I have three main objectives in this essay. First, in chapter 2, I shall put forward and justify what I call worldlessness, by which I mean the following: All truths (as well as falsehoods) are wholly independent of any circumstances, not only time and place but also possible worlds. It follows from this view that whatever is actually true must be taken as true with respect to every possible world, which means that all truths are (in a sense) necessary. However, (...) the account I shall propound is different from what is known in the trade as necessitarianism, i.e. the view that there is only one possible world, viz. the actual one, for the doctrine of the worldlessness of truth values, despite its commitment to the necessity of truths and falsehoods, is quite compatible with the idea of there being other possible worlds. Another important issue in chapter 2, explored in particular in section 2.12, is the claim that there is no real change in the world. Secondly, in chapter 3 I consider the eminent traditional argument for determinism, deriving from Aristotle, namely, logical determinism, i.e. determinism justified by an appeal to the logical principle of bivalence (that all proper statements, including those concerning the future, are either true or false). In this connection I try to show that, (i), the formulation of the conclusion of this argument as "Whatever will happen will happen of necessity" is implausible, at least from the modern point of view, (ii), the formulation as "Whatever will happen will happen inevitably" is more to the point, and (iii), on the basis of the worldless and timeless aspect advocated in chapter 2, this latter formulation is quite harmless, essentially amounting to the trivial statement, "Whatever will happen will happen". Thirdly, in chapter 4 I study theological determinism, or determinism that arises from God's supposed providential control over everything that happens. In this connection, I shall survey some historical accounts of the relation between human free will and determinism (not only theological but also causal determinism); the philosophers the views of whom I shall attend to include Chrysippus, St. Augustine, Boethius and Aquinas. I shall in particular consider G.W. Leibniz' theodicean aspirations, viz. his solution to the problem of evil and, especially, his compatibilist attempts to reconcile human free will with the strictly deterministic flow of actual events. I think it is important to try to explicate Leibniz' ingenious account of these matters, since it seems that it has not been fully appreciated in the literature, not even by contemporary Leibniz scholars (such as B. Mates, R.C. Sleigh, C. Wilson, R.M. Adams and D. Rutherford). In providing the Leibnizian compatibilist solution of the problem of determinism and freedom in chapter 4, I shall utilize the approach of chapter 2. (shrink)

I analyze some classical solutions of the skeptical argument and some of their week points (especially the contextualist solution). First I have proposed some possible improvement of the contextualist solution (the introduction of the explicit-implicit belief and knowledge distinction beside the differences in the relevance of some counter-factual alternatives). However, this solution does not block too fast jumps of the everyday context (where empirical knowledge is possible) into skeptical context (where empirical knowledge is impossible). Then I analyze some formal analogies (...) between some modal arguments on the contingency of empirical facts (and the world as whole) and the skeptical arguments against empirical knowledge. I try to show that the skeptical conclusion “Empirical knowledge does not exist” is logically coherent with the thesis that they are empirical facts and that we have true belief on them. In order to do that without contradictions I have to accept a non-classical definition of knowledge: S knows that p:= S is not justified to allow that non-p. Knowledge and justified allowance function here as some pseudo-theoretical concepts which allow only some partial and conditional definitions by some “empirical” terms and logical conditions. (shrink)

The purpose of this survey is twofold: (1) to place some centralthemes of epistemic logic in a general epistemological context,and (2) to outline a new framework for epistemic logic developedjointly with S. Andur Pedersen unifying some key ``mainstream''epistemological concerns with the ``formal'' epistemologicalapparatus.

One of the many research projects of Jaakko Hintikka was entitled “Logical tools for human thinking and their history”. This is in fact an apt summary of the lifetime work of this master logician who developed several new methods and systems in mathematical and philosophical logic, among them distributive normal forms, model sets, possible-worlds semantics, epistemic logic, doxastic logic, inductive logic, semantic information, game-theoretical semantics, interrogative approach to inquiry, and independence-friendly logic. He applied them to study problems in philosophy of (...) language, formal epistemology, and philosophy of science. He combined systematic work with novel interpretations of important historical figures like Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, Peirce, and Wittgenstein. Hintikka was one of the most cited analytic philosophers, and he influenced logic and philosophy also as a successful teacher and the long-time editor of the journal Synthese. (shrink)

How to interpret singular terms in fiction? In this paper, we address this semantic question from the perspective of the Artifactual Theory of Fiction (ATF). According to the ATF, fictional characters exist as abstract artifacts created by their author, and preserved through the existence of copies of an original work and a competent readership. We pretend that a well-suited semantics for the ATF can be defined with respect to a modal framework by means of Hintikka’s world lines semantics. The question (...) of the interpretation of proper names is asked in relation to two inference rules, problematic when applied in intensional contexts: the Substitution of Identicals and Existential Generalization. The former fails because identity is contingent. The latter because proper names are not necessarily linked to well-identified individuals. This motivates a non-rigid interpretation of proper names in fiction, although cross-fictional reference (e.g. to real entities) is made possible by the interpretative efforts of the reader. (shrink)

The combination of quantifiers with a semantics for epistemic operators in a modal framework is one of the major contributions of Hintikka in intensional logic. Hintikka’s starting point is his diagnosis of the failure of existential generalization and the substitution of identicals in terms of referential multiplicity. In this paper, I introduce Hintikka as a free logician. Indeed, Hintikka’s first-order epistemic logic is grounded on a logic free of ontological presuppositions with respect to singular terms. It is also a logic (...) free of presuppositions of uniqueness of reference. After having focused on the use of quantifiers and singular terms in Hintikka’s epistemic logic, I discuss some consequences from a semantico-logical perspective, but also from a philosophical one. By arguing against the so-called contingent a priori truths defended by Kripke, I conclude with a proposal in favour of Hintikka’s non-rigid interpretation of proper names. (shrink)

It is acknowledged by proponents of the Artifactual Theory of Fiction that literary works sometimes involve real or immigrant characters. However, their conception of cross-fictional identity faces serious difficulties. In this paper, we set the problem in the context of a modal framework, in relation to quantification across a plurality of possible worlds. Quantification is explained in terms of Hintikka’s notion of world lines; i.e. the possible values of bound variables are individuals that are not reduced to their manifestations. We (...) finally offer another understanding of identity across weakly impermeable domains, in a way compatible with the Artifactual Theory of Fiction. (shrink)

La noción de mundos posibles, sostiene que nuestro mundo es un mundo entre otros, un subconjunto de todas las cosas que existen. Esto implica aceptar que existen mundos estructuralmente equivalentes con sus propios lenguajes [formales], que entre sí no tienen ningún estatuto privilegiado, p.e., el mundo y lenguaje del arte o el mundo y lenguaje de la física; no obstante, la idea de aceptar otros mundos equivalentes como mundos posibles epistémica y ontológicamente legítimos para acceder y expresar lo cognoscible del (...) mundo no goza de gran aceptación. En este sentido, de entre las múltiples dimensiones de la noción de mundos posibles anotada, su dimensión lógica, es una de las más extendidas, ésta se entiende como un posible estado de cosas o un posible curso de eventos. Empero, esta concepción es la más restrictiva de la noción de mundos posibles, no sólo porque dicha noción transmuta en una especie de «técnica predictiva» que nos permite analizar y visualizar posibles escenarios de un estado de cosas o un curso de eventos, sino porque fundamentalmente, la noción de mundos posibles pierde gran parte de su potencia conceptual. Hablar de proposiciones como conjuntos de mundos posibles, no es un error, pero es limitar innecesariamente el alcance y campo de acción de la noción de mundos posibles. Si entendemos dicha noción en la versión primaría de Lewis [«Nuestro mundo actual es sólo un mundo entre otros»], sería plausible recuperar, entre otras, las dimensiones ontológica y epistémica de la noción de mundos posibles, y por ende la posibilidad objetiva de indagar en formas alternativas y legitimas de acceder y expresar lo cognoscible del mundo; en este sentido, en este trabajo me propongo: (1) retomar la noción primaria de mundos posibles de Lewis, para analizar y explicitar brevemente sus limitaciones, virtudes y requerimientos; (2) examinar las condiciones de posibilidad de un mundo; y, (3) sugerir los lineamientos epistémicos que deberían considerarse y explicitarse cuando se habla de y desde un mundo posible a la hora de expresar un enunciado. (shrink)

Sumário: 1. El caso del método científico, Alberto Oliva; 2. Un capítulo de la prehistoria de las ciencias humanas: la defensa por Vico de la tópica, Jorge Alberto Molina; 3. La figura de lo cognoscible y los mundos, Pablo Vélez León; 4. Lebenswelt de Husserl y las neurociencias, Vanessa Fontana; 5. El uso estético del concepto de mundos posibles, Jairo Dias Carvalho; 6. Realismo normativo no naturalista y mundos morales imposibles, Alcino Eduardo Bonella; 7. En la lógica de pragmatismo, Hércules (...) de Araujo Feitosa, Luiz Henrique da Cruz Silvestrini; 8 La lógica, el tiempo y el lenguaje natural: un sistema formal para tiempos de portugués, Carlos Luciano Manholi. / Temas em filosofia contemporânea II / Jonas Rafael Becker Arenhart, Jaimir Conte, Cezar Augusto Mortari (orgs.) – Florianópolis : NEL/UFSC, 2016. 167 p. : tabs. - (Rumos da epistemologia ; v. 14); ISBN 978-85-87253-27-9 (papel); ISBN 978-85-87253-26-2 (e-book). (shrink)

Turingin testi, interrogatiivimalli ja tekoäly.