Substance and first-order quantification over individual-concepts

1980 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Bacon
Keyword(s):  
Modal Logic ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Definite Descriptions ◽  
Free Logic ◽  
First Order ◽  
Individual Concept ◽  
The Past ◽  
Individual Concepts ◽  
The World ◽  
Ordinary Usage

An individual-concept, hereinafter “individuation”, is a function from possible worlds to individuals. Constant individuations I will call “subsistents” (the notion will presently be generalized). A “substance”, after Thomason [35], is a subsistent whose value exists for the world at hand. In the systems of quantified modal logic developed over the past twenty years, the tendency has been to restrict the range of quantifiers to substances (often represented technically by the simple individuals that would be the values of the constant individuations), while allowing constant terms (particularly descriptions) to express arbitrary individuations. One result is to invalidate unrestricted universal instantiation (and existential generalization), rather as in free logic. Such systems approximate some features of ordinary usage rather nicely, e.g. the behavior of quantifiers and definite descriptions in tensed discourse. Stalnaker and Thomason's Q3r [34], based on the latter's Q3 [35], [36], is exemplary of this approach.The suggestion has repeatedly been considered to quantify over individuations in general (Kanger [14], Kaplan [17], Hughes and Cresswell [12, p. 196], Thomason [35, p. 136], Pollock [30]).

Logical Tools

2021 ◽  
pp. 14-52
Author(s):  
Cian Dorr ◽  
John Hawthorne ◽  
Juhani Yli-Vakkuri
Keyword(s):  
Modal Logic ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Order Logic ◽  
First Order Logic ◽  
First Order ◽  
System P

This chapter presents the system of classical higher-order modal logic which will be employed throughout this book. Nothing more than a passing familiarity with classical first-order logic and standard systems of modal logic is presupposed. We offer some general remarks about the kind of commitment involved in endorsing this logic, and motivate some of its more non-standard features. We also discuss how talk about possible worlds can be represented within the system.

scholarly journals EVERYONE KNOWS THAT SOMEONE KNOWS: QUANTIFIERS OVER EPISTEMIC AGENTS

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAVEL NAUMOV ◽  
JIA TAO
Keyword(s):  
Modal Logic ◽  
Epistemic Logic ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Completeness Theorem ◽  
Kripke Semantics ◽  
Possible Worlds Semantics ◽  
Distributed Knowledge ◽  
First Order ◽  
Soundness And Completeness ◽  
First Order Modal Logic

AbstractModal logic S5 is commonly viewed as an epistemic logic that captures the most basic properties of knowledge. Kripke proved a completeness theorem for the first-order modal logic S5 with respect to a possible worlds semantics. A multiagent version of the propositional S5 as well as a version of the propositional S5 that describes properties of distributed knowledge in multiagent systems has also been previously studied. This article proposes a version of S5-like epistemic logic of distributed knowledge with quantifiers ranging over the set of agents, and proves its soundness and completeness with respect to a Kripke semantics.

scholarly journals Individual Concepts and Attitude Reports

1998 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 233
Author(s):  
Yael Sharvit
Keyword(s):  
Definite Descriptions ◽  
De Re ◽  
Individual Concept ◽  
Individual Concepts ◽  
Attitude Reports ◽  
Complement Clauses ◽  
De Dicto ◽  
The Individual

This paper argues that <it>de dicto</it> reports of the form 'x believes [that ....[<sub>DetP</sub> the [<sub>NP</sub>...]] . . . . . ]' are <it>de re</it> reports where the <it>res</it> is the individual concept which corresponds to '[<sub>DetP</sub> the [<sub>NP</sub> . . . ]'. This claim is based on the observation that definite descriptions project existence from complement clauses of attitude reports, even in those cases where the reporter and the bearer of the attitude do not have the same description "in mind."

scholarly journals Language and political reality: George Orwell reconsidered

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suren Zolyan
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
George Orwell ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Verbal Behaviour ◽  
The World ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
The Future

The domain of reference of political discourse is not autonomous from language; this domain is a construct generated by the discourse itself. Such an approach to the relation between language and political reality was expressed in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Concepts of modern semantics and pragmatics allow to explicate how language acts as both a form of constructing reality and a special type of social verbal behaviour. Language has become exclusively modal and intentional; any utterance expresses the relations of obligation, possibility, etc. and may be interpreted in intensional and, hence, in referentially non-opaque contexts. However, the semantics does not lose its referential force. In contrast, this force is multiplied, becoming a transworld relation. In this respect, the semantics of political discourse is akin to poetic semantics; however, the multidimensionality of the signified referents is hidden because referential discourse is a precondition for effectiveness. Political discourse, as a description of “world as it is”, presupposes a hidden reference to other modal contexts “world in the future” (or “in the past”); “how the world should be” (or “should not be”), etc. The domain of the interpretation of political discourse is a set of possible worlds.

