Modal realismModal realism is the view propounded by the philosopher David Lewis that all possible worlds are real in the same way as is the actual world: they are "of a kind with this world of ours."
Modal logicModal logic is a kind of logic used to represent statements about necessity and possibility. In philosophy and related fields it is used as a tool for understanding concepts such as knowledge, obligation, and causation. For instance, in epistemic modal logic, the formula◻P{\displaystyle \Box P} can be used to represent the statement that P{\displaystyle P} is known. In deontic modal logic, that same formula can represent that P{\displaystyle P} is a moral obligation.Intensional logicIntensional logic is an approach to predicate logic that extends first-order logic, which has quantifiers that range over the individuals of a universe (extensions), by additional quantifiers that range over terms that may have such individuals as their value (intensions). The distinction between intensional and extensional entities is parallel to the distinction between sense and reference.
LogicStudy of correct reasoningLogic studies valid forms of inference like modus ponens.Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure of arguments alone, independent of their topic and content. Informal logic is associated with informal fallacies, critical thinking, and argumentation theory.
David Lewis (philosopher)American philosopher (1941–2001) David LewisLewis in 1962BornDavid Kellogg LewisSeptember 28, 1941Oberlin, Ohio, U.S.DiedOctober 14, 2001 (aged 60)Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.Other name"Bruce Le Catt"SpouseStephanie R. LewisEducationEducationSwarthmore College (BA)St Anne's College, OxfordHarvard University (PhD)Doctoral advisorWillard Van Orman QuineOther advisorsIris Murdoch, Donald Cary WilliamsPhilosophical workEra20th-century philosophyRegionWestern philosophySchoolAnalyticNominalismPerdurantismInstitutionsUCLAPrinceton UniversityDoctoral studentsRobert Brandom, Alex Byrne, L. A. Paul, Peter Railton, J. David VellemanNotable studentsNed HallMain interestsLogic · Philosophy of language · MetaphysicsEpistemology · EthicsNotable ideasPossible worldsModal realismCounterfactualsCounterpart theoryPrincipal principleHumean supervenienceLaws of nature as the theorems of the deductive system best combining simplicity and strengthLewis signaling gameLewis's triviality resultConversational scoreboardFunctional specification theoryThe endurantism–perdurantism distinctionDescriptive-causal theory of referenceDe seQualitative vs quantitative parsimonyRamsey–Lewis methodGunkOntological innocenceCentered world David Kellogg Lewis (September 28, 1941 – October 14, 2001) was an American philosopher.
Saul KripkeSaul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician. He was a distinguished professor of philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a professor emeritus at Princeton University. From the 1960s until his death, he was a central figure in a number of fields related to mathematical and modal logic, philosophy of language and mathematics, metaphysics, epistemology, and recursion theory.
Formal semantics (natural language)Formal semantics is the scientific study of linguistic meaning through formal tools from logic and mathematics. It is an interdisciplinary field, sometimes regarded as a subfield of both linguistics and philosophy of language. Formal semanticists rely on diverse methods to analyze natural language. Many examine the meaning of a sentence by studying the circumstances in which it would be true.
Kripke semanticsKripke semantics (also known as relational semantics or frame semantics, and often confused with possible world semantics) is a formal semantics for non-classical logic systems created in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Saul Kripke and André Joyal. It was first conceived for modal logics, and later adapted to intuitionistic logic and other non-classical systems.
MetaphysicsMetaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic nature or most fundamental structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of human understanding. Some philosophers, including Aristotle, designate metaphysics as the first philosophy to suggest that it is more fundamental than other forms of philosophical inquiry.LinguisticsLinguistics is the scientific study of language. Specific areas of linguistic description and analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent manual gestures in sign languages), phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language, and analogous systems of sign languages), and pragmatics (how the context of use contributes to meaning).
Robert StalnakerRobert Culp Stalnaker (born 1940) is an American philosopher who is Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.
PhilosophyStudy of general and fundamental questionsThe statue The Thinker by Auguste Rodin is a symbol of philosophical thought.
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