The worlds of possibility: Modal realism and the semantics of modal logic

✍ Scribed by Chihara C.S.

• Publisher: OUP
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 355
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

A powerful challenge to some highly influential theories, this book offers a thorough critical exposition of modal realism, the philosophical doctrine that many possible worlds exist of which our own universe is just one. Chihara challenges this claim and offers a new argument for modality without worlds.

✦ Table of Contents

Title ......Page 3
Copyright ......Page 4
Dedication ......Page 5
Preface ......Page 7
Contents ......Page 9
Notational Conventions ......Page 11
INTRODUCTION ......Page 13
1. POSSIBLE WORLDS SEMANTICS ......Page 19
1. An S5 Modal Quantificational Logic ......Page 20
2. Objections Raised by Plantinga and his Supporters ......Page 34
1. The Problem of Transworld Identity ......Page 49
2. Forbes's Solution ......Page 52
3. Doubts about Forbes's Solution ......Page 59
4. Plantinga's Solution ......Page 70
5. Lewis's Solution ......Page 71
1. Lewis's Modal Realism: Exposition ......Page 88
3. Lewis's Justification for Possible Worlds ......Page 95
4. Two Objections to Lewis's Modal Realism ......Page 98
5. A Critique of Lewis's Views on Knowledge ......Page 101
6. Additional Doubts about Lewis's Analyses ......Page 105
7. Doubts about Lewis's Justification of his Mathematical Realism ......Page 108
8. Doubts about Lewis's Justification of his Modal Realism ......Page 111
9. Magical Ersatzism ......Page 115
10. Plantinga's Actualistic Modal Realism ......Page 124
11. Jager's Applied Semantics ......Page 127
12. Paradoxes in Plantinga's Ontological Theory ......Page 132
1. Forbes's Anti-Realism: Exposition ......Page 154
2. Forbes's Anti-Realism: Some Doubts ......Page 163
3. Modal Fictionalism: Exposition ......Page 180
4. Modal Fictionalism: Problems and Doubts ......Page 184
5. THE SEMANTICS OF CLASSICAL PREDICATE LOGIC ......Page 194
1. Interpretational and Representational Semantics ......Page 195
2. The Semantics of the Sentential Calculus ......Page 200
4. A Connecting Theorem ......Page 202
5. The Semantics of First-Order Logic ......Page 206
1. An S5 Modal Sentential Calculus ......Page 209
2. C-Sentences ......Page 211
3. NL Proto-Interpretations that Conform to C-Sequences ......Page 213
4. Connecting Theorems ......Page 215
5. The Anti-Realist Account ......Page 221
1. Actualism and Serious Actualism ......Page 228
2. The Serious Actualistic Compossibility System ......Page 232
3. Satisfaction Under an S5 Interpretation ......Page 236
4. NL Interpretations of M* ......Page 238
5. The Fundamental Theorem ......Page 251
6. Some Consequences ......Page 270
1. The Anti-Realist Position ......Page 272
2. Analysing the Forbes and Plantinga Examples ......Page 274
4. The Problem of Transworld Identity Revisited ......Page 278
5. Problems, Worries, and Uses ......Page 280
6. My Modal Analysis does not Eliminate Modality ......Page 289
7. Ontological Commitment to Worlds or Ways? ......Page 299
1. Mathematical Realism ......Page 303
2. Maddy's Set Theoretic Realism ......Page 304
3. A Gothic Tale ......Page 310
4. The Ontology of Mathematics ......Page 316
5. Some Misunderstandings and Criticisms ......Page 319
6. The Vagueness Argument ......Page 324
7. The Burgess-Rosen Evaluation ......Page 329
8. Reply to the Gillies-Wolenski Objection ......Page 337
9. A Circularity? ......Page 340
Bibliography ......Page 341
Index ......Page 349