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Logically Impossible Worlds
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by PhilPapers Forthcoming in the Australasian Journal of Logic Logically Impossible Worlds Koji Tanaka School of Philosophy Research School of Social Sciences Australian National University [email protected] 1 Impossible Worlds If we think of a possible world as representing a way things can be, an impossible world represents a way in which things cannot be. The importance of impossible worlds has been discussed in recent literature.1 One reason for accepting impossi- ble worlds comes from counterfactual reasoning (Nolan (1997), Routley (1989)). Consider, for instance, the following counterfactual: if someone were to square a circle, she or he would be famous. This counterfactual has an impossible an- tecedent. One way to analyse such a counterfactual is to invoke an impossible world where someone does square a circle and evaluate the consequent at the world or a set of worlds that is or are the closest to that impossible world. But what exactly are impossible worlds? What does it mean to talk about ways in which things cannot be? There are several formulations of impossible worlds in the literature.2 Some characterise the impossibility of impossible worlds in terms of logic. There have been mainly three ways in which impossible worlds are characterised in logical terms. First, an impossible world is a world where A ^ :A is true for some A (Lycan (1994)). According to this view, an impossible world is a world where some contradiction obtains. Second, an impossible world is a world that is governed by some non-classical logic (Cresswell (1973)). -
Existence As a Real Property
Francesco Berto Existence as a Real Property The Ontology of Meinongianism For Graham Priest, Long-distance teacher Prologue: Much Ado About Nothing Some philosophers think that something’s having intuitive content is very inconclusive evidence in favor of it. I think it is very heavy evidence in favor of anything, myself. I really don’t know, in a way, what more conclusive evidence one can have about anything, ultimately speaking. –Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity 1 In an episode of The Today Show of some years ago, Gene Shalit – NBC’s film and book critic, famous for his wits – reviews several books sharing the feature of bearing entertaining titles. The highpoint of the monologue comes with Nonexistent Objects, by the UCLA philosopher Terence Parsons. Shalit wonders how one could write a whole book on things that do not exist!1 This whole book, too, is about things that do not exist. But if one stops to think, one may find that, in a sense, there is nothing special about this. There are, in fact, thousands of books speaking about unreal things. You have probably read quite a few of them: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories portrait the adventures of the detective Sherlock Holmes; The Lord of the Rings speaks at length of Gandalf the wizard. Doyle represents Sherlock Holmes as a detective living in London, Baker Street (precisely, at number 221b), describes his remarkable observational and deductive abilities, makes of him the arch-enemy of the criminal mastermind Moriarty. J.R.R. Tolkien characterizes Gandalf as a wizard with a pointy hat and a grey robe (a white one, from a certain point of the story onwards), a heavy pipe-herb 1 The anecdote is reported by Roy Sorensen [2003], p. -
The Transience of Possibility Reina Hayaki
Forthcoming in the European Journal of Analytic Philosophy (2006). The Transience of Possibility Reina Hayaki ABSTRACT. The standard view of metaphysical necessity is that it is truth in all possible worlds, and therefore that the correct modal logic for metaphysical necessity is S5, in models of which all worlds are accessible from each other. I argue that S5 cannot be the correct logic for metaphysical necessity because accessibility is not symmetric: there are possible worlds that are accessible from ours but from which our world is not accessible. There are (or could be) some individuals who, if they had not existed, could not have existed. Once the possibility of such individuals is lost, it is gone forever. 1. Truth in all possible worlds? It is now widely (though not universally) accepted that metaphysical necessity is to be distinguished from logical necessity. A proposition is logically necessary if it is a theorem of logic. The notion of logical necessity is not without its problems. When we say “a theorem of logic”, which logic is appropriate for this definition? Should we use mere first-order logic, or something more powerful? (Are axioms of second-order logic logically necessary truths?) What if the relevant logic is not complete, so that some true sentences are not theorems? Are all mathematical truths logically necessary? Or, given the apparent failure of efforts to reduce mathematics to logic, should we say that some 1 mathematical propositions are not logically necessary but perhaps “mathematically necessary”, relative to a particular system of mathematics? How should we adjudicate wrangling between adherents of mutually incompatible logics, such as classical and non- classical logics? Regardless of how we answer these questions, the notion of logical necessity is at heart a syntactic one. -
