Switch to: References

Citations of:

Modal Logic as Metaphysics

Oxford, England: Oxford University Press (2013)

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Causation and Free Will. [REVIEW]Peter J. Graham, Andrew Law & Jonah Nagashima - 2018 - Analysis 78 (2):371-373.
    Review of Causation and Free Will by Carolina Sartorio, Oxford University Press, 2016. viii + 188 pp. £35.00.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Replies to Eklund and Uzquiano.Thomas Hofweber - 2018 - Analysis 78 (2):315-334.
    My thanks to Matti Eklund and Gabriel Uzquiano for their thoughtful and challenging critical essays. In these replies I hope to respond to what I took to be their main points. The focus of their essays is different for the most part, but there is overlap in their discussion of the ineffable. I will thus largely reply to their essays separately, with the exception of the discussion of the ineffable, where I will reply to their points jointly. Let’s start, alphabetically, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Quantification, Inference, and Ontology.Gabriel Uzquiano - 2018 - Analysis 78 (2):303-315.
    Thomas Hofweber has written a very rich book. In line with the conviction that ontology should be informed by linguistic considerations, he develops a systematic approach to central ontological questions as they arise in different regions of discourse. More generally, the book seeks to cast light upon the nature of ontology and its proper place in enquiry. His preferred methodology is not without consequence: it promises, for example, to solve what otherwise look like intractable philosophical puzzles raised by arithmetical practice (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Skow on Robust Passage and The Moving Spotlight Theory.Daniel Deasy - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (7):1791-1805.
    Bradford Skow’s Objective Becoming (2015) is a strikingly original and philosophically rich contribution to contemporary philosophy of time. The book rewards very careful study, and is surely a ‘must-read’ for anyone with an interest in current debates concerning time and change. Perhaps the most immediately compelling aspect of the book is its leading question: if I [Skow] didn’t already accept the ‘block universe theory’ (BU),1 which theory of time would I defend? Skow’s surprising (and, from my perspective, welcome!) answer is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • A note on Barcan formula.Antonio Frias Delgado - 2017 - Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics 27 (3-4):321-327.
    We present in this note a plea for Barcan formula. This view connects Barcan formula with a modal principle that expresses the -Introduction rule of first-order logic.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Modal Epistemology.Juhani Yli-Vakkuri & John Hawthorne - manuscript
    Some central epistemological notions are expressed by sentential operators O that entail the possibility of knowledge in the sense that 'Op' entails 'It is possible to know that p'. We call these modal-epistemological notions. Using apriority and being in a position to know as case studies, we argue that the logics of modal epistemological notions are extremely weak. In particular, their logics are not normal and do not include any closure principles.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Should Metaphysics Care About Linguistics?Tobias Rosefeldt - 2018 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 49 (2):161-178.
    Naturalized metaphysics is based on the idea that philosophy should be guided by the sciences. The paradigmatic science that is relevant for metaphysics is physics because physics tells us what fundamental reality is ultimately like. There are other sciences, however, that de facto play a role in philosophical inquiries about what there is, one of them being the science of language, i.e. linguistics. In this paper I will be concerned with the question what role linguistics should and does play for (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • The Ideal Observer Theory and Motivational Internalism.Daniel Rönnedal - 2015 - Kriterion - Journal of Philosophy 29 (1):79-98.
    In this paper I show that one version of motivational internalism follows from the so-called ideal observer theory. Let us call the version of the ideal observer theory used in this essay (IOT). According to (IOT), it is necessarily the case that it ought to be that A if and only if every ideal observer wants it to be the case that A. We shall call the version of motivational internalism that follows from (IOT) (moral) conditional belief motivational internalism (CBMI). (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The essence of grounding.Justin Zylstra - 2019 - Synthese 196 (12):5137-5152.
