Recent work in philosophy of language has raised significant problems for the traditional theory of propositions, engendering serious skepticism about its general workability. These problems are, I believe, tied to fundamental misconceptions about how the theory should be developed. The goal of this paper is to show how to develop the traditional theory in a way which solves the problems and puts this skepticism to rest. The problems fall into two groups. The first has to do with reductionism, specifically attempts (...) to reduce propositions to extensional entities-either extensional functions or sets. The second group concerns problems of fine grained content-both traditional 'Cicero'/'Tully' puzzles and recent variations on them which confront scientific essentialism. After characterizing the problems, I outline a non-reductionist approach-the algebraic approach-which avoids the problems associated with reductionism. I then go on to show how the theory can incorporate non-Platonic (as well as Platonic) modes of presentation. When these are implemented nondescriptively, they yield the sort of fine-grained distinctions which have been eluding us. The paper closes by applying the theory to a cluster of remaining puzzles, including a pair of new puzzles facing scientific essentialism. (shrink)

در نگاه نخست به نظر می‌رسد می‌توان شباهت‌هایی بین جهان‌های ممکن مورد نظر لوئیس و نظریۀ جهان‌های موازی فیزیک یافت. هر دو این نظریات به امکان وجود جهان‌هایی بیش از جهانی که در آن زندگی می‌کنیم، اشاره دارند. پس از رسالۀ اورت، توجه فیزیک‌دانان به چندجهانی و جهان‌های موازی جلب شد. اکنون جهان‌های موازی یکی از نظریه‌های مورد توجه دانشمندان و پژوهشگران حوزۀ فیزیک است. دیوید لوئیس با تکیه بر فیزیکالیسم و رئالیسم موجهاتی از جمله طرفداران نظریۀ جهان‌های ممکن است. (...) در این مقاله کوشیده‌ایم با استفاده از روش تحلیلی-توصیفی ابتدا مبانی دو نظریه را تبیین کرده و سپس نظریۀ لوئیس را در مورد جهان‌های ممکن با توجه به نظریۀ جهان‌های موازی مورد بررسی قرار دهیم. هر دو نظریه وجود جهان‌های دیگر را ممکن می‌دانند. نظریه لوئیس شش ویژگی اصلی دارد: ۱- وجود و واقعیت جهان‌های ممکن، ۲- عدم وجود رابطه علی میان‌ جهان‌های ممکن، ۳- شباهت جهان‌های ممکن با جهان ما و تفاوت در محتوای جهان‌ها، ۴- عدم امکان تقلیل جهان‌های ممکن، ۵- نمایه‌ای بودن واقعیت و ۶- اتحاد مکان- زمان اجزای هر جهان و مجزا بودن روابط زمان-مکان جهان‌ها. نتایج پژوهش نشان می‌دهد در صورتی که جهان‌های موازی، زمانی به عنوان یک حقیقت علمی مورد تأیید قرار بگیرند، آنگاه ممکن است ویژگی‌های دوم، سوم و ششم نظریۀ لوئیس با واقعیت فیزیکی در تضاد قرار بگیرند. در صورت وجود تضاد -به جهت بنیادی بودن این ویژگی‌ها- نظریۀ جهان‌های ممکن لوئیس دچار تزلزل فراوان خواهد شد. (shrink)

In a recent article, P. Roger Turner and Justin Capes argue that no one is, or ever was, even partly morally responsible for certain world-indexed truths. Here we present our reasons for thinking that their argument is unsound: It depends on the premise that possible worlds are maximally consistent states of affairs, which is, under plausible assumptions concerning states of affairs, demonstrably false. Our argument to show this is based on Bertrand Russell’s original ‘paradox of propositions’. We should then opt (...) for a different approach to explain world-indexed truths whose upshot is that we may be morally responsible for some of them. The result to the effect that there are no maximally consistent states of affairs is independently interesting though, since this notion motivates an account of the nature of possible worlds in the metaphysics of modality. We also register in this article, independently of our response to Turner and Capes, and in the spirit of Russell’s aforementioned paradox and many other versions thereof, a proof of the claim that there is no set of all true propositions one can render false. (shrink)

Lewisian Genuine Realism about possible worlds is often deemed unable to accommodate impossible worlds and reap the benefits that these bestow to rival theories. This thesis explores two alternative extensions of GR into the terrain of impossible worlds. It is divided in six chapters. Chapter I outlines Lewis’ theory, the motivations for impossible worlds, and the central problem that such worlds present for GR: How can GR even understand the notion of an impossible world, given Lewis’ reductive theoretical framework? Since (...) the desideratum is to incorporate impossible worlds into GR without compromising Lewis’ reductive analysis of modality, Chapter II defends that analysis against objections. The rest of the thesis is devoted to incorporating impossible worlds into GR. Chapter III explores GR-friendly impossible worlds in the form of set-theoretic constructions out of genuine possibilia. Then, Chapters IV-VI venture into concrete impossible worlds. Chapter IV addresses Lewis’ objection against such worlds, to the effect that contradictions true at impossible worlds amount to true contradictions tout court. I argue that even if so, the relevant contradictions are only ever about the non-actual, and that Lewis’ argument relies on a premise that cannot be nonquestion- beggingly upheld in the face of genuine impossible worlds in any case. Chapter V proposes that Lewis’ reductive analysis can be preserved, even in the face of genuine impossibilia, if we differentiate the impossible from the possible by means of accessibility relations, understood non-modally in terms of similarity. Finally, Chapter VI counters objections to the effect that there are certain impossibilities, formulated in Lewis’ theoretical language, which genuine impossibilia should, but cannot, represent. I conclude that Genuine Realism is still very much in the running when the discussion turns to impossible worlds. (shrink)

