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  1. Truthmaker Semantics.Kit Fine - 1997 - In Bob Hale, Crispin Wright & Alexander Miller (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 556–577.
    This chapter explains the basic framework of truthmaker or 'exact' semantics, an approach to semantics that has recently received a growing amount of interest, and discusses a number of different applications within philosophy and linguistics. The idea of truthmaking is the idea of something on the side of the world ‐ a fact, perhaps, or a state of affairs ‐ verifying, or making true, something on the side of language or thought ‐ a statement, perhaps, or a proposition. The chapter (...)
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  • Impossible Worlds.Francesco Berto & Mark Jago - 2019 - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by Mark Jago.
    Impossible Worlds focuses on an exciting new theory in philosophy, with applications in metaphysics, logic, and the theory of meaning. Its central topic is: how do we meaningfully talk and reason about situations which, unbeknownst to us, are impossible? This issue emerges as a central problem in contemporary philosophical accounts of meaning, information, knowledge, belief, fiction, conditionality, and counterfactual supposition. The book is written bytwo of the leading philosophers in the area and contains original research of relevance to professional philosophers (...)
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  • Propositions.Robert C. Stalnaker - 1976 - In Alfred F. Mackay & Daniel Davy Merrill (eds.), Issues in the philosophy of language: proceedings of the 1972 Oberlin Colloquium in Philosophy. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 79-91.
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  • Can Hardcore Actualism Validate S5?Samuel Kimpton-Nye - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (2):342-358.
    Hardcore actualism (HA) grounds all modal truths in the concrete constituents of the actual world (see, e.g., Borghini and Williams (2008), Jacobs (2010), Vetter (2015)). I bolster HA, and elucidate the very nature of possibility (and necessity) according to HA, by considering if it can validate S5 modal logic. Interestingly, different considerations pull in different directions on this issue. To resolve the tension, we are forced to think hard about the nature of the hardcore actualist's modal reality and how radically (...)
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  • The Reduction of Necessity to Essence.Andreas Ditter - 2020 - Mind 129 (514):351-380.
    In "Essence and Modality", Kit Fine proposes that for a proposition to be metaphysically necessary is for it to be true in virtue of the nature of all objects whatsoever. Call this view Fine's Thesis. This paper is a study of Fine's Thesis in the context of Fine's logic of essence (LE). Fine himself has offered his most elaborate defense of the thesis in the context of LE. His defense rests on the widely shared assumption that metaphysical necessity obeys the (...)
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  • 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 (...)
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  • A Theory of Truthmaker Content I: Conjunction, Disjunction and Negation.Kit Fine - 2017 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 46 (6):625-674.
    I develop a basic theory of content within the framework of truthmaker semantics and, in the second part, consider some of the applications to subject matter, common content, logical subtraction and ground.
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  • (2 other versions)Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Foundations of Language 13 (1):145-151.
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  • (2 other versions)Inquiry.Robert C. Stalnaker - 1984 - Linguistics and Philosophy 11 (4):515-519.
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  • On the Plurality of Worlds.David Lewis - 1986 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 178 (3):388-390.
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  • (4 other versions)Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
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  • (2 other versions)Inquiry.Robert Stalnaker - 1984 - Synthese 79 (1):171-189.
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  • (4 other versions)Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Critica 17 (49):69-71.
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  • Contingent Existence and the Reduction of Modality to Essence.Trevor Teitel - 2019 - Mind 128 (509):39-68.
    This paper first argues that we can bring out a tension between the following three popular doctrines: (i) the canonical reduction of metaphysical modality to essence, due to Fine, (ii) contingentism, which says that possibly something could have failed to be something, and (iii) the doctrine that metaphysical modality obeys the modal logic S5. After presenting two such arguments (one from the theorems of S4 and another from the theorems of B), I turn to exploring various conclusions we might draw (...)
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  • Propositions as Truthmaker Conditions.Mark Jago - 2017 - Argumenta 2 (2):293-308.
    Propositions are often aligned with truth-conditions. The view is mistaken, since propositions discriminate where truth conditions do not. Propositions are hyperintensional: they are sensitive to necessarily equivalent differences. I investigate an alternative view on which propositions are truthmaker conditions, understood as sets of possible truthmakers. This requires making metaphysical sense of merely possible states of affairs. The theory that emerges illuminates the semantic phenomena of samesaying, subject matter, and aboutness.
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  • Modal science.Timothy Williamson - 2016 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (4-5):453-492.
    This paper explains and defends the idea that metaphysical necessity is the strongest kind of objective necessity. Plausible closure conditions on the family of objective modalities are shown to entail that the logic of metaphysical necessity is S5. Evidence is provided that some objective modalities are studied in the natural sciences. In particular, the modal assumptions implicit in physical applications of dynamical systems theory are made explicit by using such systems to define models of a modal temporal logic. Those assumptions (...)
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  • Thinking the impossible.Graham Priest - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (10):2649-2662.
    The article looks at the structure of impossible worlds, and their deployment in the analysis of some intentional notions. In particular, it is argued that one can, in fact, conceive anything, whether or not it is impossible. Thus a semantics of conceivability requires impossible worlds.
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  • Granularity problems.Jens Christian Bjerring & Wolfgang Schwarz - 2017 - Philosophical Quarterly 67 (266):22-37.
    Possible-worlds accounts of mental or linguistic content are often criticized for being too coarse-grained. To make room for more fine-grained distinctions among contents, several authors have recently proposed extending the space of possible worlds by "impossible worlds". We argue that this strategy comes with serious costs: we would effectively have to abandon most of the features that make the possible-worlds framework attractive. More generally, we argue that while there are intuitive and theoretical considerations against overly coarse-grained notions of content, the (...)
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  • A Neglected Response to the Grim Result.J. C. Beall - 2000 - Analysis 60 (1):38-41.
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  • A flawed conception of determinism in the Consequence Argument.S. Sehon - 2011 - Analysis 71 (1):30-38.
    According to the Consequence Argument, the truth of determinism plus other plausible principles would yield the conclusion that we have no free will. In this paper I will argue that the conception of determinism typically employed in the various versions of the Consequence Argument is not plausible. In particular, I will argue that, taken most straightforwardly, determinism as defined in the Consequence Argument would imply that the existence of God is logically impossible. This is quite an implausible result. The truth (...)
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  • There might be nothing.Thomas Baldwin - 1996 - Analysis 56 (4):231-238.
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  • From Necessary Truth to Necessary Existence.Joshua Rasmussen - 2013 - Polish Journal of Philosophy 7 (1):19-30.
    I introduce new details in an argument for necessarily existing propositions. The crux of the argument marks out a pathway to the conclusion that necessary truths cannot themselves be necessarily true unless they necessarily exist. I motivate the steps in the argument and then address several standard objections, including one that makes use of the distinction between ‘truth in’ and ‘truth at’. The purpose of the argument is to generate deeper insights into the nature of propositions and the logic of (...)
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  • Hyperintensional propositions.Mark Jago - 2015 - Synthese 192 (3):585-601.
    Propositions play a central role in contemporary semantics. On the Russellian account, propositions are structured entities containing particulars, properties and relations. This contrasts sharply with the sets-of-possible-worlds view of propositions. I’ll discuss how to extend the sets-of-worlds view to accommodate fine-grained hyperintensional contents. When this is done in a satisfactory way, I’ll argue, it makes heavy use of entities very much like Russellian tuples. The two notions of proposition become inter-definable and inter-substitutable: they are not genuinely distinct accounts of how (...)
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  • What is the Logic of Propositional Identity?Charles Sayward - 2006 - Logic and Logical Philosophy 15 (1):3-15.
    Propositional identity is not expressed by a predicate. So its logic is not given by the ordinary first order axioms for identity. What are the logical axioms governing this concept, then? Some axioms in addition to those proposed by Arthur Prior are proposed.
