In this paper, I will defend the thesis that fundamental natural laws are distinguished from accidental empirical generalizations neither by metaphysical necessity, 147–155, 2005, 2007) nor by contingent necessitation. The only sort of modal force that distinguishes natural laws, I will argue, arises from the peculiar physical property of mutual independence of elementary interactions exemplifying the laws. Mutual independence of elementary interactions means that their existence and their nature do not depend in any way on which other interactions (...) presently occur. It is exactly this general physical property of elementary interactions in the actual world that provides natural laws with their specific modal force and grounds the experience of nature’s ‘recalcitrance’. Thus, the modal force of natural laws is explained by contingent non-modal properties of nature. In the second part of the paper, I deal with some alleged counterexamples to my approach: constraint laws, compositional laws, symmetry principles and conservation laws. These sorts of laws turn out to be compatible with my approach: constraint laws and compositional laws do not represent the dynamics of interaction-types by themselves, but only as constitutive parts of a complete set of equations, whereas symmetry principles and conservation laws do not represent any specific dynamics, but only impose general constraints on possible interactions. (shrink)

We consider the modality “ $\varphi $ is true in every $\sigma $ -centered forcing extension,” denoted $\square \varphi $, and its dual “ $\varphi $ is true in some $\sigma $ -centered forcing extension,” denoted $\lozenge \varphi $, which give rise to the notion of a principle of $\sigma $ -centered forcing. We prove that if ZFC is consistent, then the modal logic of $\sigma $ -centered forcing, i.e., the ZFC-provable principles of $\sigma $ -centered forcing, is exactly (...) $\mathsf {S4.2}$. We also generalize this result to other related classes of forcing. (shrink)

This paper investigates when and how children figure out the force of modals: that possibility modals (e.g., _can_/_might_) express possibility, and necessity modals (e.g., _must_/_have to_) express necessity. Modals raise a classic subset problem: given that necessity entails possibility, what prevents learners from hypothesizing possibility meanings for necessity modals? Three solutions to such subset problems can be found in the literature: the first is for learners to rely on downward-entailing (DE) environments (Gualmini and Schwarz in J. Semant. 26(2):185–215, 2009 (...) ); the second is a bias for strong (here, necessity) meanings; the third is for learners to rely on pragmatic cues stemming from the conversational context (Dieuleveut et al. in Proceedings of the 2019 Amsterdam colloqnium, pp. 111–122, 2019a ; Rasin and Aravind in Nat. Lang. Semant. 29:339–375, 2020 ). This paper assesses the viability of each of these solutions by examining the modals used in speech to and by 2-year-old children, through a combination of corpus studies and experiments testing the guessability of modal force based on their context of use. Our results suggest that, given the way modals are used in speech to children, the first solution is not viable and the second is unnecessary. Instead, we argue that the conversational context in which modals occur is highly informative as to their force and sufficient, in principle, to sidestep the subset problem. Our child results further suggest an early mastery of possibility—but not necessity—modals and show no evidence for a necessity bias. (shrink)

Modals in St’át’imcets (Lillooet Salish) show two differences from their counterparts in English. First, they have variable quantificational force, systematically allowing both possibility and necessity interpretations; and second, they lexically restrict the conversational background, distinguishing for example between deontic and (several kinds of) epistemic modality. We provide an analysis of the St’át’imcets modals according to which they are akin to specific indefinites in the nominal domain. They introduce choice function variables which select a subset of the accessible worlds. Following (...) Klinedinst, we assume distributivity over the resulting set of worlds. St’át’imcets modals thus receive a uniform interpretation as (distributive) pluralities. The appearance of variability in modal force arises because the choice function can select a larger or smaller subset of accessible worlds. Finally, we discuss the implications of our analysis for the investigation of modal systems in other languages. (shrink)

This paper develops the model theory of normal modal logics based on partial “possibilities” instead of total “worlds,” following Humberstone [1981] instead of Kripke [1963]. Possibility semantics can be seen as extending to modal logic the semantics for classical logic used in weak forcing in set theory, or as semanticizing a negative translation of classical modal logic into intuitionistic modal logic. Thus, possibility frames are based on posets with accessibility relations, like intuitionistic modal frames, but (...) with the constraint that the interpretation of every formula is a regular open set in the Alexandrov topology on the poset. The standard world frames for modal logic are the special case of possibility frames wherein the poset is discrete. The analogues of classical Kripke frames, i.e., full world frames, are full possibility frames, in which propositional variables may be interpreted as any regular open sets. We develop the beginnings of duality theory, definability/correspondence theory, and completeness theory for possibility frames. The duality theory, relating possibility frames to Boolean algebras with operators (BAOs), shows the way in which full possibility frames are a generalization of Kripke frames. Whereas Thomason [1975a] established a duality between the category of Kripke frames with p-morphisms and the category of complete (C), atomic (A), and completely additive (V) BAOs with complete BAO-homomorphisms (these categories being dually equivalent), we establish a duality between the category of full possibility frames with possibility morphisms and the category of CV-BAOs, i.e., allowing non-atomic BAOs, with complete BAO-homomorphisms (the latter category being dually equivalent to a reflective subcategory of the former). This parallels the connection between forcing posets and Boolean-valued models in set theory, but now with accessibility relations and modal operators involved. Generalizing further, we introduce a class of principal possibility frames that capture the generality of V-BAOs. If we do not require a full or principal frame, then every BAO has an equivalent possibility frame, whose possibilities are proper filters in the BAO. With this filter representation, which does not require the ultrafilter axiom, we are lead to a notion of filter-descriptive possibility frames. Whereas Goldblatt [1974] showed that the category of BAOs with BAO-homomorphisms is dually equivalent to the category of descriptive world frames with p-morphisms, we show that the category of BAOs with BAO-homomorphisms is dually equivalent to the category of filter-descriptive possibility frames with p-morphisms. Applying our duality theory to definability theory, we prove analogues for possibility semantics of theorems of Goldblatt [1974] and Goldblatt and Thomason [1975] characterizing modally definable classes of frames. In addition, we discuss analogues for possibility semantics of first-order correspondence results in the style of Lemmon and Scott [1977], Sahlqvist [1975], and van Benthem [1976a]. Finally, applying our duality theory to completeness theory, we show that there are continuum many normal modal logics that can be characterized by full possibility frames but not by Kripke frames, that all Sahlqvist logics can be characterized by full possibility frames that contain no worlds, and that all normal modal logics can be characterized by filter-descriptive possibility frames. (shrink)