    I develop a reduction of grounding to essence. My approach is to think about the relation between grounding and essence on the model of a certain conceptof existential dependence. I extend this concept of existential dependence in a coupleof ways and argue that these extensions provide a reduction of grounding to essenceif we use sorted variables that range over facts and take it that for a fact to obtain is forit to exist. I then use the account to resolve various (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • Advanced modalizing de dicto and de re.John Divers & John J. Parry - 2018 - Analysis 78 (3):415-425.
    Lewis’ analysis of modality faces a problem in that it appears to confer unintended truth values to certain modal claims about the pluriverse: e.g. ‘It is possible that there are many worlds’ is false when we expect truth. This is the problem of advanced modalizing. Divers presents a principled solution to this problem by treating modal modifiers as semantically redundant in some such cases. However, this semantic move does not deal adequately with advanced de re modal claims. Here, we motivate (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • The Necessity of Mathematics.Juhani Yli‐Vakkuri & John Hawthorne - 2018 - Noûs 52 (3):549-577.
    Some have argued for a division of epistemic labor in which mathematicians supply truths and philosophers supply their necessity. We argue that this is wrong: mathematics is committed to its own necessity. Counterfactuals play a starring role.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Can modalities save naive set theory?Peter Fritz, Harvey Lederman, Tiankai Liu & Dana Scott - 2018 - Review of Symbolic Logic 11 (1):21-47.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Semantic Verbs Are Intensional Transitives.Justin D’Ambrosio - 2019 - Mind 128 (509):213-248.
    In this paper I show that we have strong empirical and theoretical reasons to treat the verbs we use in our semantic theorizing—particularly ‘refers to ’, ‘applies to ’, and ‘is true of ’—as intensional transitive verbs. Stating our semantic theories with intensional vocabulary allows us to partially reconcile two competing approaches to the nature and subject-matter of semantics: the Chomskian approach, on which semantics is non-relational, internalistic, and concerns the psychology of language users, and the Lewisian approach, on which (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • An Explanatory Virtue for Endurantist Presentism.Robert E. Pezet - 2019 - Philosophia 47 (1):157-182.
    This essay outlines an explanatory virtue of presentism: its unique ability amongst temporal metaphysics to deliver a partial explanation of the conservational character of natural laws. That explanation relies on presentism, uniquely amongst temporal metaphysics, being able to support an endurantist account of persistence. In particular, after reconsidering a former argument for endurantism entailing presentism by Merricks, a new argument for this entailment, is expounded. Before delivering the explanation of the conservational character of natural laws, a brief account of that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Tense, Perspectival Properties, and Special Relativity.Peter Ludlow - 2016 - Manuscrito 39 (4):49-74.
    ABSTRACT Tensism is the view that tense is not merely a property of language and the mind, but of the world itself. Perspectivalism extends this idea to all perspectival properties be they person or locational. One challenge that perspectivalism faces is the problem of expressing the contents of the beliefs and utterances of persons that are in other perspectival positions. One proposed solution to this problem is to allow for semantic theories that "realign" the expression of contents so that the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • An Intrapersonal Addition Paradox.Jacob M. Nebel - 2019 - Ethics 129 (2):309-343.
    I present a new argument for the repugnant conclusion. The core of the argument is a risky, intrapersonal analogue of the mere addition paradox. The argument is important for three reasons. First, some solutions to Parfit’s original puzzle do not obviously generalize to the intrapersonal puzzle in a plausible way. Second, it raises independently important questions about how to make decisions under uncertainty for the sake of people whose existence might depend on what we do. And, third, it suggests various (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • A Case Study on Computational Hermeneutics: E. J. Lowe’s Modal Ontological Argument.David Fuenmayor & Christoph Benzmueller - manuscript
    Computers may help us to better understand (not just verify) arguments. In this article we defend this claim by showcasing the application of a new, computer-assisted interpretive method to an exemplary natural-language ar- gument with strong ties to metaphysics and religion: E. J. Lowe’s modern variant of St. Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God. Our new method, which we call computational hermeneutics, has been particularly conceived for use in interactive-automated proof assistants. It aims at shedding light on the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Singularity of Experiences and Thoughts.Alberto Voltolini - 2020 - Topoi 39 (2):459-473.
    Recently, various people have maintained that one must revise either the externalistically-based notion of singular thought or the naïve realism-inspired notion of relational particularity, as respectively applied to some thoughts and to some perceptual experiences. In order to do so, one must either provide a broader notion of singular thought or flank the notion of relational particularity with a broader notion of phenomenal particularity. I want to hold that there is no need of that revision. For the original notions can (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Theories of truth and the maxim of minimal mutilation.Ole Thomassen Hjortland - 2017 - Synthese 199 (Suppl 3):787-818.
    Nonclassical theories of truth have in common that they reject principles of classical logic to accommodate an unrestricted truth predicate. However, different nonclassical strategies give up different classical principles. The paper discusses one criterion we might use in theory choice when considering nonclassical rivals: the maxim of minimal mutilation.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • The World is the Totality of Facts, Not of Things.Agustín Rayo - 2017 - Philosophical Issues 27 (1):250-278.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Fragmented Truth.Andy Demfree Yu - 2016 - Dissertation, University of Oxford
    This thesis comprises three main chapters—each comprising one relatively standalone paper. The unifying theme is fragmentalism about truth, which is the view that the predicate “true” either expresses distinct concepts or expresses distinct properties. -/- In Chapter 1, I provide a formal development of alethic pluralism. Pluralism is the view that there are distinct truth properties associated with distinct domains of subject matter, where a truth property satisfies certain truth-characterizing principles. On behalf of pluralists, I propose an account of logic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • The Broadest Necessity.Andrew Bacon - 2018 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 47 (5):733-783.
    In this paper the logic of broad necessity is explored. Definitions of what it means for one modality to be broader than another are formulated, and it is proven, in the context of higher-order logic, that there is a broadest necessity, settling one of the central questions of this investigation. It is shown, moreover, that it is possible to give a reductive analysis of this necessity in extensional language. This relates more generally to a conjecture that it is not possible (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   42 citations  
  • Higher-Order Contingentism, Part 3: Expressive Limitations.Peter Fritz - 2018 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 47 (4):649-671.
    Two expressive limitations of an infinitary higher-order modal language interpreted on models for higher-order contingentism – the thesis that it is contingent what propositions, properties and relations there are – are established: First, the inexpressibility of certain relations, which leads to the fact that certain model-theoretic existence conditions for relations cannot equivalently be reformulated in terms of being expressible in such a language. Second, the inexpressibility of certain modalized cardinality claims, which shows that in such a language, higher-order contingentists cannot (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • Interpretation and equivalence; or, equivalence and interpretation.Neil Dewar - 2023 - Synthese 201 (4):1-24.
    This paper argues that much of the literature on interpreting scientific theories presupposes a certain picture of what interpretation involves: a picture according to which interpreting a theory is like translating from one language to another. In place of this “external” approach to interpretation, this paper proposes an “internal” approach, according to which interpretation is more concerned with delineating a theory’s internal semantic architecture.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Propositions, representation, and truth.Geoff Georgi - 2019 - Synthese 196 (3):1019-1043.
    Theories of propositions as sets of truth-supporting circumstances are committed to the thesis that sentences or other representations true in all and only the same circumstances express the same proposition. Theories of propositions as complex, structured entities are not committed to this thesis. As a result, structured propositions can play a role in our theories of language and thought that sets of truth-supporting circumstances cannot play. To illustrate this difference, I sketch a theory of transparent, non-deflationary truth consistent with some (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Facts in Logical Space By Jason Turner. [REVIEW]Luca Incurvati - 2018 - Analysis 78 (2):367-371.
