The world-time parallel
Subtitle: tense and modality in logic and metaphysics
By: M.J. Cresswell and A.A. Rini
Contributors: Rini, Adriane
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 259
ISBN-13: 9781107017474
Subjects: Modality (Theory of knowledge); PHILOSOPHY / Epistemology; Time
Description: "Is what could have happened but never did as real as what did happen? What did happen, but isn't happening now, happened at another time. Analogously, one can say that what could have happened happens in another possible world. Whatever their views about the reality of such things as possible worlds, philosophers need to take this analogy seriously. Adriane Rini and Max Cresswell exhibit, in an easy step-by-step manner, the logical structure of temporal and modal discourse, and show that every temporal construction has an exact parallel that requires a language that can refer to worlds, and vice versa. They make precise, in a way which can be articulated and tested, the claim that the parallel is at work behind even ordinary talk about time and modality. The book gives metaphysicians a sturdy framework for the investigation of time and modality - one that does not presuppose any particular metaphysical view"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Preface; Introduction; Part I. Truth and Indexicality: 1. Semantical indices; 2. Philosophical entities; 3. Situated truth; 4. The privileged position; Part II. Predicate Logic: Tense and Modal: 5. A formal language; 6. The non-existent; 7. Multiple indexing; 8. Time and world quantifiers; Part III. Times and Worlds, or Tense and Modality?: 9. Primitive modality and primitive tense; 10. 'Modalism' and 'tensism'; 11. The present and the actual; 12. Utterances; 13. Relativity; Part IV. De Rerum Natura: 14. Individuals and stages; 15. Predicate wormism; 16. Abstract and concrete; 17. Supervenience; Appendices: Appendix 1. The equivalence of Lmulti, Lxtw and Li; Appendix 2. Language and metalanguage; Appendix 3. Plantinga's metaphysics; Appendix 4. Interval semantics; Appendix 5. Fatalism and the world-time parallel (with H. Kocurek); Bibliography; Index.