Modal Logic as Metaphysics (Paperback)

Timothy Williamson

ISBN 10: 0198709439 / ISBN 13: 9780198709435

Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015

About this Item

Paperback. Are there such things as merely possible people, who would have lived if our ancestors had acted differently? Are there future people, who have not yet been conceived? Questions like those raise deep issues about both the nature of being and its logical relations with contingency and change. In Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Timothy Williamson argues for positive answers to those questions on the basis of an integrated approach to the issues, applying thetechnical resources of modal logic to provide structural cores for metaphysical theories. He rejects the search for a metaphysically neutral logic as futile. The book contains detailed historical discussion of howthe metaphysical issues emerged in the twentieth century development of quantified modal logic, through the work of such figures as Rudolf Carnap, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Arthur Prior, and Saul Kripke. It proposes higher-order modal logic as a new setting in which to resolve such metaphysical questions scientifically, by the construction of systematic logical theories embodying rival answers and their comparison by normal scientific standards. Williamson provides both a rigorous introduction to thetechnical background needed to understand metaphysical questions in quantified modal logic and an extended argument for controversial, provocative answers to them. He gives original, precisetreatments of topics including the relation between logic and metaphysics, the methodology of theory choice in philosophy, the nature of possible worlds and their role in semantics, plural quantification compared to quantification into predicate position, communication across metaphysical disagreement, and problems for truthmaker theory. Timothy Williamson gives an original and provocative treatment of deep metaphysical questions about existence, contingency, and change, using the latest resources of quantified modal logic. Contrary to the widespread assumption that logic and metaphysics are disjoint, he argues that modal logic provides a structural core for metaphysics. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780198709435

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Modal Logic as Metaphysics (Paperback)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, Oxford
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0198709439
• ISBN 13: 9780198709435
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Are there such things as merely possible people, who would have lived if our ancestors had acted differently? Are there future people, who have not yet been conceived? Questions like those raise deep issues about both the nature of being and its logical relations with contingency and change. In Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Timothy Williamson argues for positive answers to those questions on the basis of an integrated approach to the issues, applying the technical resources of modal logic to provide structural cores for metaphysical theories. He rejects the search for a metaphysically neutral logic as futile. The book contains detailed historical discussion of how the metaphysical issues emerged in the twentieth century development of quantified modal logic, through the work of such figures as Rudolf Carnap, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Arthur Prior, and Saul Kripke. It proposes higher-order modal logic as a new setting in which to resolve such metaphysical questions scientifically, by the construction of systematic logical theories embodying rival answers and their comparison by normal scientific standards. Williamson provides both a rigorous introduction to the technical background needed to understand metaphysical questions in quantified modal logic and an extended argument for controversial, provocative answers to them. He gives original, precise treatments of topics including the relation between logic and metaphysics, the methodology of theory choice in philosophy, the nature of possible worlds and their role in semantics, plural quantification compared to quantification into predicate position, communication across metaphysical disagreement, and problems for truthmaker theory.

About the Author

Timothy Williamson is the Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of New College Oxford. He was previously Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh, and has also taught at Trinity College Dublin, and as a visitor at MIT, Princeton, the Australian National University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and elsewhere. He has published Identity and Discrimination (Wiley-Blackwell, 1990), Vagueness (Routledge, 1994), Knowledge and its Limits (Clarendon Press, 2000), The Philosophy of Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), and many articles on logic and philosophy.