    This is a review of 'The Facts in Logical Space' by Jason Turner.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Emptying a Paradox of Ground.Jack Woods - 2018 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 47 (4):631-648.
    Sometimes a fact can play a role in a grounding explanation, but the particular content of that fact make no difference to the explanation—any fact would do in its place. I call these facts vacuous grounds. I show that applying the distinction between-vacuous grounds allows us to give a principled solution to Kit Fine and Stephen Kramer’s paradox of ground. This paradox shows that on minimal assumptions about grounding and minimal assumptions about logic, we can show that grounding is reflexive, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   27 citations  
  • Modal Structuralism Simplified.Sharon Berry - 2018 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 48 (2):200-222.
    Since Benacerraf’s ‘What Numbers Could Not Be, ’ there has been a growing interest in mathematical structuralism. An influential form of mathematical structuralism, modal structuralism, uses logical possibility and second order logic to provide paraphrases of mathematical statements which don’t quantify over mathematical objects. These modal structuralist paraphrases are a useful tool for nominalists and realists alike. But their use of second order logic and quantification into the logical possibility operator raises concerns. In this paper, I show that the work (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Hyperintensional Foundations of Mathematical Platonism.David Elohim - manuscript
    This paper aims to provide hyperintensional 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 (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • What Are Structural Properties?†.Johannes Korbmacher & Georg Schiemer - 2018 - Philosophia Mathematica 26 (3):295-323.
    Informally, structural properties of mathematical objects are usually characterized in one of two ways: either as properties expressible purely in terms of the primitive relations of mathematical theories, or as the properties that hold of all structurally similar mathematical objects. We present two formal explications corresponding to these two informal characterizations of structural properties. Based on this, we discuss the relation between the two explications. As will be shown, the two characterizations do not determine the same class of mathematical properties. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  • Thomas Aquinas on Logic, Being, and Power, and Contemporary Problems for Divine Omnipotence.Errin D. Clark - 2017 - Sophia 56 (2):247-261.
    I discuss Thomas Aquinas’ views on being, power, and logic, and show how together they provide rebuttals against certain principal objections to the notion of divine omnipotence. The objections I have in mind can be divided into the two classes. One says that the notion of omnipotence ends up in self-contradiction. The other says that it ends up contradicting certain doctrines of traditional theism. Thomas’ account is frequently misunderstood to be a version of what I call a ‘consistent description’ account (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Modality and Hyperintensionality in Mathematics.David Elohim - manuscript
    This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of the nature of mathematical modality and hyperintensionality, and to the applications of the latter to 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 priority (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Logical and Epistemic Modality.Hasen Khudairi - manuscript
    This paper examines the interaction between the philosophy and psychology of concepts and the modal characterization of the deductive concept of logical validity. The concept of logical consequence on which I focus is model-theoretic, where the concept records the property of necessary truth-preservation from the premise of an argument to its conclusion, as well as the condition that, in the class of all possible worlds in which a premise is true, a consequent formula or succedent class of formulas is true, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Intergenerational Rights and the Problem of Cross-Temporal Relations.Aaron M. Griffith - 2018 - Erkenntnis 83 (4):693-710.
    This paper considers the prospects for a theory of intergenerational rights in light of certain ontologies of time. It is argued that the attempt to attribute rights to future persons or obligations to present persons towards future persons, faces serious difficulties if the existence of the future is denied. The difficulty of attributing rights to non-existent future persons is diagnosed as a particularly intractable version of the ‘problem of cross-temporal relations’ that plagues No-Futurist views like presentism. I develop a version (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • On being called something.Geoff Georgi - 2017 - Linguistics and Philosophy 40 (6):595-619.
