distinguish more of a given set of intensionally equivalent sentences (Fine and Alonso-Ovalle’s) fare better than those that do not (inquisitive semantics (...)
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  15. Bad Concepts, Bilateral Contents.Michael Deigan - 2022 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 8:595-614.
    I argue that one need not be an inferentialist in order to model inconsistent concepts, contrary to what some have thought. Representationalists can do so by adopting a form of bilateralism about contents. It remains unclear, however, why conceptual inconsistency would constitute a defect to be eliminated, rather than a vindication of dialetheism to be embraced. I suggest some answers to explore that involve accepting a descriptive form of dialetheism but denying its normative forms.
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  16. The Laws of Thought and the Laws of Truth as Two Sides of One Coin.Ulf Hlobil - 2022 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 52 (1):313-343.
    Some think that logic concerns the “laws of truth”; others that logic concerns the “laws of thought.” This paper presents a way to reconcile both views by building a bridge between truth-maker theory, à la Fine, and normative bilateralism, à la Restall and Ripley. The paper suggests a novel way of understanding consequence in truth-maker theory and shows that this allows us to identify a common structure shared by truth-maker theory and normative bilateralism. We can thus transfer ideas from normative (...)
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  17. A truth-maker semantics for ST: refusing to climb the strict/tolerant hierarchy.Ulf Hlobil - 2022 - Synthese 200 (5):1-23.
    The paper presents a truth-maker semantics for Strict/Tolerant Logic (ST), which is the currently most popular logic among advocates of the non-transitive approach to paradoxes. Besides being interesting in itself, the truth-maker presentation of ST offers a new perspective on the recently discovered hierarchy of meta-inferences that, according to some, generalizes the idea behind ST. While fascinating from a mathematical perspective, there is no agreement on the philosophical significance of this hierarchy. I aim to show that there is no clear (...)
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  18. Truthmaker-Based Content: Syntactic, Semantic and Ontological Contexts.Friederike Moltmann - 2021 - Theoretical Linguistics 47 (1-2):155-187.
    This is a reply to the commentaries on my paper 'Truthmaker Semantics for Natural Language: Attitude Verbs, Modals, and Intensional Transitive Verbs'. The paper is a commissioned 'target' article, with commentaries by W. Davis, B. Arsenijevic, K. Moulton, K. Liefke, M. Kaufman, R. Matthews, P. Portner and A. Rubinstein, P. Elliott, and G. Ramchand.
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  19. Truthmaker Semantics for Relevant Logic.Mark Jago - 2020 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 49 (4):681-702.
    I develop and defend a truthmaker semantics for the relevant logic R. The approach begins with a simple philosophical idea and develops it in various directions, so as to build a technically adequate relevant semantics. The central philosophical idea is that truths are true in virtue of specific states. Developing the idea formally results in a semantics on which truthmakers are relevant to what they make true. A very natural notion of conditionality is added, giving us relevant implication. I then (...)
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  20. Clauses as Semantic Predicates: Difficulties for Possible-Worlds Semantics.Friederike Moltmann - 2020 - Festschrift for Angelika Kratzer.
    The standard view of clauses embedded under attitude verbs or modal predicates is that they act as terms standing for propositions, a view that faces a range of philosophical and linguistic difficulties. Recently an alternative has been explored according to which embedded clauses act semantically as predicates of content-bearing objects. This paper argues that this approach faces serious problems when it is based on possible worlds-semantics. It outlines a development of the approach in terms of truthmaker theory instead.
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  21. Truthmaker Semantics for Natural Language: Attitude Verbs, Modals, and Intensional Transitive Verbs.Friederike Moltmann - 2020 - Theoretical Linguistics 3:159-200.
    This paper gives an outline of truthmaker semantics for natural language against the background of standard possible-worlds semantics. It develops a truthmaker semantics for attitude reports and deontic modals based on an ontology of attitudinal and modal objects and on a semantic function of clauses as predicates of such objects. It also présents new motivations for 'object-based truthmaker semantics' from intensional transitive verbs such as ‘need’, ‘look for’, ‘own’, and ‘buy’ and gives an outline of their semantics. This paper is (...)
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  22. Variable Objects and Truthmaking.Friederike Moltmann - 2020 - In Mircea Dumitru (ed.), Metaphysics, Meaning, and Modality. Themes from Kit Fine. Oxford University Press.
    This paper will focus on a philosophically significant construction whose semantics brings together two important notions in Kit Fine’s philosophy, the notion of truthmaking and the notion of a variable embodiment, or its extension, namely what I call a ‘variable object’. This is the construction of definite NPs like 'the number of people that can fit into the bus', 'the book John needs to write', and 'the gifted mathematician John claims to be'. Such NPs are analysed as standing for variable (...)
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  23. Situations, Alternatives, and the Semantics of 'Cases'.Friederike Moltmann - 2019 - Linguistics and Philosophy (1):1-41.
    This paper presents a systematic semantic study of constructions with the noun 'case'. It argues that 'cases' are situations acting as truthmakers within a sentential or epistemic case space. It develops a truthmaker-based alternative semantics of 'case'-constructions, based on Fine's recent truthmaker semantics.
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  24. Truth Predicates, Truth Bearers, and their Variants.Friederike Moltmann - 2018 - Synthese (Suppl 2):1-28.
    This paper argues that truth predicates in natural language and their variants, predicates of correctness, satisfaction and validity, do not apply to propositions (not even with 'that'-clauses), but rather to a range of attitudinal and modal objects. As such natural language reflects a notion of truth that is primarily a normative notion of correctness constitutive of representational objects. The paper moreover argues that 'true' is part of a larger class of satisfaction predicates whose semantic differences are best accounted for in (...)
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  25. An object‐based truthmaker semantics for modals.Friederike Moltmann - 2018 - Philosophical Issues 28 (1):255-288.
    Possible worlds semantics faces a range of difficulties for at least certain types of modals, especially deontic modals with their distinction between heavy and light permissions and obligations. This paper outlines a new semantics of modals that aims to overcome some of those difficulties. The semantics is based on an a novel ontology of modal objects, entities like obligations, permissions, needs, as well as epistemic states, abilities, and essences. Moreover, it is based on truthmaking, in the sense of Fine’s recent (...)
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  26. Epistemic Modality and Hyperintensionality in Mathematics.Timothy Bowen - 2017 - Dissertation, University of St Andrews
    This book concerns the foundations of epistemic modality. I examine the nature of epistemic modality, when the modal operator is interpreted as concerning both apriority and conceivability, as well as states of knowledge and belief. The book demonstrates how epistemic modality relates to the computational theory of mind; metaphysical modality; the types of mathematical modality; to the epistemic status of large cardinal axioms, undecidable propositions, and abstraction principles in the philosophy of mathematics; to the modal profile of rational intuition; and (...)
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  27. Ifs, Ands, and Buts: An Incremental Truthmaker Semantics for Indicative Conditionals.Stephen Yablo - 2016 - Analytic Philosophy 57 (1):175-213.
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  28. Counterfactuals without Possible Worlds? A Difficulty for Fine’s Exact Semantics for Counterfactuals.Brian Embry - 2014 - Journal of Philosophy (5):276-287.
    In this paper I argue that there is a difficulty for Fine's exact semantics for counterfactuals. The difficulty undermines Fine's reasons for preferring exact semantics to possible worlds semantics.
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  29. Chapter 5: Intensional Transitive Verbs and their 'Objects'.Friederike Moltmann - 2013 - In Abstract Objects and the semantics of Natural Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    This chapter gives a truthmaker-based account of the semantics of 'reifying' quantifiers like 'something' when they act as complements of intensional transitive verbs ('need', 'look for'). It argues that such quantifiers range over 'variable satisfiers' of the attitudinal object described by the verb (e.g. the need or the search).
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