The function of a trait token is usually defined in terms of some properties of other (past, present, future) tokens of the same trait type. I argue that this strategy is problematic, as trait types are (at least partly) individuated by their functional properties, which would lead to circularity. In order to avoid this problem, I suggest a way to define the function of a trait token in terms of the properties of the very same trait token. To able to (...) allow for the possibility of malfunctioning, some of these properties need to be modal ones: a function of a trait is to do F just in case its doing F would contribute to the inclusive fitness of the organism whose trait it is. Function attributions have modal force. Finally, I explore whether and how this theory of biological function could be modified to cover artifact function. (shrink)

In [9], Newton da Costa together with the author of this paper argued in favor of the possibility to consider quantum superpositions in terms of a paraconsistent approach. We claimed that, even though most interpretations of quantum mechanics attempt to escape contradictions, there are many hints that indicate it could be worth while to engage in a research of this kind. Recently, Arenhart and Krause [1, 2, 3] have raised several arguments against this approach and claimed that —taking into account (...) the square of opposition— quantum superpositions are better understood in terms of contrariety propositions rather than contradictory propositions. In [14] we defended the Paraconsistent Approach to Quantum Superpositions and provided arguments in favor of its development. In the present paper we attempt to analyze the meanings of modality, potentiality and contradiction in QM, and provide further arguments of why the PAQS is better suited, than the Contrariety Approach to Quantum Superpositions proposed by Arenhart and Krause, to face the interpretational questions that quantum technology is forcing us to consider. (shrink)

Three popular views regarding the modal status of the laws of nature are discussed: Humean Supervenience, nomic necessitation, and scientific/dispositional essentialism. These views are examined especially with regard to their take on the apparent modal force of laws and their ability to explain that modal force. It will be suggested that none of the three views, at least in their strongest form, can be maintained if some laws are metaphysically necessary, but others are metaphysically contingent. (...) Some reasons for thinking that such variation in the modal status of laws exists will be presented with reference to physics. This drives us towards a fourth, hybrid view, according to which there are both necessary and contingent laws. The prospects for such a view are studied. (shrink)

The paper considers the role of modality in the rational reconstruction of standpoints and arguments. The paper examines in what conditions modal markers can act as argumentative indicators and what kind of cues they provide for the reconstruction of argument. The paper critically re-examines Toulmin’s hypothesis that the meaning of the modals can be analyzed in terms of a field-invariant argumentative force and field-dependent criteria in the light of the Theory of Relative Modality developed within linguistic semantics, showing (...) how this theory can provide a more adequate model for exploiting the modals as indicators. The resulting picture confirms Toulmin’s intuition only in part: on the one hand the modals are always relational in nature and dependent on a contextual conversational background of propositions; on the other hand only epistemic-doxastic modals directly express a speech-act level inferential relation between a set of premises and a standpoint. Other modalities express relations (e.g. causal or final relations) better seen as part of the content of the argument whose argumentative relevance depends on the argumentation scheme employed. Thus non-epistemic modals function as argumentative indicators only indirectly. (shrink)

This paper examines "moderate modal skepticism", a form of skepticism about metaphysical modality defended by Peter van Inwagen in order to blunt the force of certain modal arguments in the philosophy of religion. Van Inwagen’s argument for moderate modal skepticism assumes Yablo's (1993) influential world-based epistemology of possibility. We raise two problems for this epistemology of possibility, which undermine van Inwagen's argument. We then consider how one might motivate moderate modal skepticism by relying on a (...) different epistemology of possibility, which does not face these problems: Williamson’s (2007: ch. 5) counterfactual-based epistemology. Two ways of motivating moderate modal skepticism within that framework are found unpromising. Nevertheless, we also find a way of vindicating an epistemological thesis that, while weaker than moderate modal skepticism, is strong enough to support the methodological moral van Inwagen wishes to draw. (shrink)

Modal Meinongianism is the most recent neo-Meinongian theory. Its main innovation consists in a Comprehension Principle which, unlike other neo-Meinongian approaches, seemingly avoids limitations on the properties that can characterize objects. However, in a recent paper A. Sauchelli has raised an objection against modal Meinongianism, to the effect that properties and relations involving reference to worlds at which they are instantiated, and specifically to the actual world or parts thereof, force a limitation of its Comprehension Principle. The (...) theory, thus, is no better off than other neo-Meinongian views in this respect. This article shows that the notion part of actuality in Sauchelli’s paper is ambiguous from the modal Meinongian viewpoint. Accordingly, his objection splits into two, depending on its disambiguation. It is then explained how neither interpretation forces modal Meinongianism to limit its Comprehension Principle. A third problem connected to Sauchelli’s objection is addressed: how to account for our felicitously referring to nonexistent objects via descriptions that embed reference to properties not actually instantiated by the objects. Overall, the replies to these difficulties provide good insights into the workings of the new Meinongian theory. (shrink)

Kant contends that necessity is a criterion of the a priori—that is, that all knowledge of necessary propositions is a priori. This contention, together with two others that Kant took to be evident—we know some mathematical propositions and such propositions are necessary—leads directly to the conclusion that some knowledge is a priori. Although many contemporary philosophers endorse Kant’s criterion, supporting arguments are hard to come by. Gordon Barnes provides one of the few examples. My purpose in this chapter is to (...) articulate and examine his argument. I have two goals in doing so. The first is to uncover several significant gaps in the argument. The second is to show that it suffers from a common defect in rationalist arguments. If the argument were successful against empiricist accounts of modal knowledge, it would apply with equal force to extant rationalist accounts of such knowledge. Hence, the cost of refuting modal empiricism is modal scepticism. (shrink)

Modality is standardly thought to come in two varieties: de dicto and de re. De re modality concerns the attribution of modal features to things or individuals, and enshrines a commitment to Aristotelian essentialism. This chapter considers how David Lewis's conception of de re modality fits into his overall metaphysics. The hypothesis is that the driving force behind his metaphysics in general, and his adherence to counterpart theory in particular, is the distinctly Humean thought that necessary connections between (...) distinct existences are literally unintelligible. Lewis's appeal to counterpart theory in his account of truthmakers is explicitly aimed at delivering a truthmaker principle that eschews necessary connections. Lewis's attitude towards several well‐rehearsed debates in contemporary ontology and the reasons underlying that attitude closely mirror Hume's incendiary verdict on "divinity and school metaphysics." Finally, de re modality is connected with his adherence to the doctrine of "Humean supervenience". (shrink)

This article discusses some of the ways in which natural language can express modal information – information which is, to a first approximation, about what could be or must be the case, as opposed to being about what actually is the case. It motivates, explains, and raises problems for Angelika Kratzer's influential theory of modal auxiliaries, and introduces a new approach to one important debate about the relationships between modality, evidentiality, context change, and imperative force.

The main aim of this paper is to provide a critical discussion of the relation between realist epistemologies of modality and the imagination. Two prominent realist accounts of modal knowledge are examined: a Kripkean one and Williamson’s counterfactual account. I argue that the constraint that Kripke believes should be imposed on the imagination in order to obtain, but also defend metaphysically necessary truths is too strong. This either makes it ineffective, or leads to serious doubts about Kripke’s famous examples (...) of necessary a posteriori truths. The conceptual tension between a modal epistemology that follows Kripke’s suggestion and classicized Kripkean tenets in the philosophy of language is evinced in the analysis of Soames’ version of Kripkeanism. Williamson’s account follows the same line of imposing very strong constraints on the way we form or acquire knowledge of metaphysical necessity, which ultimately leads to similar doubts about its effectiveness. While this critique motivates some sceptical conclusions, it leaves the discussion about the force and extent of modal scepticism open. (shrink)

An increasing amount of contemporary philosophy of mathematics posits, and theorizes in terms of special kinds of mathematical modality. The goal of this paper is to bring recent work on higher-order metaphysics to bear on the investigation of these modalities. The main focus of the paper will be views that posit mathematical contingency or indeterminacy about statements that concern the `width' of the set theoretic universe, such as Cantor's continuum hypothesis. Within a higher-order framework I show that contingency about the (...) width of the set-theoretic universe refutes two orthodoxies concerning the structure of modal reality: the view that the broadest necessity has a logic of S5, and the "Leibniz biconditionals" stating that what is possible, in the broadest sense of possible, is what is true in some possible world. Nonetheless, I suggest that the underlying picture of modal set-theory is coherent and has attractions. (shrink)

Modal intuitions are the primary source of modal knowledge but also of modal error. According to the theory of modal error in this paper, modal intuitions retain their evidential force in spite of their fallibility, and erroneous modal intuitions are in principle identifiable and eliminable by subjecting our intuitions to a priori dialectic. After an inventory of standard sources of modal error, two further sources are examined in detail. The first source - (...) namely, the failure to distinguish between metaphysical possibility and various kinds of epistemic possibility - turns out to be comparatively easy to untangle and poses little threat to intuition-driven philosophical investigation. The second source is the local misunderstanding of one's concepts . This pathology may be understood on analogy with a patient who is given a clean bill of health at his annual check-up, despite his having a cold at the time of the check-up: although the patient's health is locally disrupted, his overall health is sufficiently good to enable him to overcome the cold without external intervention. Even when our understanding of certain pivotal concepts has lapsed locally, our larger body of intuitions is sufficiently reliable to allow us, without intervention, to ferret out the modal errors resulting from this lapse of understanding by means of dialectic and/or a process of a priori reflection. This source of modal error, and our capacity to overcome it, has wide-ranging implications for philosophical method - including, in particular, its promise for disarming skepticism about the classical method of intuition-driven investigation itself. Indeed, it is shown that skeptical accounts of modal error are ultimately self-defeating. (shrink)

We analyze the precise modal commitments of several natural varieties of set-theoretic potentialism, using tools we develop for a general model-theoretic account of potentialism, building on those of Hamkins, Leibman and Löwe [14], including the use of buttons, switches, dials and ratchets. Among the potentialist conceptions we consider are: rank potentialism, Grothendieck–Zermelo potentialism, transitive-set potentialism, forcing potentialism, countable-transitive-model potentialism, countable-model potentialism, and others. In each case, we identify lower bounds for the modal validities, which are generally either S4.2 (...) or S4.3, and an upper bound of S5, proving in each case that these bounds are optimal. The validity of S5 in a world is a potentialist maximality principle, an interesting set-theoretic principle of its own. The results can be viewed as providing an analysis of the modal commitments of the various set-theoretic multiverse conceptions corresponding to each potentialist account. (shrink)

This paper replies to Nanay’s response to my recent paper. My suggestions are the following. First, “should” or “ought” does not need to be deontic. Second, etiological theories of function, like provability logic, do not need to attribute modal force to their explanans. Third, the explanans of the homological account of trait type individuation does not appeal to a trait’s etiological function, that is, what a trait should or ought to do. Finally, my reference to Cummins’s notion of (...) function was intended to note that the homological account is permitted to use this non-etiological notion of function. (shrink)

Ontic Structural Realism (OSR) gives ontic priority to structures over objects. In its perhaps most extreme form (captured, admittedly, by a slogan) it states that “all that there is, is structure” (da Costa and French 2003, 189). If this is true, if there is nothing but structure(s) in the world, the very idea of contrasting structure to nonstructure loses any force it might have. Actually, if the slogan is right, the very idea of characterising what there is as structure—as (...) opposed to anything else—becomes incoherent. Traditionally, characterising something as a structure has made full sense —and has served excellent scientific and philosophical purposes—precisely because structure was understood as an entity with slots, which could be occupied by objects and whose individuation-conditions involved objects only qua slot-fillers. If objects altogether go, whatever remains can be called ‘structure’ only if we take ‘structure’ to be a term of art. Well, Ontic Structuralists are happy to ‘mimic’ talk of non-structure, or objects in particular, but they hasten to add that this mimicking does not imply any serious metaphysical commitment to them. Here are a couple of characteristic passages. (shrink)

Abstract“Force dynamics” refers to a previously neglected semantic category—how entities interact with respect to force. This category includes such concepts as: the exertion of force, resistance to such exertion and the overcoming of such resistance, blockage of a force and the removal of such blockage, and so forth. Force dynamics is a generalization over the traditional linguistic notion of “causative”: it analyzes “causing” into finer primitives and sets it naturally within a framework that also includes (...) “letting,”“hindering,”“helping,” and still further notions. Force dynamics, moreover, appears to be the semantic category that uniquely characterizes the grammatical category of modals, in both their basic and epistemic usages. In addition, on the basis of force dynamic parameters, numerous lexical items fall into systematic semantic patterns, and there exhibit parallelisms between physical and psychosocial reference. Further, from research on the relation of semantic structure to general cognitive structure, it appears that the concepts of force interaction that are encoded within language closely parallel concepts that appear both in early science and in naive physics and psychology. Overall, force dynamics thus emerges as a fundamental notional system that structures conceptual material pertaining to force interaction in a common way across a linguistic range: the physical, psychological, social, inferential, discourse, and mental-model domains of reference and conception. (shrink)

We outline a neo-Meinongian framework labeled as Modal Meinongian Metaphysics (MMM) to account for the ontology and semantics of fictional discourse. Several competing accounts of fictional objects are originated by the fact that our talking of them mirrors incoherent intuitions: mainstream theories of fiction privilege some such intuitions, but are forced to account for others via complicated paraphrases of the relevant sentences. An ideal theory should resort to as few paraphrases as possible. In Sect. 1, we make this explicit (...) via two methodological principles, called the Minimal Revision and the Acceptability Constraint. In Sect. 2, we introduce the standard distinction between internal and external fictional discourse. In Sects. 3–5, we discuss the approaches of (traditional) Meinongianism, Fictionalism, and Realism—and their main troubles. In Sect. 6 we propose our MMM approach. This is based upon (1) a modal semantics including impossible worlds (Subsect. 6.1); (2) a qualified Comprehension Principle for objects (Subsect. 6.2); (3) a notion of existence-entailment for properties (Subsect. 6.3). In Sect. 7 we present a formal semantics for MMM based upon a representation operator. And in Sect. 8 we have a look at how MMM solves the problems of the three aforementioned theories. (shrink)

Forensic authorship analysis is based on two assumptions: that every individual has a unique idiolect, and that features characteristic of that idiolect will recur with a relatively stable frequency. Yet, a speaker’s language can change with age, affective states, according to audience, or genre. Thus, studies on authorship analysis should adopt the theory that while some linguistic parameters of an idiolect can remain stable, others can change depending on various circumstances. This investigation, which takes a constructional and functional-based approach to (...) discourse-level phenomena in idiolectal stability, analyzes cross-genre data produced by nine Mexican participants throughout a twelve-year time span. This study contributes to a greater understanding of the linguistic elements that survive genre effects and are potentially useful in both investigative and evidential forensic linguistic work. We provide a detailed description of linguistic features, their specific values, and context-dependent interpretation, keeping in mind the context of expert linguistic testimony, with its preference for methods which “employ linguistically motivated analyses in combination with quantitative tools” (Solan & Tiersma, 2004, p.463). Our findings show that idiolectal style tends to remain stable across genres and communication modes in epistemic modality constructions. Epistemic markers —specifically, markers indicating low commitment by the speaker (e.g., _no sé_ ‘I don’t know’) or expressing indirectness when introducing the illocutionary force (e.g., _la verdad [es que]_ ‘the truth [is that]’)— display idiolectal stability, as these markers seem to be the most effective in terms of allowing speakers to strategically manifest the extent of their knowledge regarding what is said. (shrink)

In the propositional modal treatment of two-variable first-order logic equality is modelled by a ‘diagonal’ constant, interpreted in square products of universal frames as the identity relation. Here we study the decision problem of products of two arbitrary modal logics equipped with such a diagonal. As the presence or absence of equality in two-variable first-order logic does not influence the complexity of its satisfiability problem, one might expect that adding a diagonal to product logics in general is similarly (...) harmless. We show that this is far from being the case, and there can be quite a big jump in complexity, even from decidable to the highly undecidable. Our undecidable logics can also be viewed as new fragments of first-order logic where adding equality changes a decidable fragment to undecidable. We prove our results by a novel application of counter machine problems. While our formalism apparently cannot force reliable counter machine computations directly, the presence of a unique diagonal in the models makes it possible to encode both lossy and insertion-error computations, for the same sequence of instructions. We show that, given such a pair of faulty computations, it is then possible to reconstruct a reliable run from them. (shrink)

This study asserts that W.V.O. Quine’s eliminative philosophical gaze into mereological composition affects inevitably his interpretations of composition theories of ontology. To investigate Quine’s property monism from the account of modal eliminativism, I applied to his solution for the paradoxes of de re modalities’ . Because of its vital role to figure out how dispositions are encountered by Quine, it was significantly noted that the realm of de re modalities doesn’t include contingent and impossible inferences about things. Therefore, for (...) him, all the intrinsic forces and elements of entities such as powers and causal or teleological dispositions for ontology demand to be seen necessarily as bound variables from a monist perspective. Although his denial of analyticity and the elimination of dispositional field of ontology, S. Mumford criticizes the monist perspective of Quine’s paradoxical approach to superveniences. Because superveniences create problems while determining type-type identities from a monist mereological perspective. It is observed that Quine faces with a reduction again in terms of his dispositional monism despite his critiques to repulse vagueness from the ontology in his well-known article Two Dogmas of Empiricism. -/- . (shrink)

Ancient Chinese philosophers were inclined to preserve the doctrine of a unified body and mind rather than to engage in a discussion on the separation of the two. In addition, most traditional Chinese philosophers stressing in particular the function of mind. Based on the tradition of believing in the concept of qi, they traced the cause of their spiritual activities to the natural effect of the qi. The modalities display a phenomenological characteristic that looks at mental activities lightly, and examines (...) language and action as a natural revelation of material force, qi. (shrink)

This paper articulates the structure of a two species of weakly aggregative necessity in a common idiom, neighbourhood semantics, using the notion of a k-filter of propositions. A k-filter on a non-empty set I is a collection of subsets of I which contains I, is closed under supersets on I, and contains ∪{Xi ≤ Xj : 0 ≤ i < j ≤ k} whenever it contains the subsets X0,…, Xk. The mathematical content of the proof that weakly aggregative modal (...) logic is complete relative to k-ary frame theory, the standard semantic idiom for weakly aggregative modal logic is presented in language-independent terms as a representation theorem for k-filters: every non-trivial k-filter is included in the union of ≤ k non-trivial filters. The elementary theory of k-filters is developed and then applied in the form of an ultrafilter extension result for k-ary frame theory. (shrink)

I think that there are good reasons to adopt a relativist semantics for epistemic modal claims such as ``the treasure might be under the palm tree'', according to which such utterances determine a truth value relative to something finer-grained than just a world (or a <world, time> pair). Anyone who is inclined to relativise truth to more than just worlds and times faces a problem about assertion. It's easy to be puzzled about just what purpose would be served by (...) assertions of this kind, and how to understand what we'd be up to in our use of sentences like ``the treasure might be under the palm tree'', if they have such peculiar truth conditions. After providing a very quick argument to motivate a relativist view of epistemic modals, I bring out and attempt to resolve this problem in making sense of the role of assertions with relativist truth conditions. Solving this problem should be helpful in two ways: first, it eliminates an apparently forceful objection to relativism, and second, spelling out the relativist account of assertion and communication will help to make clear just what the relativist position is, exactly, and why it's interesting. (shrink)

The epistemic modal auxiliaries must and might are vehicles for expressing the force with which a proposition follows from some body of evidence or information. Standard approaches model these operators using quantificational modal logic, but probabilistic approaches are becoming increasingly influential. According to a traditional view, must is a maximally strong epistemic operator and might is a bare possibility one. A competing account—popular amongst proponents of a probabilisitic turn—says that, given a body of evidence, must \ entails (...) that \\) is high but non-maximal and might \ that \\) is significantly greater than 0. Drawing on several observations concerning the behavior of must, might and similar epistemic operators in evidential contexts, deductive inferences, downplaying and retractions scenarios, and expressions of epistemic tension, I argue that those two influential accounts have systematic descriptive shortcomings. To better make sense of their complex behavior, I propose instead a broadly Kratzerian account according to which must \ entails that \ = 1\) and might \ that \ > 0\), given a body of evidence and a set of normality assumptions about the world. From this perspective, must and might are vehicles for expressing a common mode of reasoning whereby we draw inferences from specific bits of evidence against a rich set of background assumptions—some of which we represent as defeasible—which capture our general expectations about the world. I will show that the predictions of this Kratzerian account can be substantially refined once it is combined with a specific yet independently motivated ‘grammatical’ approach to the computation of scalar implicatures. Finally, I discuss some implications of these results for more general discussions concerning the empirical and theoretical motivation to adopt a probabilisitic semantic framework. (shrink)

A solid foundation of modal logic requires a clear conception of the notion of modality. Modern modal logic treats modality as a propositional operator. I shall present an alternative according to which modality applies primarily to illocutionary force, that is, to the force, or mood, of a speech act. By a first step of internalization, modality applied at this level is pushed to the level of speech-act content. By a second step of internalization, we reach a (...) propositional operator validating the modal logic S4. After a brief discussion of problematic modality and possibility, the article concludes with an extension of the account that identifies modality with illocutionary force. Throughout, close attention is paid to the intended interpretation of the formalism. All of the rules stipulated will be justified on the basis of this interpretation. (shrink)

Paul Cohen’s method of forcing, together with Saul Kripke’s related semantics for modal and intuitionistic logic, has had profound effects on a number of branches of mathematical logic, from set theory and model theory to constructive and categorical logic. Here, I argue that forcing also has a place in traditional Hilbert-style proof theory, where the goal is to formalize portions of ordinary mathematics in restricted axiomatic theories, and study those theories in constructive or syntactic terms. I will discuss the (...) aspects of forcing that are useful in this respect, and some sample applications. The latter include ways of obtaining conservation results for classical and intuitionistic theories, interpreting classical theories in constructive ones, and constructivizing model-theoretic arguments. (shrink)

Naturalistic teleological accounts of mental content rely on an etiological theory of function. Nanay has raised a new objection to an etiological theory, and proposed an alternative theory of function that attributes modal force to claims about function. The aim of this paper is both to defend and to cast a new light on an etiological theory of function. I argue against Nanay’s “trait type individuation objection,” suggesting that an etiological theory also attributes modal force to (...) claims about function. An etiological theory of function can be thought to analyze claims about function with modal force, not relying on any theory of counterfactuals. (shrink)

This paper presents and discusses a range of counterexamples to the common view that quantifiers cannot take scope over epistemic modals. Some of the counterexamples raise problems for ‘force modifier’ theories of epistemic modals. Some of the counterexamples raise problems for Robert Stalnaker’s theory of counterfactuals, according to which a special kind of epistemic modal must be able to scope over a whole counterfactual. Finally, some of the counterexamples suggest that David Lewis must countenance ‘would’ counterfactuals in which (...) a covert ‘would’ scopes over the whole consequent of the counterfactual, including an overt ‘might.’. (shrink)

After introductory reminder of and comments on Gödel’s ontological proof, we discuss the collapse of modalities, which is provable in Gödel’s ontological system GO. We argue that Gödel’s texts confirm modal collapse as intended consequence of his ontological system. Further, we aim to show that modal collapse properly fits into Gödel’s philosophical views, especially into his ontology of separation and union of force and fact, as well as into his cosmological theory of the nonobjectivity of the lapse (...) of time. As a result, modal collapse should not be conceived in Gödel so much as a deficit, but rather as a kind of the rise of modalities to the “perfect” being. We further show that, in accordance with Gödel’s ontology, the concepts of modality and time should be derived in terms of the “fundamental philosophical concept” of cause. To give an example of how a formalization of such causative Gödelian ontology and ontological proof might look, we propose the transformation of GO into a kind of causally re-interpreted justification logic. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is twofold: i) to give a logically explicit formulation of a slight generalization of Quine's master argument about de re modality—an argument which imposes important constraints on modal semantics, ii) to briefly present my favored account of modal locutions (especially locutions of the de re metaphysical flavor) and show how it successfully copes with Quine's argument. Though Quine made this argument so many years ago, it is still widely misunderstood, and so careful attention (...) to detail seems warranted. From what I have seen, philosophers' attitudes towards Quine's master argument fall into two kinds: i) there are those that think that the argument has no force, because it is based on some mistake (usually, something about definite descriptions), and ii) there are those that think that the argument poses some insuperable barrier to any kind of de re modality. Neither of these attitudes is justified. So, I hope to make plain along the way that a) the original version of Quine's argument is sound, b) there is a version of this same basic argument which imposes very definite constraints on any proposed account of de re "metaphysical" modality in particular, an c) there is an account that satisfies these constraints. Part 1 of the paper is concerned with laying out and discussing three versions of Quine's argument, in the service of establishing points (a) and (b). -/- In Part 2 of the paper, I briefly sketch what I take to be a very promising, and also very Quinean account of de re modality -- one that respects the constraint on modal semantics that Quine's argument reveals and comports well with the few positive remarks Quine makes, for example, in Word and Object regarding our use of modal locutions. This will put us in a position to see that the proposed account does not fly in the face of Quine's master argument. (shrink)

According to relativist accounts of discourse about, e.g., epistemic possibility and matters of taste, the truth of propositions must be relativized to nonstandard parameters. This paper argues that the central thrust of such accounts should be understood independently of relative truth, in terms of a perspectival account of assertoric force. My point of departure is a stripped-down version of Brandom’s analysis of the normative structure of discursive practice. By generalizing that structure, I make room for an analogue of the (...) “assessment sensitivity” MacFarlane characterizes in terms of relative truth. I argue that my reformulation supplies a stronger rationale for the most distinctive feature of MacFarlane’s brand of relativism, its account of when speakers ought to retract assertions. Furthermore, I show that the view usually regarded as a “moderate” alternative to MacFarlane’s “radical” relativism requires the more radical deviation from an absolutist account of assertoric force. (shrink)

This note is a reply to margery bedford naylor's "a note on david lewis's realism about possible worlds" . naylor asks why, if we accept david lewis's argument for real possible worlds , we should not accept an analogous argument for impossible worlds. i argue that the latter argument is invalid on the modal realist account of possibility and thus has no force for an adherent of lewis.

Now it cannot be denied, I think, that this argument has the appearance of being sound, that is, both true in its premises and valid in its conclusion. But one surely ought to harbor suspicions concerning an argument which establishes the most momentous of all conclusions upon nothing more than a few propositions. In this paper I shall attempt to show that these suspicions are well-founded by pointing out that the above "proof" derives whatever force it has from an (...) equivocation. (shrink)

In Naming and Necessity, Kripke argues that intuitions about what is possible play a limited, but important, role in challenging philosophical theses, counting as evidence against them only if they cannot be reconstrued as intuitions about something else, compatible with the thesis in question. But he doesn't provide clear guidelines for determining when such intuitions have been successfully reconstrued, leading some to question their status as evidence for modal claims. In this paper I focus on some worries, articulated by (...) Michael Della Rocca, about whether modal intuitions can be evidence for claims about essential properties, and argue that there is a way of viewing the role of modal intuition in philosophical argument that can preserve their evidential force. (shrink)

In recent years the doctrine of divine simplicity has become a topic of interest in the philosophical theological community. In particular, the modal collapse argument against divine simplicity has garnered various responses from proponents of divine simplicity. Some even claiming that the modal collapse argument is invalid. It is our contention that these responses have either misunderstood or misstated the argument, and have thus missed the force of the objection. Our main aim is to clarify what the (...) modal collapse argument in fact says, and explain why the recent responses do not succeed. In order to argue our case, we will proceed in several steps. First, we aim to systematically articulate the doctrine of divine simplicity. Second, articulate the Christian conviction that God is free to create any feasible world or no world at all. Third, argue that divine simplicity suffers a modal collapse and thus undermines God's freedom. Fourth, respond to potential objections to modal collapse. Fifth, we offer some concluding remarks. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss, on behalf of the materialist, a consideration against the modal or conceivability argument against materialism which was first voiced in the third lecture of Naming and Necessity. This consideration is based on intertheoretic identities, statements in which both terms flanking the identity sign are theoretical. I argue that the defender of the conceivability argument has trouble to account for the appearance of contingency in those types of necessary identities. In fact, intertheoretic identities pose a (...) formidable dilemma for the defender of the modal argument and actually force the antimaterialist to say more about the semantics of theoretical terms than is implicit in standard discussions of the argument. I myself consider several options in this regard, the upshot being, however, that none of the alternative semantics for theoretical terms available to the antimaterialist is good enough to achieve the twofold aim which her modal argument requires, namely, to account for the a posteriori necessity of identities of this sort and, at the same time, to preserve her antimaterialist argument. Finally, in the last part of the paper, I argue that my defense of materialism can withstand some worries coming from David Chalmers’ recent views on a priori scrutability. (shrink)

We take Carnap’s problem to be to what extent standard consequence relations in various formal languages fix the meaning of their logical vocabulary, alone or together with additional constraints on the form of the semantics. This paper studies Carnap’s problem for basic modal logic. Setting the stage, we show that neighborhood semantics is the most general form of compositional possible worlds semantics, and proceed to ask which standard modal logics (if any) constrain the box operator to be interpreted (...) as in relational Kripke semantics. Except when restricted to finite domains, no modal logic characterizes all the Kripkean interpretation of P. Moreover, we show that, in contrast with the case of first-order logic, the obvious requirement of permutation invariance is not adequate in the modal case. After pointing out some known facts about modal logics that nevertheless force the Kripkean interpretation, we focus on another feature often taken to embody the gist of modal logic: locality. We show that invariance under point-generated subframes (properly defined) does single out the Kripkean interpretations, but only among topological interpretations, not in general. Finally, we define a notion of bisimulation invariance — another aspect of locality — that, together with a reasonable closure condition, gives the desired general result. Along the way, we propose a new perspective on normal neighborhood frames as filter frames, consisting of a set of worlds equipped with an accessibility relation, and a free filter at every world. (shrink)

Kant's argument from incongruent counterparts for substantival space is examined; it is concluded that the argument has no force against a relationist. The argument does suggest that a relationist cannot give an account of enantiomorphism, incongruent counterparts and orientability. The prospects for a relationist account of these notions are assessed, and it is found that they are good provided the relationist is some kind of modal relationist. An illustration and interpretation of these modal commitments is given.