    Building on recent work by Delia Graff Fara and Ora Matushansky on appellative constructions like ‘Mirka called Roger handsome’, I argue that if Millianism about proper names is true, then the quantifier ‘something’ in ‘Mirka called Roger something’ is best understood as a kind of substitutional quantifier. Any adequate semantics for such quantifiers must explain both the logical behavior of ‘Mirka called Roger something’ and the acceptability of ‘so’-anaphora in ‘Mirka called Roger something, and everyone so called is handsome’. Millianism (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Notational Variance and Its Variants.Rohan French - 2019 - Topoi 38 (2):321-331.
    What does it take for two logics to be mere notational variants? The present paper proposes a variety of different ways of cashing out notational variance, in particular isolating a constraint on any reasonable account of notational variance which makes plausible that the only kinds of translations which can witness notational variance are what are sometimes called definitional translations.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Non-concrete parts of material objects.Michael Tze-Sung Longenecker - 2018 - Synthese 195 (11):5091-5111.
    This article offers a novel solution to the problem of material constitution: by including non-concrete objects among the parts of material objects, we can avoid having a statue and its constituent piece of clay composed of all the same proper parts. Non-concrete objects—objects that aren’t concrete, but possibly are—have been used in defense of the claim that everything necessarily exists. But the account offered shows that non-concreta are independently useful in other domains as well. The resulting view falls under a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • The Epistemology of Modality.Margot Strohminger & Juhani Yli-Vakkuri - 2017 - Analysis 77 (4):825-838.
    This article surveys recent developments in the epistemology of modality.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   32 citations  
  • Relativized metaphysical modality: Index and context.Benj Hellie, Adam Russell Murray & Jessica Wilson - 2018 - In Otávio Bueno & Scott A. Shalkowski (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Modality. New York: Routledge.
    Relativized Metaphysical Modality (RMM: Murray and Wilson, 'Relativized metaphysical modality', Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, 2012; Murray, Perspectives on Modal Metaphysics, 2017) exploits 'two-dimensionalist' resources to metaphysical, rather than epistemological, ends: the second dimension offers perspective-dependence without contingency, diverting attacks on 'Classical' analyses of modals (in effect, analyses validating S5 and the Barcan Formulae). Here, we extend the RMM program in two directions. First, we harvest resources for RMM from Lewis's 1980 'Context--Index' (CI) framework: (a) the ban in CI on binding (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Potentiality.Jessica Leech - 2017 - Analysis 77 (2):457-467.
    Vetter's Potentiality is an exposition and development of a new account of possibility and necessity, given in terms of potentialities. In this critical notice, I give an outline of some of the key claims of the book. I then raise some issues for the extent to which Vetter's view can accommodate genuine de re modalities, especially those of possible existence and non-existence.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • II—Persistent Philosophical Disagreement.Chris Daly - 2017 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 117 (1):23-40.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • An Objection to Naturalism and Atheism from Logic.Christopher Gregory Weaver - 2019 - In Graham Oppy (ed.), A Companion to Atheism and Philosophy. Hoboken: Blackwell. pp. 451-475.
    I proffer a success argument for classical logical consequence. I articulate in what sense that notion of consequence should be regarded as the privileged notion for metaphysical inquiry aimed at uncovering the fundamental nature of the world. Classical logic breeds necessitism. I use necessitism to produce problems for both ontological naturalism and atheism.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Ficta as Contingently Nonconcrete.Lightfield Ceth - 2014 - Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 21 (4):431-457.
    Fictional realism allows direct reference theorists to provide a straightfor- ward analysis of the semantics of fictional discourse by admitting into their ontology a set of objects (ficta) that serve as the referents of fictional names. Ficta may be modeled using an axiomatic object theory, but actualist interpretations of the formalism have been the subject of recent objections. In this paper, I provide an interpretation of object theory’s formalism that is consistent with actualism and avoids these objections. Drawing on insights (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Mahdollisuus, välttämättömyys ja luodut ikuiset totuudet Descartesin filosofiassa.Forsman Jan - 2016 - In Ilkka Niiniluoto, Tuomas Tahko & Teemu Toppinen (eds.), Mahdollisuus. Helsinki: Philosophical Society of Finland. pp. 120-129.