Metaphysics of knowledge

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesper Kallestrup
Keyword(s):  
Modal Logic ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Modal Epistemology ◽  
Physical Realization ◽  
Possible Worlds Semantics ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Essential Nature ◽  
The World ◽  
Structure Of Knowledge ◽  
Shed Light

Epistemology has traditionally been concerned with the scope, sources and structure of knowledge and other epistemic statuses such as justified belief. Metaphysics of knowledge seeks to answer metaphysical questions about knowledge and its place in the world as they arise in such epistemological pursuits. More generally, metaphysics of epistemology can be understood to include metaphysical questions about a broader range of epistemic statuses. In either case, answers to such questions may help solve distinctive problems in epistemology or neighbouring fields, or they may be of independent theoretical importance. Since modal logic, possible worlds semantics and related formal frameworks are frequently brought to bear in traditional metaphysics, for example Williamson 2013, metaphysical inquiries about knowledge may also utilize such modal tools. But metaphysics of knowledge is distinct from both modal epistemology, which concerns the necessary links between belief and truth that supposedly constitute knowledge, and epistemology of modality, which concerns knowledge of modalities – that is, of what is necessary, possible, contingent and so on. Metaphysics of knowledge sits at the intersection of epistemology and metaphysics, whereas modal epistemology is an externalist branch of epistemology, and epistemology of modality is a sub-discipline within philosophy of modality. Both modal epistemology and epistemology of modality may of course shed light on metaphysical aspects of knowledge, for example, if it turns out knowledge is essentially a modally sensitive or safe belief. However, the intended scope of metaphysics of knowledge is much broader, encompassing not just the essential nature of knowledge, but also its metaphysical ground and its physical realization.

Postmodal Metaphysics and Structuralism

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Theodore Sider
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Philosophy Of Mathematics ◽  
Conceptual Scheme ◽  
First Order ◽  
The Past ◽  
Identification Of Persons ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Physical Features ◽  
Mathematics And Science

Metaphysics is sensitive to our chosen conceptual tools. Those tools are a lens through which we view metaphysical problems; the same problems look different when we change the lens. In the 1950s the tools of choice were those of conceptual analysis. We asked: What role in our conceptual scheme do personal identity, mentality, and so forth play? In the 1970s and 80s the tools of choice became modal, and the questions were transformed: What criteria of re-identification of persons are valid in all possible worlds? Could a person have exactly the same physical features but different mental features? And in the past 15 years or so, there has been a shift to “postmodal” tools: ground, essence, and fundamentality. Now we ask: What grounds the facts of personal identity? What facts about the mind are fundamental? This shift impacts first-order debates about structuralism in the philosophy of mathematics and science.

scholarly journals FIRST-ORDER POSSIBILITY MODELS AND FINITARY COMPLETENESS PROOFS

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 637-662
Author(s):  
MATTHEW HARRISON-TRAINOR
Keyword(s):  
Modal Logic ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Canonical Model ◽  
Model Construction ◽  
Completeness Proof ◽  
Quantified Modal Logic ◽  
First Order ◽  
Propositional Modal Logic ◽  
Computable Set ◽  
Order Case

AbstractThis article builds on Humberstone’s idea of defining models of propositional modal logic where total possible worlds are replaced by partial possibilities. We follow a suggestion of Humberstone by introducing possibility models for quantified modal logic. We show that a simple quantified modal logic is sound and complete for our semantics. Although Holliday showed that for many propositional modal logics, it is possible to give a completeness proof using a canonical model construction where every possibility consists of finitely many formulas, we show that this is impossible to do in the first-order case. However, one can still construct a canonical model where every possibility consists of a computable set of formulas and thus still of finitely much information.

scholarly journals Set-Theoretic Dependence

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Wigglesworth
Keyword(s):  
Modal Logic ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Impossible Worlds ◽  
Logical Framework ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
First Order ◽  
Dependence Relations ◽  
Asymmetric Dependence ◽  
Satisfactory Account ◽  
First Order Modal Logic

In this paper, we explore the idea that sets depend on, or are grounded in, their members.  It is said that a set depends on each of its members, and not vice versa.  Members do not depend on the sets that they belong to.  We show that the intuitive modal truth conditions for dependence, given in terms of possible worlds, do not accurately capture asymmetric dependence relations between sets and their members.  We extend the modal truth conditions to include impossible worlds and give a more satisfactory account of  the dependence of a set on its members. Focusing on the case of singletons, we articulate a logical framework in which to evaluate set-theoretic dependence claims, using a normal first-order modal logic.  We show that on this framework the dependence of a singleton on its single members follows from logic alone. However, the converse does not hold.

scholarly journals Leibniz’s and Herder’s philosophy of optimism

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 37-47
Author(s):  
Vasil Gluchman
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Progress ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Given

Abstract The author studies Leibniz’s views of vindicating God for the existence of evil in the world, as well as the idea of the best of all possible worlds, including the past and present criticism. Following Leibniz, he opted for the presentation of Herder’s philosophy of history as one of the most significant forms of philosophical optimism that influenced the first half of the 19th century, including contemporary debates on and critiques of the topic. He defines Herder’s concept as the philosophy of historical progress, which also significantly influenced Slovak philosophy of the given period. The main goal of the article is to present Leibniz’s and Herder’s views as a starting point for the Slovak philosophy of optimism and historical progress of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century.

scholarly journals Individual Concepts and Attitude Reports

2015 ◽  
pp. 233
Author(s):  
Yael Sharvit
Keyword(s):  
Definite Descriptions ◽  
De Re ◽  
Individual Concept ◽  
Individual Concepts ◽  
Attitude Reports ◽  
Complement Clauses ◽  
De Dicto ◽  
The Individual

This paper argues that <it>de dicto</it> reports of the form 'x believes [that ....[<sub>DetP</sub> the [<sub>NP</sub>...]] . . . . . ]' are <it>de re</it> reports where the <it>res</it> is the individual concept which corresponds to '[<sub>DetP</sub> the [<sub>NP</sub> . . . ]'. This claim is based on the observation that definite descriptions project existence from complement clauses of attitude reports, even in those cases where the reporter and the bearer of the attitude do not have the same description "in mind."

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