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  • Structures and circumstances: two ways to fine-grain propositions.David Ripley - 2012 - Synthese 189 (1):97 - 118.
    This paper discusses two distinct strategies that have been adopted to provide fine-grained propositions; that is, propositions individuated more finely than sets of possible worlds. One strategy takes propositions to have internal structure, while the other looks beyond possible worlds, and takes propositions to be sets of circumstances, where possible worlds do not exhaust the circumstances. The usual arguments for these positions turn on fineness-of-grain issues: just how finely should propositions be individuated? Here, I compare the two strategies with an (...)
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  • Impossible Worlds: A Modest Approach.Daniel Nolan - 1997 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 38 (4):535-572.
    Reasoning about situations we take to be impossible is useful for a variety of theoretical purposes. Furthermore, using a device of impossible worlds when reasoning about the impossible is useful in the same sorts of ways that the device of possible worlds is useful when reasoning about the possible. This paper discusses some of the uses of impossible worlds and argues that commitment to them can and should be had without great metaphysical or logical cost. The paper then provides an (...)
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  • The nature and structure of content.Jeffrey C. King - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Belief in propositions has had a long and distinguished history in analytic philosophy. Three of the founding fathers of analytic philosophy, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and G. E. Moore, believed in propositions. Many philosophers since then have shared this belief; and the belief is widely, though certainly not universally, accepted among philosophers today. Among contemporary philosophers who believe in propositions, many, and perhaps even most, take them to be structured entities with individuals, properties, and relations as constituents. For example, the (...)
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  • The Nature of Necessity.Alvin Plantinga - 1974 - Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
    This book, one of the first full-length studies of the modalities to emerge from the debate to which Saul Kripke, David Lewis, Ruth Marcus, and others are contributing, is an exploration and defense of the notion of modality de re, the idea that objects have both essential and accidental properties. Plantinga develops his argument by means of the notion of possible worlds and ranges over such key problems as the nature of essence, transworld identity, negative existential propositions, and the existence (...)
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  • Essence and modality.Kit Fine - 1994 - Philosophical Perspectives 8 (Logic and Language):1-16.
    It is my aim in this paper to show that the contemporary assimilation of essence to modality is fundamentally misguided and that, as a consequence, the corresponding conception of metaphysics should be given up. It is not my view that the modal account fails to capture anything which might reasonably be called a concept of essence. My point, rather, is that the notion of essence which is of central importance to the metaphysics of identity is not to be understood in (...)
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  • The Logic of What Might Have Been.Nathan Salmon - 1989 - Philosophical Review 98 (1):3-34.
    The dogma that the propositional logic of metaphysical modality is S5 is rebutted. The author exposes fallacies in standard arguments supporting S5, arguing that propositional metaphysical modal logic is weaker even than both S4 and B, and is instead the minimal and weak metaphysical-modal logic T.
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  • (1 other version)Two concepts of modality: Modal realism and modal reductionism.Alvin Plantinga - 1986 - Journal of Philosophy 83 (11):693.
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  • (1 other version)Two concepts of modality: Modal realism and modal reductionism.Alvin Plantinga - 1987 - Philosophical Perspectives 1:189-231.
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  • Structured propositions and sentence structure.Jeffrey King - 1996 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 25 (5):495 - 521.
    It is argued that taken together, two widely held claims ((i) sentences express structured propositions whose structures are functions of the structures of sentences expressing them; and (ii) sentences have underlying structures that are the input to semantic interpretation) suggest a simple, plausible theory of propositional structure. According to this theory, the structures of propositions are the same as the structures of the syntactic inputs to semantics they are expressed by. The theory is defended against a variety of objections.
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  • Theories of properties, relations, and propositions.George Bealer - 1979 - Journal of Philosophy 76 (11):634-648.
    This is the only complete logic for properties, relations, and propositions (PRPS) that has been formulated to date. First, an intensional abstraction operation is adjoined to first-order quantifier logic, Then, a new algebraic semantic method is developed. The heuristic used is not that of possible worlds but rather that of PRPS taken at face value. Unlike the possible worlds approach to intensional logic, this approach yields a logic for intentional (psychological) matters, as well as modal matters. At the close of (...)