    Tässä artikkelissa käsittelen Descartesin ikuisten totuuksien välttämättömyyteen liittyvää ongelmaa. Teoksessa Mietiskelyjä ensimmäisestä filosofiasta (1641–1642) Descartes nostaa esiin käsitteen ikuisista totuuksista, käyttäen esimerkkinään kolmiota. Kolmion muuttumattomaan ja ikuiseen luontoon kuuluu esimerkiksi, että sen kolme kulmaa ovat yhteenlaskettuna 180°. Se on totta kolmiosta, vaikka yhtään yksittäistä kolmiota ei olisi koskaan ollutkaan olemassa. Eräät ajattelemieni asioiden piirteet ovat siis Descartesin mukaan ajattelustani riippumattomia. Ikuisia totuuksia ovat ainakin matemaattiset ja geometriset tosiseikat sekä ristiriidan laki. Samoin Descartesin kuuluisa lause “ajattelen, siis olen” lukeutuu ikuisten totuuksien (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Nominalist Realism.Nicholas K. Jones - 2018 - Noûs 52 (4):808-835.
    This paper explores the impact of quantification into predicate position on the metaphysics of properties, arguing that two familiar debates about properties are fundamentally altered by recasting them in a second-order setting. Two theories of properties are outlined, differing over whether the existence of properties is expressed using first-order or second-order quantifiers. It is argued that the second-order theory: provides good reason to regard debate about the locations of properties as contentless; resolves debate about whether properties are particulars or universals (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   40 citations  
  • Qualitative Grounds.Jeffrey Sanford Russell - 2016 - Philosophical Perspectives 30 (1):309-348.
    Suppose that all non-qualitative facts are grounded in qualitative facts. I argue that this view naturally comes with a picture in which trans-world identity is indeterminate. But this in turn leads to either pervasive indeterminacy in the non-qualitative, or else contingency in what facts about modality and possible worlds are determinate.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • To Be F Is To Be G.Cian Dorr - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 30 (1):39-134.
    This paper is an investigation of the general logic of "identifications", claims such as 'To be a vixen is to be a female fox', 'To be human is to be a rational animal', and 'To be just is to help one's friends and harm one's enemies', many of which are of great importance to philosophers. I advocate understanding such claims as expressing higher-order identity, and discuss a variety of different general laws which they might be thought to obey. [New version: (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   179 citations  
  • Why Live Forever? What Metaphysics Can Contribute.Aaron Segal - 2018 - Erkenntnis 83 (2):185-204.
    I suggest a way in which metaphysics might cure us of our desire for immortality. Supposing that time is composed of instants, or even that time could be composed of instants, leads to the conclusion that there is nothing good that immortality offers, nothing we might reasonably want, that is in principle unavailable to a mere mortal. My argument proceeds in three stages. First, I suggest a necessary condition for a feature to ground the desirability of a life or a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Actuality and the a priori.Fabio Lampert - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (3):809-830.
    We consider a natural-language sentence that cannot be formally represented in a first-order language for epistemic two-dimensional semantics. We also prove this claim in the “Appendix” section. It turns out, however, that the most natural ways to repair the expressive inadequacy of the first-order language render moot the original philosophical motivation of formalizing a priori knowability as necessity along the diagonal.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Carnap’s epistemological critique of metaphysics.Darren Bradley - 2018 - Synthese 195 (5):2247-2265.
    Many who take a dismissive attitude towards metaphysics trace their view back to Carnap’s ‘Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology’. But the reason Carnap takes a dismissive attitude to metaphysics is a matter of controversy. I will argue that no reason is given in ‘Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology’, and this is because his reason for rejecting metaphysical debates was given in ‘Pseudo-Problems in Philosophy’. The argument there assumes verificationism, but I will argue that his argument survives the rejection of verificationism. The root (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations