52,915 research outputs found
The modal logic of set-theoretic potentialism and the potentialist maximality principles
We analyze the precise modal commitments of several natural varieties of
set-theoretic potentialism, using tools we develop for a general
model-theoretic account of potentialism, building on those of Hamkins, Leibman
and L\"owe, including the use of buttons, switches, dials and ratchets. Among
the potentialist conceptions we consider are: rank potentialism (true in all
larger ); Grothendieck-Zermelo potentialism (true in all larger
for inaccessible cardinals ); transitive-set potentialism
(true in all larger transitive sets); forcing potentialism (true in all forcing
extensions); countable-transitive-model potentialism (true in all larger
countable transitive models of ZFC); countable-model potentialism (true in all
larger countable models of ZFC); and others. In each case, we identify lower
bounds for the modal validities, which are generally either S4.2 or S4.3, and
an upper bound of S5, proving in each case that these bounds are optimal. The
validity of S5 in a world is a potentialist maximality principle, an
interesting set-theoretic principle of its own. The results can be viewed as
providing an analysis of the modal commitments of the various set-theoretic
multiverse conceptions corresponding to each potentialist account.Comment: 36 pages. Commentary can be made about this article at
http://jdh.hamkins.org/set-theoretic-potentialism. Minor revisions in v2;
further minor revisions in v
Do we sense modalities with our sense modalities?1
It has been widely assumed that we do not perceive dispositional properties. I argue that there are two ways of interpreting this assumption. On the first, extensional, interpretation whether we perceive dispositions depends on a complex set of metaphysical commitments. But if we interpret the claim in the second, intensional, way, then we have no reason to suppose that we do not perceive dispositional properties. The two most important and influential arguments to the contrary fai
The modal logic of arithmetic potentialism and the universal algorithm
I investigate the modal commitments of various conceptions of the philosophy
of arithmetic potentialism. Specifically, I consider the natural potentialist
systems arising from the models of arithmetic under their natural extension
concepts, such as end-extensions, arbitrary extensions, conservative extensions
and more. In these potentialist systems, I show, the propositional modal
assertions that are valid with respect to all arithmetic assertions with
parameters are exactly the assertions of S4. With respect to sentences,
however, the validities of a model lie between S4 and S5, and these bounds are
sharp in that there are models realizing both endpoints. For a model of
arithmetic to validate S5 is precisely to fulfill the arithmetic maximality
principle, which asserts that every possibly necessary statement is already
true, and these models are equivalently characterized as those satisfying a
maximal theory. The main S4 analysis makes fundamental use of the
universal algorithm, of which this article provides a simplified,
self-contained account. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the
philosophical differences of several fundamentally different potentialist
attitudes---linear inevitability, convergent potentialism and radical branching
possibility---are expressed by their corresponding potentialist modal
validities.Comment: 38 pages. Inquiries and commentary can be made at
http://jdh.hamkins.org/arithmetic-potentialism-and-the-universal-algorithm.
Version v3 has further minor revisions, including additional reference
Gestalt Shifts in the Liar Or Why KT4M Is the Logic of Semantic Modalities
ABSTRACT: This chapter offers a revenge-free solution to the liar paradox (at the centre of which is the notion of Gestalt shift) and presents a formal representation of truth in, or for, a natural language like English, which proposes to show both why -- and how -- truth is coherent and how it appears to be incoherent, while preserving classical logic and most principles that some philosophers have taken to be central to the concept of truth and our use of that notion. The chapter argues that, by using a truth operator rather than truth predicate, it is possible to provide a coherent, model-theoretic representation of truth with various desirable features. After investigating what features of liar sentences are responsible for their paradoxicality, the chapter identifies the logic as the normal modal logic KT4M (= S4M). Drawing on the structure of KT4M (=S4M), the author proposes that, pace deflationism, truth has content, that the content of truth is bivalence, and that the notions of both truth and bivalence are semideterminable
Bisimulation in Inquisitive Modal Logic
Inquisitive modal logic, InqML, is a generalisation of standard Kripke-style
modal logic. In its epistemic incarnation, it extends standard epistemic logic
to capture not just the information that agents have, but also the questions
that they are interested in. Technically, InqML fits within the family of
logics based on team semantics. From a model-theoretic perspective, it takes us
a step in the direction of monadic second-order logic, as inquisitive modal
operators involve quantification over sets of worlds. We introduce and
investigate the natural notion of bisimulation equivalence in the setting of
InqML. We compare the expressiveness of InqML and first-order logic, and
characterise inquisitive modal logic as the bisimulation invariant fragments of
first-order logic over various classes of two-sorted relational structures.
These results crucially require non-classical methods in studying bisimulations
and first-order expressiveness over non-elementary classes.Comment: In Proceedings TARK 2017, arXiv:1707.0825
Evidence and plausibility in neighborhood structures
The intuitive notion of evidence has both semantic and syntactic features. In
this paper, we develop an {\em evidence logic} for epistemic agents faced with
possibly contradictory evidence from different sources. The logic is based on a
neighborhood semantics, where a neighborhood indicates that the agent has
reason to believe that the true state of the world lies in . Further notions
of relative plausibility between worlds and beliefs based on the latter
ordering are then defined in terms of this evidence structure, yielding our
intended models for evidence-based beliefs. In addition, we also consider a
second more general flavor, where belief and plausibility are modeled using
additional primitive relations, and we prove a representation theorem showing
that each such general model is a -morphic image of an intended one. This
semantics invites a number of natural special cases, depending on how uniform
we make the evidence sets, and how coherent their total structure. We give a
structural study of the resulting `uniform' and `flat' models. Our main result
are sound and complete axiomatizations for the logics of all four major model
classes with respect to the modal language of evidence, belief and safe belief.
We conclude with an outlook toward logics for the dynamics of changing
evidence, and the resulting language extensions and connections with logics of
plausibility change
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