Analyticity, Necessity and Belief Aspects of Two-Dimensional Semantics
!"# #$%"" &'( ( )#"% * +, %- ( * %. ( %/* %0 * ( +, %. % +, % %0 ( 1 2 % ( %/ %+ ( ( %/ ( %/ ( ( 1 ( ( ( % "# 344%%4 253333 #6#787 /0.' 9'# 86' 8" /0.' 9'# 86' (#"8'# Analyticity, Necessity and Belief Aspects of two-dimensional semantics Eric Johannesson c Eric Johannesson, Stockholm 2017 ISBN print 978-91-7649-776-0 ISBN PDF 978-91-7649-777-7 Printed by Universitetsservice US-AB, Stockholm 2017 Distributor: Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University Cover photo: the water at Petite Terre, Guadeloupe 2016 Contents Acknowledgments v 1 Introduction 1 2 Modal logic 7 2.1Introduction.......................... 7 2.2Basicmodallogic....................... 13 2.3Non-denotingterms..................... 21 2.4Chaptersummary...................... 23 3 Two-dimensionalism 25 3.1Introduction.......................... 25 3.2Basictemporallogic..................... 27 3.3 Adding the now operator.................. 29 3.4Addingtheactualityoperator................ 32 3.5 Descriptivism ......................... 34 3.6Theanalytic/syntheticdistinction............. 40 3.7 Descriptivist 2D-semantics .................. 42 3.8 Causal descriptivism ..................... 49 3.9Meta-semantictwo-dimensionalism............. 50 3.10Epistemictwo-dimensionalism................ 54 -
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy the Elves, Rivendell, for Example)
pdf version of the entry Fictional Entities https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/fictional-entities/ Fictional Entities from the Fall 2018 Edition of the First published Thu Jul 26, 2018 Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophical issues surrounding fiction have attracted increasing attention from philosophers over the past few decades. What follows is a discussion of Philosophy of one familiar and quite fundamental topic in this area: fictional entities (both the issue of what such entities might be like and whether there really are such entities). A familiar characteristic of works of fiction is that they feature fictional characters: individuals whose exploits are written about in works of fiction Edward N. Zalta Uri Nodelman Colin Allen R. Lanier Anderson Principal Editor Senior Editor Associate Editor Faculty Sponsor and who make their first appearance in a work of fiction. Shakespeare’s Editorial Board Hamlet, for example, features the fictional character Hamlet, Doyle’s The https://plato.stanford.edu/board.html Hound of the Baskervilles features Sherlock Holmes, Tolstoy’s Anna Library of Congress Catalog Data Karenina features Anna Karenina, and so on. All of these works feature ISSN: 1095-5054 numerous other fictional characters, of course (Ophelia and Dr Watson, for example); indeed, some works of fiction are characterized by the sheer Notice: This PDF version was distributed by request to mem- abundance of their characters (Russian novels are often said to have this bers of the Friends of the SEP Society and by courtesy to SEP content contributors. It is solely for their fair use. Unauthorized characteristic). Fictional characters belong to the class of entities variously distribution is prohibited. -
The Principle of Analyticity of Logic a Philosophical and Formal Perspective
Scuola Normale Superiore Classe di Lettere e Filosofia Corso di Perfezionamento in Filosofia The Principle of Analyticity of Logic A Philosophical and Formal Perspective Thesis Advisors: Candidate: Prof. Marcello D'Agostino Costanza Larese Prof. Massimo Mugnai July 2019 2 Contents Introduction 4 Summary 8 I Historical and philosophical reconstruction 12 1 Kant and the foundations of the analytic-synthetic distinction 14 1.1 The Kantian analytic-synthetic distinction . 14 1.1.1 Criteria for analyticity . 16 1.1.2 Containment . 19 1.1.3 Clarification, identity and contradiction . 26 1.1.4 Syntheticity and intuition . 33 1.2 Kant's pure general logic . 35 1.2.1 The topics of pure general logic . 37 1.2.2 The conception of pure general logic . 41 1.3 The relationship between analyticity and logic . 46 1.3.1 Logic as an instrument . 46 1.3.2 The status of logic . 47 2 Bolzano and the syntheticity of logic 54 2.1 Bolzano's analytic-synthetic distinction . 54 2.1.1 Preliminary notions: the method of substitution, validity, derivability . 54 2.1.2 Bolzano's conception of analyticity . 57 2.1.3 The notion of logical analyticity . 62 2.1.4 Language independence and synonymy . 65 2.1.5 Criticisms against Kant's analysis and analytic-synthetic dis- tinction . 66 2.2 The science of logic . 70 2.2.1 Grounding, deductive sciences and synthetic a priori .... 70 3 CONTENTS 4 2.2.2 Bolzano's thesis that logic is synthetic . 74 2.3 An evaluation . 76 2.3.1 A contradiction in Bolzano's system? The pragmatics of analyticity . -
Logically Impossible Worlds
Australasian Journal of Logic Logically Impossible Worlds Koji Tanaka School of Philosophy Research School of Social Sciences Australian National University [email protected] 1 Impossible Worlds If we think of a possible world as representing a way things can be, an impossible world represents a way in which things cannot be. The importance of impossible worlds has been discussed in recent literature.1 One reason for accepting impossi- ble worlds comes from counterfactual reasoning (Nolan (1997), Routley (1989)). Consider, for instance, the following counterfactual: if someone were to square a circle, she or he would be famous. This counterfactual has an impossible an- tecedent. One way to analyse such a counterfactual is to invoke an impossible world where someone does square a circle and evaluate the consequent at the world or a set of worlds that is or are the closest to that impossible world. But what exactly are impossible worlds? What does it mean to talk about ways in which things cannot be? There are several formulations of impossible worlds in the literature.2 Some characterise the impossibility of impossible worlds in terms of logic. There have been mainly three ways in which impossible worlds are characterised in logical terms. First, an impossible world is a world where A ^ :A is true for some A (Lycan (1994)). According to this view, an impossible world is a world where some contradiction obtains. Second, an impossible world is a world that is governed by some non-classical logic (Cresswell (1973)). According to this second formulation, it is assumed that classical logic holds at the actual world, and a world is impossible if the laws of classical logic fail. -
Synthese Library
Synthese Library Studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science Volume 415 Editor-in-Chief Otávio Bueno, University of Miami, Department of Philosophy, USA Editors Berit Brogaard, University of Miami, USA Anjan Chakravartty, University of Notre Dame, USA Steven French, University of Leeds, UK Catarina Dutilh Novaes, VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands The aim of Synthese Library is to provide a forum for the best current work in the methodology and philosophy of science and in epistemology. A wide variety of different approaches have traditionally been represented in the Library, and every effort is made to maintain this variety, not for its own sake, but because we believe that there are many fruitful and illuminating approaches to the philosophy of science and related disciplines. Special attention is paid to methodological studies which illustrate the interplay of empirical and philosophical viewpoints and to contributions to the formal (logical, set-theoretical, mathematical, information-theoretical, decision-theoretical, etc.) methodology of empirical sciences. Likewise, the applications of logical methods to epistemology as well as philosophically and methodologically relevant studies in logic are strongly encouraged. The emphasis on logic will be tempered by interest in the psychological, historical, and sociological aspects of science. Besides monographs Synthese Library publishes thematically unified anthologies and edited volumes with a well-defined topical focus inside the aim and scope of the book series. The contributions in the volumes are expected to be focused and structurally organized in accordance with the central theme(s), and should be tied together by an extensive editorial introduction or set of introductions if the volume is divided into parts. -
Epistemic Modality
Epistemic Possibilities A Thesis submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of /\ -5 the requirements for -p r the Degree ^Oil- Master of Arts -K5IW In Philosophy by David Anthony King San Francisco, California May 2017 Copyright by David Anthony King 2017 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read Epistemic Possibilities by David Anthony King, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Arts in Philosophy at San Francisco State University. Asta, Ph.D. Associate Professor David Landy, Ph.D. Associate Professor Epistemic Possibilities David Anthony King San Francisco, California 2017 In this essay, I examine the nature of epistemic possibility. I argue that we have strong philosophical motivations to leave possible worlds semantics out of epistemic space. I argue that Lloyd Humberstone's possibility semantics better explain the domain of possibility that epistemic possibility talk quantifies over, and show how modeling epistemic possibilities in possibility semantics can explain and predict interesting features of epistemic possibility talk. I certify that the Abstract is a correct representation of the content of this thesis. Chair, Thesis Committee Date TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction............................................................................................................................1 Section 1: Worlds Contra Possibilities.................................................................................2 -