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  • Propositions.George Bealer - 1998 - Mind 107 (425):1-32.
    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 (...)
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  • Contingent Objects, Contingent Propositions, and Essentialism.Jonas Werner - 2021 - Mind 130 (520):1283-1294.
    Trevor Teitel (2017) has recently argued that combining the assumption that modality reduces to essence with the assumption that possibly some objects contingently exist leads to problems if one wishes to uphold that the logic of metaphysical modality is S5. In this paper I will argue that there is a way for the essentialist to evade the problem described by Teitel. The proposed solution crucially involves the assumption that some propositions possibly fail to exist. I will show how this assumption (...)
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  • A Theory of Truthmaker Content II: Subject-matter, Common Content, Remainder and Ground.Kit Fine - 2017 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 46 (6):675-702.
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  • (1 other version)Situations and Attitudes.Jon Barwise - 1981 - Journal of Philosophy 78 (11):668.
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  • On fineness of grain.Jeffrey C. King - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 163 (3):763-781.
    A central job for propositions is to be the objects of the attitudes. Propositions are the things we doubt, believe and suppose. Some philosophers have thought that propositions are sets of possible worlds. But many have become convinced that such an account individuates propositions too coarsely. This raises the question of how finely propositions should be individuated. An account of how finely propositions should be individuated on which they are individuated very finely is sketched. Objections to the effect that the (...)
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  • Plantinga and the Contingently Possible.Hugh S. Chandler - 1976 - Analysis 36 (2):106 - 109.
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  • A powers theory of modality: or, how I learned to stop worrying and reject possible worlds.Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2010 - Philosophical Studies 151 (2):227-248.
    Possible worlds, concrete or abstract as you like, are irrelevant to the truthmakers for modality—or so I shall argue in this paper. First, I present the neo-Humean picture of modality, and explain why those who accept it deny a common sense view of modality. Second, I present what I take to be the most pressing objection to the neo-Humean account, one that, I argue, applies equally well to any theory that grounds modality in possible worlds. Third, I present an alternative, (...)
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  • (1 other version)Direct Reference, Propositional Attitudes, and Semantic Content.Scott Soames - 1987 - Philosophical Topics 15 (1):47-87.
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  • The actual and the possible.Alexander R. Pruss - 2002 - In Richard M. Gale (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 317--33.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Two Interrelated Problems Lewis's Solution Inductive Paradox Identity versus Counterpart Theory Platonism: The Main Realist Alternative to Lewis An Aristotelian Alternative Leibniz's Account A Combined Account.
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  • (2 other versions)Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Philosophy of Science 42 (3):341-344.
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  • Possibility is not consistency.Alexander R. Pruss - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (9):2341-2348.
    We shall use Gödel’s Second Incompleteness Theorem to show that consistency is not possibility, and then argue that the argument does serious damage to some theories of modality where consistency plays a major but not exclusive role.
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  • On a derivation of the necessity of identity.John P. Burgess - 2014 - Synthese 191 (7):1-19.
    The source, status, and significance of the derivation of the necessity of identity at the beginning of Kripke’s lecture “Identity and Necessity” is discussed from a logical, philosophical, and historical point of view.
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  • The Necessity and Determinacy of Distinctness.Timothy Williamson - 1996 - In David Wiggins, Sabina Lovibond & Stephen G. Williams (eds.), Essays for David Wiggins: identity, truth, and value. Cambridge: Blackwell. pp. 1-17.
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  • (1 other version)The identity of individuals in a strict functional calculus of second order.Ruth C. Barcan - 1947 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 12 (1):12-15.
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  • Nothing Is Impossible.Peter van Inwagen - 2015 - In Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), God, Truth, and Other Enigmas. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 33-58.
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  • Facts and tautological entailments.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1969 - Journal of Philosophy 66 (15):477-487.
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