{"title":"Counterpart Theory and Actuality","authors":"","doi":"10.1007/s10992-024-09745-8","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> <p>Lewis (<em>The Journal of Philosophy</em>, <em>65</em>(5), 113–126, <span>1968</span>) attempts to provide an account of modal talk in terms of the resources of <em>counterpart theory</em>, a first-order theory that eschews transworld identity. First, a regimentation of natural language modal claims into sentences of a formal first-order modal language L is assumed. Second, a translation scheme from L-sentences to sentences of the language of the theory is provided. According to Hazen (<em>The Journal of Philosophy</em>, <em>76</em>(6), 319–338, <span>1979</span>) and Fara & Williamson (<em>Mind</em>, <em>114</em>(453), 1–30, <span>2005</span>), the account cannot handle certain natural language modal claims involving a notion of <em>actuality</em>. The challenge has two parts. First, in order to handle such claims, the initial formal modal language that natural language modal claims are regimented into must extend L with something like an actuality operator. Second, certain ways that Lewis’ translation scheme for L might be extended to accommodate an actuality operator are unacceptable. Meyer (<em>Mind</em>, <em>122</em>(485), 27–42, <span>2013</span>) attempts to defend Lewis’ approach. First, Meyer holds that in order to handle such claims, the formal modal language L<span> <span>\\(^*\\)</span> </span> that we initially regiment our natural language claims into need not contain an actuality operator. Instead, we can make do with other resources. Next, Meyer provides an alternative translation scheme from L<span> <span>\\(^*\\)</span> </span>-sentences to sentences of an enriched language of counterpart theory. Unfortunately, Meyer’s approach fails to provide an appropriate counterpart theoretic account of natural language modal claims. In this paper, I demonstrate that failure.</p>","PeriodicalId":51526,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL LOGIC","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL LOGIC","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-024-09745-8","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"PHILOSOPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
Lewis (The Journal of Philosophy, 65(5), 113–126, 1968) attempts to provide an account of modal talk in terms of the resources of counterpart theory, a first-order theory that eschews transworld identity. First, a regimentation of natural language modal claims into sentences of a formal first-order modal language L is assumed. Second, a translation scheme from L-sentences to sentences of the language of the theory is provided. According to Hazen (The Journal of Philosophy, 76(6), 319–338, 1979) and Fara & Williamson (Mind, 114(453), 1–30, 2005), the account cannot handle certain natural language modal claims involving a notion of actuality. The challenge has two parts. First, in order to handle such claims, the initial formal modal language that natural language modal claims are regimented into must extend L with something like an actuality operator. Second, certain ways that Lewis’ translation scheme for L might be extended to accommodate an actuality operator are unacceptable. Meyer (Mind, 122(485), 27–42, 2013) attempts to defend Lewis’ approach. First, Meyer holds that in order to handle such claims, the formal modal language L\(^*\) that we initially regiment our natural language claims into need not contain an actuality operator. Instead, we can make do with other resources. Next, Meyer provides an alternative translation scheme from L\(^*\)-sentences to sentences of an enriched language of counterpart theory. Unfortunately, Meyer’s approach fails to provide an appropriate counterpart theoretic account of natural language modal claims. In this paper, I demonstrate that failure.
期刊介绍：
The Journal of Philosophical Logic aims to provide a forum for work at the crossroads of philosophy and logic, old and new, with contributions ranging from conceptual to technical. Accordingly, the Journal invites papers in all of the traditional areas of philosophical logic, including but not limited to: various versions of modal, temporal, epistemic, and deontic logic; constructive logics; relevance and other sub-classical logics; many-valued logics; logics of conditionals; quantum logic; decision theory, inductive logic, logics of belief change, and formal epistemology; defeasible and nonmonotonic logics; formal philosophy of language; vagueness; and theories of truth and validity. In addition to publishing papers on philosophical logic in this familiar sense of the term, the Journal also invites papers on extensions of logic to new areas of application, and on the philosophical issues to which these give rise. The Journal places a special emphasis on the applications of philosophical logic in other disciplines, not only in mathematics and the natural sciences but also, for example, in computer science, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, linguistics, jurisprudence, and the social sciences, such as economics, sociology, and political science.
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