Some truths are necessary, others could have been false. Why? What is the source of the distinction between the necessary and the contingent? What's so special about the necessary truths that account for their necessity? In this article, we look at some of the most promising accounts of the grounds of necessity: David Lewis' reduction of necessity to truth at all possible worlds; Kit Fine's reduction of necessity to essence; and accounts of necessity that take the distinction between the necessary (...) and the contingent to be a matter of convention. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that warrant for Lewis’ Modal Realism is unobtainable. I consider two familiar objections to Lewisian realism – the modal irrelevance objection and the epistemological objection – and argue that Lewis’ response to each is unsatisfactory because they presuppose claims that only the Lewisian realist will accept. Since, I argue, warrant for Lewisian realism can only be obtained if we have a response to each objection that does not presuppose the truth of Lewisian realism, this circularity (...) is vicious. I end by contrasting Lewis’ methodology with Forrest’s in order to illustrate a rival method that does not fall victim to the objection I lay against Lewis. (shrink)

Konolige''s technical notion of belief based on deduction structures is briefly reviewed and its usefulness for the design of artificial agents with limited representational and deductive capacities is pointed out. The design of artificial agents with more sophisticated representational and deductive capacities is then taken into account. Extended representational capacities require in the first place a solution to the intensional context problems. As an alternative to Konolige''s modal first-order language, an approach based on type-free property theory is proposed. It considers (...) often neglected issues, such as the need for a more general account of thede dicto-de re distinction, and quasi-indicators. Extended deductive capacities require a subdivision of Konolige''s notion of belief into two distinct technical notions,potential anddispositional belief. The former has to do with what an artificial agent could in principle come to actively believe, given enough time and its specific logical competence; the latter with what an agent can be assumed to believe with respect to a specific goal to be fulfilled. (shrink)

Modal Platonism utilizes "weak" logical possibility, such that it is logically possible there are abstract entities, and logically possible there are none. Modal Platonism also utilizes a non-indexical actuality operator. Modal Platonism is the EASY WAY, neither reductionist nor eliminativist, but embracing the Platonistic language of abstract entities while eliminating ontological commitment to them. Statement of Modal Platonism. Any consistent statement B ontologically committed to abstract entities may be replaced by an empirically equivalent modalization, MOD(B), not so ontologically committed. This (...) equivalence is provable using Modal/Actuality Logic S5@. Let MAX be a strong set theory with individuals. Then the following Schematic Bombshell Result (SBR) can be shown: MAX logically yields [T is true if and only if MOD(T) is true], for scientific theories T. The proof utilizes Stephen Neale's clever model-theoretic interpretation of Quantified Lewis S5, which I extend to S5@. (shrink)

Many philosophers employ an intellectual division of labour. Philosophy tells us what the truth conditions of various philosophically interesting sentences are. For example, atomic sentences containing numerals are sentences containing singular terms putatively referring to numbers; sentences about what could be are sentences quantifying over possible worlds and so on. Some discipline outside of philosophy tells us that certain of these sentences are true. The purported result is that such philosophically controversial entities as numbers and possible worlds have been shown (...) to exist. I criticize this ‘twin-track strategy’ and try to show that the two components conflict rather than complement each other. (shrink)

The key idea behind reduction is a simple and familiar one: it’s that there’s more to things than meets the eye. Surprisingly, this simple idea provides the resources to block a number of notable anti-reductionist arguments: Mackie’s argument from queerness against objective moral values, Kripke’s Humphrey objection and its recent variants, and Jubien’s objection from irrelevance against Lewisian modal realism. What is wrong with each of these arguments is that they suppose that what is to be reduced must not be (...) dissimilar to what it is to be reduced to. This supposition is shown to be misguided and that the success or otherwise of a reduction turns on quite different considerations. (shrink)

Gödel’s Ontological argument is distinctive because it is the most sophisticated and formal of ontological arguments and relies heavily on the notion of positive property. Gödel uses a third-order modal logic with a property abstraction operator and property quantification into modal contexts. Gödel describes positive property as "independent of the accidental structure of the world"; "pure attribution," as opposed to privation; "positive in the 'moral aesthetic sense.'" Pure attribution seems likely to be related to the Leibnizian concept of perfection.By a (...) careful examination of the formal semantics of third-order modal logic with property abstraction together with a Completeness result for third-order modal logic with property abstraction for faithful models that I previously developed in 2000 in my work, Gödel’s Ontological Argument, I argue that it is not possible to develop a sufficient applied third-order modal semantics for Gödel’s ontological argument. As I explore possible approaches for an applied semantics including anti-Realist accounts of the semantics of modal logic compatible with Actualism, I argue that Gödel makes implicit philosophical assumptions which commit him to both possibilism (the belief in merely possible objects) and modal realism (the belief in possible worlds). (shrink)

The contemporary Humean programme that seeks to combine property realism with the denial of necessary connections between distinct existences is flawed. Objects and properties by their very natures are entangled in such connections. It follows that modal notions cannot be reductively analysed by appeal to the concept property, not even if the reducing theory posits an abundant supply of entities to fall under that concept.