Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-pfhbr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T22:17:54.591Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Models and reality*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Robert Stalnaker
Robert Stalnaker*
Affiliation:
Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
*
Email: stal@mit.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Kripke models, interpreted realistically, have difficulty making sense of the thesis that there might have existed things that do not in fact exist, since a Kripke model in which this thesis is true requires a model structure in which there are possible worlds with domains that contain things that do not exist. This paper argues that we can use Kripke models as representational devices that allow us to give a realistic interpretation of a modal language. The method of doing this is sketched, with the help of an analogy with a Galilean relativist theory of spatial properties and relations.

Keywords

Actualismcontingentismnecessitismpossible worldsKripke models
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 46 , Issue 4-5: Special Issue: Williamson on Modality , August 2016 , pp. 709 - 726
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Apologies to Hilary Putnam for appropriating the title of one of his famous papers (Putnam 1980). My topic is not unrelated to his, but I am not going to talk about his paper. I chose the title because it says what my paper is about.

References

Barwise, J., and Perry, J.. 1985. “Shifting Situations and Shaken Attitudes.” Linguistics and Philosophy 8: 105–161. 10.1007/BF00653379CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fritz, P. (forthcoming). “Propositional contingentism, ” Review of Symbolic Logic.Google Scholar
Gallin, D. 1975. Intensional and Higher-Order Modal Logic: With Applications to Montague Semantics. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Grünbaum, A. 1964. “Is a Universal Nocturnal Expansion Falsifiable or Physically Vacuous?” Philosophical Studies 15: 71–79. 10.1007/BF00457480CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, N. 2016. “The Representational Limits of Possible Worlds Semantics.” Philosophical Studies 173: 479–503. 10.1007/s11098-015-0503-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kripke, S. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. 1986. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Putnam, H. 1980. “Models and Reality.” The Journal of Symbolic Logic 45: 464–482. 10.2307/2273415CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stalnaker, R. 2000. “Comparing Qualia Across Persons.” Philosophical Topics 26: 385–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stalnaker, R. 2012. Mere Possibilities: Metaphysical Foundations of Modal Semantics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Williamson, T. 2013. Modal Logic as Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar