Adverbial modification is probably one of the least understood areas of linguistics. The essays in this volume all address the problem of how to give an analysis of adverbial modifiers within truth-conditional semantics. Chapters I-VI provide analyses of particular modifiers within a possible worlds framework, and were written between 1974 and 1981. Original publication details of these chapters may be found on p. vi. Of these, all but Chapter I make essential use of the idea that the time reference involved (...) in tensed sentences should be a time interval rather than a single instant. The final chapter (Chapter VII) was written especially for this volume and investigates the question of how the 'situation semantics' recently devised by Jon Barwise and John Perry, as a rival to possible-worlds semantics, might deal with adverbs. In addition I have included an appendix to Chapter III and an introduction which links all the chapters together. (shrink)

David Lewis's modal realism claims that nothing can exist in more than one world or time, and that statements about how something would have been are to be analysed in terms of its counterpart. I first explain why the counterpart relation depends on de re modal statements in an intensional language, so that intuitive properties of similarity relations cannot be used to show that the counterpart relation is not an equivalence relation. I then look at test sentences in (the intensional) (...) natural language, and show that none of them provide compelling evidence that a counterpart semantics is needed. (shrink)

The paper introduces a first-order theory in the language of predicate tense logic which contains a single simple axiom. It is shewn that this theory enables times to be referred to and sentences involving ‘now’ and ‘then’ to be formalised. The paper then compares this way of increasing the expressive capacity of predicate tense logic with other mechanisms, and indicates how to generalise the results to other modal and tense systems.

In celebrating Arthur Prior we celebrate what he gave to the world. Much of this is measured by what others have made of his ideas after his death. The focus of this paper is a little different. It looks at what Prior himself thought he was accomplishing. In particular it considers Prior’s attitude to the semantic metatheory of the logics that he was interested in. The paper sets out some characteristics of the metalogical study of intensional languages in terms of (...) an indexical theory of truth conditions stated in the language of set theory. In examining Prior’s work using these characteristics, it emerges that Prior had serious reservations about this way of studying modal and tense logics. (shrink)

The most common way of proving decidability in propositional modal logic is to shew that the system in question has the finite model property. This is not however the only way. Gabbay in [4] proves the decidability of many modal systems using Rabin's result in [8] on the decidability of the second-order theory of successor functions. In particular [4, pp. 258-265] he is able to prove the decidability of a system which lacks the finite model property. Gabbay's system is however (...) complete, in the sense of being characterized by a class of frames, and the question arises whether there is a decidable modal logic which is not complete. Since no incomplete modal logic has the finite model property [9, p. 33], any proof of decidability must employ some such method as Gabbay's. In this paper I use the Gabbay/Rabin technique to prove the decidability of a finitely axiomatized normal modal propositional logic which is not characterized by any class of frames. I am grateful to the referee for suggesting improvements in substance and presentation.The terminology I am using is standard in modal logic. By aframeis understood a pair 〈W, R〉 in whichWis a class (of “possible worlds”) andR⊆W2. To avoid confusion in what follows, a frame will henceforth be referred to as aKripkeframe. By contrast, ageneral frameis a pair 〈,Π〉 in whichis a Kripke frame andΠis a collection of subsets ofWclosed under the Boolean operations and satisfying the condition that ifAis inΠthen so isR−1“A. A model on a frame (of either kind) is obtained by adding a functionVwhich assigns sets of worlds to propositional variables. In the case of a general frame we require thatV(p) ∈Π. (shrink)

The second of these lines seems to be the result of an interpolation designed to spell out the implicit sense of the first. In 241–6 Ion has expressed amazement that Creusa should be weeping at the sight of Apollo's sanctuary, a sight which brings other visitors joy. She prefaces her explanation of this with an assurance which in its transmitted form is elegantly translated by Grégoire: ‘Il n'est point discourtois de ta part, étranger, de marquer ta surprise au sujet de (...) mes pleurs.’ But there are reasons for doubting I the authenticity of line 248: Line 247 is self-sufficient, as is shown by IA 1402: τ μν σόν, νενι, γενναίως χει. This also gives the closest parallel for the use of τ σόν in reference to the attitude which a previous speaker's words have just expressed. Other instances of τ σόν, tout court, are helpfully grouped in Allen and Italie's Concordance to Euripides, s.v. σός. τ σόν…[adverbial phrase] χει occurs also in Hek. 1195 and Med. 312; cf. HF 165, Hel. 893, Pho. 995 with τομόν. These make it unlikely that τ χόν in our passage is to be taken adverbially, as perhaps Grégoire intended with ‘de ta part’, rather than as subject of χει. Tro. 82 might be adduced for the alternative , but there is no reason for Creusa to be saying emphatically ‘as far as you are concerned’. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the French debate of the 1580s over the status of the Salic Law and its influence upon an important text in English political thought, Robert Persons’s Conference about the next Succession to the Crowne of Ingland. Polemicists on both sides of the conflict between Henri of Navarre and the Catholic League, from Pierre de Belloy to the pseudonymous ‘Rossaeus’, sought to explain the French royal succession using a concept of custom drawn from Roman law. Custom offered these (...) thinkers a way to explain the Salic Law’s peculiar limitation of the succession to males descended agnatically, but it could also be taken to imply that the people, from whom it originated, were in some way superior to the king. The concept was exploited most effectively by Rossaeus, who translated what had been a legal discourse into a freer language of political naturalism. Rossaeus’s interpretation of custom was adapted and exploited by Robert Persons in the Conference about the next Succession to the Crowne of Ingland. While, then, much of the Conference’s contemporary influence derived from how its argument mapped onto English constitutional geography, it originated as a continuation of League political thought. (shrink)

This long-awaited book replaces Hughes and Cresswell's two classic studies of modal logic: _An Introduction to Modal Logic_ and _A Companion to Modal Logic_. _A New Introduction to Modal Logic_ is an entirely new work, completely re-written by the authors. They have incorporated all the new developments that have taken place since 1968 in both modal propositional logic and modal predicate logic, without sacrificing tha clarity of exposition and approachability that were essential features of their earlier works. The book takes (...) readers from the most basic systems of modal propositional logic right up to systems of modal predicate with identity. It covers both technical developments such as completeness and incompleteness, and finite and infinite models, and their philosophical applications, especially in the area of modal predicate logic. (shrink)

Expressions in a language, whether words, phrases, or sentences, have meanings. So it seems reasonable to suppose that there are meanings that expressions have. Of course, it is fashionable in some philosophical circles to deny this.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

' I heartily recommend it to any philosopher of language interested in the issues. [] Logicians, of course, will want to savour the whole thing.' Australian Journal of Philosophy, 71:3 (1993).

M. J. Woods; XI*—Substance and Essence in Aristotle, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 75, Issue 1, 1 June 1975, Pages 167–180, https://doi.org/10.

Various claims have been made, recently, that Darwin's argumentation in the Origin instantiates and so supports some general philosophical proposal about scientific theorizing, for example, the "semantic view". But these claims are grounded in various incorrect analyses of that argumentation. A summary is given here of an analysis defended at greater length in several papers by the present author. The historical and philosophical advantages of this analysis are explained briefly. Darwin's argument comprises three distinct evidential cases on behalf of natural (...) selection, cases, that is, for its existence, its adequacy and its responsibility. Theorizing, today, about evolution by natural selection involves a similar structure of evidential and explanatory concerns. (shrink)

The paper considers the question of when the operator L of necessity in modal logic can be expressed in terms of the operator meaning it is non-contingent that.