Languages of possibility : an essay in philosophical logic

Bibliographic Information

Languages of possibility : an essay in philosophical logic

Graeme Forbes

(Aristotelian Society series, v. 9)

Blackwell, 1989

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Note

Bibliography: p. [169]-175

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Modal concepts are central to the formulation of many of the classic problems of philosophy, and are therefore regarded as important objects of investigation in their own right. This book approaches them from the viewpoints of modern language and semantic theory. The first part is concerned with issues in philosophical logic motivated by recent work in modal logic. The author discusses the existential commitments of quantification and predication, and the relative primacy of modal operators vis a vis quantifiers over worlds. In the second part, he develops a neo-Fregean approach to semantics in which the references of complete sentences are states of affairs rather than truth-values. This allows modal contexts to be distinguished from propositional attitude contexts, the former being functions of reference (states of affairs and their constituents), the latter functions of senses (thoughts and their constituents). The book attempts to embed an essentially Kripkean account of modality within an overall framework that derives from Frege. It is intended to be of interest to philosophers of language, theoretical linguists and cognitive scientists.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction: quantified S5 - an overview. Part 1 The coherence of possibilism
  • quantification and existence
  • property actualism
  • modalism. Part 2 Modality in the philosophy of language
  • modal contexts and belief contexts in the semantics of natural language
  • an application - "The Contingent A Priori".

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Details
  • NCID
    BA06933947
  • ISBN
    • 063115941X
  • LCCN
    88006621
  • Country Code
    uk
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    Oxford [Oxfordshire] ; New York, N.Y.
  • Pages/Volumes
    viii, 181 p.
  • Size
    22 cm
  • Classification
  • Subject Headings
  • Parent Bibliography ID
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