Here is an important new theory of human action, a theory that assumes actions are founded on choices made by agents who face an open future.

This paper deals with the truth-Conditions and the logic for vague languages. The use of supervaluations and of classical logic is defended; and other approaches are criticized. The truth-Conditions are extended to a language that contains a definitely-Operator and that is subject to higher order vagueness.

The thin red line ( TRL ) is a theory about the semantics of future-contingents. The central idea is that there is such a thing as the ‘actual future’, even in the presence of indeterminism. It is inspired by a famous solution to the problem of divine foreknowledge associated with William of Ockham, in which the freedom of agents is argued to be compatible with God’s omniscience. In the modern branching time setting, the theory of the TRL is widely regarded (...) to suffer from several fundamental problems. In this paper we propose several new TRL semantics, each with differing degrees of success. This leads up to our final semantics, which is a cross between the TRL and supervaluationism. We discuss the notions of truth, validity and semantic consequence which result from our final semantics, and demonstrate some of its pleasing results. This account, we believe, answers the main objection in the literature, and thus places the TRL on the same level as any other competing semantics for future contingents. (shrink)

The metaphor of a branching tree of future possibilities has a number of important philosophical and logical uses. In this paper we trace this metaphor through some of its uses and argue that the metaphor works the same way in physics as in philosophy. We then give an overview of formal systems for branching possibilities, viz., branching time and (briefly) branching space-times. In a next step we describe a number of different notions of possibility, thereby sketching a landscape of possibilities. (...) In the final section of the paper we look at the place of branching-based possibilities in that larger landscape of possibilities. Our main message is that far from being an outlandish metaphysical extravagancy, branching-based possibilities are epistemically as well as metaphysically basic. (shrink)

Temporal Logic: From Ancient Ideas to Artificial Intelligence deals with the history of temporal logic as well as the crucial systematic questions within the field. The book studies the rich contributions from ancient and medieval philosophy up to the downfall of temporal logic in the Renaissance. The modern rediscovery of the subject, which is especially due to the work of A. N. Prior, is described, leading into a thorough discussion of the use of temporal logic in computer science and the (...) understanding of natural language. Temporal Logic: From Ancient Ideas to Artificial Intelligence thus interweaves linguistic, philosophical and computational aspects into an informative and inspiring whole. (shrink)

Temporal Logic: From Ancient Ideas to Artificial Intelligence deals with the history of temporal logic as well as the crucial systematic questions within the field. The book studies the rich contributions from ancient and medieval philosophy up to the downfall of temporal logic in the Renaissance. The modern rediscovery of the subject, which is especially due to the work of A. N. Prior, is described, leading into a thorough discussion of the use of temporal logic in computer science and the (...) understanding of natural language. Temporal Logic: From Ancient Ideas to Artificial Intelligence thus interweaves linguistic, philosophical and computational aspects into an informative and inspiring whole. (shrink)