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Truth-relativism is the claim that the truth of statements is dependent on the context in which they are made. In this article, truth-relativism is considered as a way to explain disagreements. Viewpoint relativism, a recent version of truth-relativism, is introduced as a useful framework to analyse how truth-relativism approaches disagreements. Viewpoint relativism is based on contextual semantics and the logic of viewpoint, which is a two-dimensional modal logic. In viewpoint relativism, the central concept is a point of view in relation to which truth claims are evaluated. Viewpoint relativism is compared to the truth-relativism of Peter Lasersohn and John MacFarlane. Finally, truth-relativism is defended against the critique of Paul Boghossian that it represents untenable 'replacement relativism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reframes salient issues in discussions of free will using conceptual apparatus developed in the works of Saul Kripke, with particular attention paid to his little-discussed technical notion of a prejudice. I begin by focusing on how various forms of modality (metaphysical, epistemic, and conceptual) underlie alternate forms of compatibilism and discuss why it is important to avoid conflating these forms of compatibilism. The concept of a prejudice is then introduced. We consider the semantic role of prejudices, in particular conditions in which prejudices turn out to express metaphysically necessary truths. With that as background, I discuss a set of prejudices involving the notion of choice. We consider the role these prejudices might play, should they turn out to be true, in determining the answer to various compatibility questions concerning the nature of moral responsibility and choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If to be is to be the value of a bound variable, then the acknowledgment and denial of the existence of chairs amounts to a serious disagreement about the range of a quantifier. However, by resorting to the intrinsic hierarchical structure of hi-world semantics, we find that the varying of domains from worlds to worlds can actually be accommodated within a unified framework. With the introduction of a universal domain D of hi-individuals and an existence predicate E that serves as a realization operator, a new semantics for quantified modal logic is proposed. It allows individual variables to range over individuals in different levels of a hi-world, and is indifferent to the ontological debate about the existence of chairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is generally assumed that relations of necessity cannot be known by induction on experience. In this paper, I propose a notion of situated possibilities, weaker than nomic possibilities, that is compatible with an inductivist epistemology for modalities. I show that assuming this notion, not only can relations of necessity be known by induction on our experience, but such relations cannot be any more underdetermined by experience than universal regularities. This means that any one believing in a universal regularity is as well warranted to believe in the corresponding relation of necessity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is reading? Seeing and comprehending a contentful, written text counts as reading, of course, but that is simply the paradigm; it is not reading itself. Blind people, e.g., often read using Braille. So, my project in this paper is to address this question: What is the proper analysis of person S reads text W? Surprisingly, no philosophical attempts to analyze reading exist; this question has (to my knowledge, anyway) yet to be tackled. Can other sensory modalities be used to read? What more can be said about the nature of the objects of reading, viz., texts? After critically assessing a few proposals, I defend a final analysis of reading according to which a person reads a text when she uses some sensory modality to cognitively attend to the word structures embedded in that text for the purposes of ultimately grasping its content. Moreover, S must not relentlessly fail to map W to some of W's contents, and S's comprehension of W's contents must be a causal result of W (and not vice-versa). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David Lewis's analysis of "can" in "The Paradoxes of Time Travel" (Lewis, American Philosophical Quarterly, 13, 145–52, 1976) has been widely accepted both as a definitive analysis of "can" and as a successful resolution of the Grandfather Paradox for time travel. I argue that the central feature of his analysis puts it on all fours with a fallacy frequently imputed to fatalists such as Richard Taylor. I go on to consider two moves that might be made to avoid the fallacy, arguing that one of them leads to the unavailability of an all-things-considered "can" and the other to a new primitive modality, not analyzable in Lewis's way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that mereological essentialism for events is independent of mereological essentialism for objects, and that the philosophical fallout of embracing mereological essentialism for events is minimal. We first outline what we should consider to be the parts of events, and then highlight why one would naturally be inclined to think that the object-question and the event-question are linked. Then, we argue that they are not. We also diagnose why this is the case and emphasize the upshot. In particular, we argue that the way we evaluate modal claims which concern events differs from the way we evaluate modal claims which concern objects. Ultimately, then, to our title question we say: the answer does not matter as much as you might think. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Truthmakers, truth conditions, and analyses are closely related, but distinct in rather important ways. A failure to properly appreciate their differences has led to some confusion regarding the role that possible worlds ought to play with respect to modality. Those philosophers who initially proposed the existence of possible worlds were understood as providing an analysis of modality. More recently, many have interpreted them as providing modal truthmakers. But, possible worlds are (at best) only suited to serve as truth conditions for modal truths (or so I will argue). My goals are as follows: First, to dispel this confusion by detailing the differences between these three concepts. Second, to apply the lesson learned to the famous Humphrey objection against possible worlds. While this objection, if successful, does undermine Lewisian modal realism, it only partially undermines ersatzism, and leaves available a route by which ersatzers may avoid the objection altogether. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modal dimensionalism (MD) is realism about spaces, times and worlds-metaphysical indices that make objects spatial, temporal and modal, respectively, and that play the role of alethic relativizers, i.e. items to which matters of truth are relativized. This paper examines several arguments against MD and shows that MD offers a feasible way to understand modal discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In standard modal logic, □ ≡ ∼◊ ∼ and ◊ ≡ ∼□∼. I will, first, examine why in tense-logic, Arthur Prior thinks that ∼ ◊ ∼ is weaker than □ and ∼ □ ∼ is weaker than ◊. I will, then, examine whether there are similar motivations in modal logic to take ∼ ◊ ∼ to be weaker than □ and ∼ □ ∼ to be weaker than ◊. The upshot will be that, just as certain metaphysical views within the philosophy of time (e.g., Presentism) motivate one to deny the standard tense equivalences, certain metaphysical views within the metaphysics of modality (e.g., Contingentism, nonmodalism) motivate one to deny the standard modal equivalences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

mstrong's combinatorial theory of possibility faces the obvious difficulty that not all universals are compatible. In this paper I develop three objections against Armstrong's attempt to account for property incompatibilities. First, Armstrong's account cannot handle incompatibilities holding among properties that are either simple, or that are complex but stand to one another in the relation of overlap rather than in the part/ whole relation. Secondly, at the heart of Armstrong's account lies a notion of structural universals which, building on an objection by David Lewis, is shown to be incoherent. I consider and reject two alternative ways of construing the composition of structural universals in an attempt to meet Lewis' objection. An important consequence of this is that all putative structural properties are in fact simple. Finally, I argue that the quasi-mereological account presupposes modality in a way that undermines the reductionist aim of the combinatorialist theory of which it is a central part. I conclude that Armstrong' quasi-mereological account of property incompatibility fails. Without that account, however, Armstrong's combinatorial theory either fails to get off the ground, or else must give up its goal of reducing the notion of possibility to something non-modal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue against Armstrong’s recent truthmaking account of possibility. I show that the truthmaking account presupposes modality in a number of different ways, and consequently that it is incapable of underwriting a genuine reduction of modality. I also argue that Armstrong’s account faces serious difficulties irrespective of the question of reduction; in particular, I argue that his Entailment and Possibility Principles are both false. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with one of the basic philosophical questions in modern cosmology: can the so-called “Anthropic Principle”, considered as an alternative to the classical teleology of creation, be an adequate explanation of the evidence that our universe is “fine-tuned” for the emergence of life and consciousness. The main problem with this principle is not its presumed teleology, as it is sometimes wrongly supposed, but quite the contrary: its intention to avoid teleological explanations by including the existence of many universes (“multiverse”) into extended cosmological models. After having compared logical and cosmological many-worlds concepts, this paper reaches the conclusion that the ontological reality of the “multiverse” is an even more problematic presupposition than some properly revised version of teleological causality. This in itself does not imply the classical theistic explanation of creation, since it also yields a pantheistic explanation of the emergence of life and consciousness in our universe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]