Humans possess the ability to extract highly organized perceptual structures from sequences of temporal stimuli. For instance, we can organize specific rhythmical patterns into hierarchical, or metrical, systems. Despite the evidence of a fundamental influence of the motor system in achieving this skill, few studies have attempted to investigate the organization of our motor representation of rhythm. To this aim, we studied—in musicians and non-musicians—the ability to perceive and reproduce different rhythms. In a first experiment participants performed a temporal order-judgment (...) task, for rhythmical sequences presented via auditory or tactile modality. In a second experiment, they were asked to reproduce the same rhythmic sequences, while their tapping force and timing were recorded. We demonstrate that tapping force encodes the metrical aspect of the rhythm, and the strength of the coding correlates with the individual’s perceptual accuracy. We suggest that the similarity between perception and tapping-force organization indicates a common representation of rhythm, shared between the perceptual and motor systems. (shrink)

Shelly Kagan has recently defended the view that it is morally worse for a human being to suffer some harm than it is for a lower animal (such as a dog or a cow) to suffer a harm that is equally severe (ceteris paribus). In this paper, I argue that this view receives rather less support from our intuitions than one might at first suppose. According to Kagan, moreover, an individual’s moral status depends partly upon her ‘modal capacities.’ In (...) this paper, I argue that the most natural strategy for justifying Kagan’s theory faces some important challenges. More generally, I argue that philosophers who wish to defend the view that human beings have a higher moral status than that of the lower animals face a dilemma. Either their theory of moral status will imply (unacceptably) that some severely cognitively impaired human beings have a significantly lower moral status than that of typical human beings, or these philosophers will be forced to ground moral status in a set of properties so far removed from a subject’s actual capacities that it will become difficult to see why these kinds of properties should have such moral importance. (shrink)

Hamkins and Löwe proved that the modal logic of forcing is S4.2 . In this paper, we consider its modal companion, the intermediate logic KC and relate it to the fatal Heyting algebra H ZFC of forcing persistent sentences. This Heyting algebra is equationally generic for the class of fatal Heyting algebras. Motivated by these results, we further analyse the class of fatal Heyting algebras.

Philosophers have always taken an interest not only in what is actually the case, but in what is necessarily the case and what could possibly be the case. These are questions of modality. Epistemologists of modality enquire into how we can know what is necessary and what is possible. This dissertation concerns the meta-epistemology of modality. It engages with the rules that govern construction and evaluation of theories in the epistemology of modality, by using modal empiricism – a form (...) of modal epistemology – as a running example. In particular, I investigate the assumption that it is important to be able to meet the integration challenge. Meeting the integration challenge is a source of serious difficulty for many approaches, but modal empiricism is supposed to do well in this respect. But I argue that once we have a better grasp of what the integration challenge is, it is not obvious that it presents no problem for modal empiricism. Moreover, even if modal empiricism could be said to be in a relatively good position with respect to integration, it comes at the cost of a forced choice between far-reaching partial modal scepticism and non-uniformism about the epistemology of modality. Non-uniformism is the view that more than one modal epistemology will be correct. While non-uniformism might not in itself be unpalatable, it must be defined and defended in a way which squares with the modal empiricist’s other commitment. I explore two ways of doing so, both involving a revised idea of the integration challenge and its role for the epistemology of modality. One involves a bifurcation of the integration challenge, and the other a restriction of the integration challenge’s relevance. Both ways are interesting, but neither is, as it turns out, a walk in the park. (shrink)

In “Epistemic Modals,” Seth Yalcin argues that what explains the deficiency of sentences containing epistemic modals of the form ‘p and it might be that not-p’ is that sentences of this sort are strictly contradictory, and thus are not instances of a Moore-paradox as has been previous suggested. Benjamin Schnieder, however, argues in his Yalcin’s explanation of these sentences’ deficiency turns out to be insufficiently general, as it cannot account for less complex but still defective sentences, such as ‘Suppose it (...) might be raining.’ Consequently, Schnieder proposes his own, expressivist treatment of epistemic modals which he thinks can explain the deficiency of both the original sentence type as well as more complex cases of embedded sentences containing epistemic modals. In this study, I argue that although Schnieder is right to draw our attention to the explanatory failure of Yalcin’s account, we aren’t forced to adopt Schnieder’s expressivist account of epistemic modals. I defend instead a contextualist-friendly alternative which explains the deficiencies of all the relevant sentence types, while avoiding both the defects of Yalcin’s account and the intuitive costs of expressivism. (shrink)

Mistakes about necessity, possibility, counterpossibility and impossibility distort the notions of being and creation.1 Recently such errors cluster in the understanding of quantified modal logic (QML), a device that was for a while thought especially promising for metaphysics.2 Time has told a different story. The underlying modal platonism is gratuitous, without explanatory force and conflicts with the religion it is often used to explain. There are things to consider here that go beyond diagnosing mistakes.3..