Quantified Logic of Awareness and Impossible Possible Worlds
Quantified Logic of Awareness and Impossible Possible Worlds Giacomo Sillari 1 313 Logan Hall PPE Program University of Pennsylvania [email protected] Abstract Among the many possible approaches to the problem of logical om- niscience, I consider here awareness and impossible worlds structures. The former approach, pioneered by Fagin and Halpern, distinguishes between implicit and explicit knowledge, and renders the agents im- mune from logical omniscience with respect to explicit knowledge. The latter, first developed by Rantala, allows for the existence of log- ically impossible worlds to which the agents are taken to have “epis- temological” access; since such worlds do not behave consistently, the agents’s knowledge is fallible relative to logical omniscience. The two approaches are known to be equally expressive in the propositional case with Kripke semantics. In this paper I show that the two ap- proaches are equally expressive in the propositional case with neigh- borhood semantics. Furthermore, I provide predicate systems of both awareness and impossible worlds structures interpreted on neighbor- hood semantics and prove the two systems to be equally expressive. Introduction One of the contributions of this paper consists of the formal comparison between a first-order version of Fagin and Halpern’s logic of awareness1, on the one hand, and a version of Rantala’s quantified epistemic logic inter- preted over impossible worlds structures, on the other. The semantics of both systems are here given by neighborhood models, following up on the work of Arl´o-Costa (cf. [AC02]) and Arl´o-Costa and Pacuit (cf. [ACP06]). One of the motives of interest in modeling epistemic logic with neighbor- hood structures, as argued in [ACP06], lies in the fact that it allows us to use constant domains without committing to the validity of the Barcan formulas. -
Impossible Worlds and Aesthetic Illusion
Impossible Worlds and Aesthetic Illusion Marie-Laure Ryan This essay approaches the problem of aesthetic illusion through the examination of a category of texts that inhibit this experience: texts that create impossible worlds. Four types of impossibility are described: ontological impossibility (i. e. metalepsis and co-presence in the same world of characters originating in differ- ent texts), impossible space, impossible time, and impossible texts. It is argued that these texts provide no solid target for the operation of imaginative recentering that lies at the core of aesthetic illusion; yet they are not completely deprived of immersive effect, because they are made of subworlds into which the imagination can relocate itself for a limited time. The appreciation of texts that project impos- sible worlds requires not only an ability to shift back-and-forth between their partial worlds, but also an ability to shift between an illusionist stance that regards the text as the representation of a world and a metatextual stance that regards the text as a writing experiment that pushes back the limits of the textually possible. In this article, I propose to discuss a type of text that presents a very serious challenge to aesthetic illusion: a type made of texts that create impossible worlds. By impossible worlds, I do not mean simply worlds where things happen that do not or could not happen in the real world, such as animals being able to talk, princes being turned into frogs, or people being kidnapped by space aliens. These are merely unnatural, or fantastic worlds. But literature is not limited to realistic and fantastic worlds; an important form of experimental literature creates worlds that cannot satisfy even the most liberal interpretation of possibility because they transgress the basic laws of logic: non- contradiction (you cannot have p and ~p) and excluded middle (you must have either p or ~p). -
Impossible Worlds OUP.Pdf (1.475Mb)
Impossible Worlds Impossible Worlds Francesco Berto and Mark Jago 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Francesco Berto and Mark Jago 2019 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2019 Impression: 1 Some rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, for commercial purposes, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. This is an open access publication, available online and distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial – No Derivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), a copy of which is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of this licence should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2019936333 ISBN 978–0–19–881279–1 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only.