scholarly journals "good" as a predicate of worlds

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 407-424
Author(s):  
Frank Sode
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Gradable Adjectives ◽  
Subjunctive Conditionals ◽  
Positive Form ◽  
Classical Notion

The paper proposes a new semantics for good-predications involving finite if -andthat-clauses. The proposal combines a standard semantics for conditionals with a standardsemantics for the positive form of gradable adjectives and a minimal semantics for modal good.The predicted truth-conditions and conditions of use solve the mood puzzle presented in thefirst part of the paper. The remainder of the paper defends the classical notion of comparativegoodness in terms of a comparison between possible worlds against Lassiter (2017)’s challenge.Keywords: gradable adjectives, subjunctive conditionals, preference predicates, factivity.

scholarly journals Experimenting with Degree

2015 ◽  
pp. 166
Author(s):  
Stephanie Solt ◽  
Nicole Gotzner
Keyword(s):  
Scale Structure ◽  
Ordinal Scale ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Gradable Adjectives ◽  
Comparison Class ◽  
Positive Form ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Gaining Insight

Semantic theories differ in the role they assume for degrees in the interpretation of gradable adjectives, and in the assumptions they make about the nature of degrees and the structure of the scales they comprise. We report on two experiments investigating speakers' use of gradable adjectives across varying contexts, with the goal of gaining insight into the nature of the degree ontology underlying their semantics. We find that the truth conditions for the positive form must be stated in terms of degrees rather than rankings of individuals, and further that the relevant scale structure is one where distances between scale points are meaningful, and not an ordinal scale derived from an ordering relation on a comparison class. We also find no evidence that scale structure depends on the presence or absence of a corresponding system of numerical measures.

scholarly journals Experimenting with Degree

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Solt ◽  
Nicole Gotzner
Keyword(s):  
Scale Structure ◽  
Ordinal Scale ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Gradable Adjectives ◽  
Comparison Class ◽  
Positive Form ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Gaining Insight

Semantic theories differ in the role they assume for degrees in the interpretation of gradable adjectives, and in the assumptions they make about the nature of degrees and the structure of the scales they comprise. We report on two experiments investigating speakers' use of gradable adjectives across varying contexts, with the goal of gaining insight into the nature of the degree ontology underlying their semantics. We find that the truth conditions for the positive form must be stated in terms of degrees rather than rankings of individuals, and further that the relevant scale structure is one where distances between scale points are meaningful, and not an ordinal scale derived from an ordering relation on a comparison class. We also find no evidence that scale structure depends on the presence or absence of a corresponding system of numerical measures.

scholarly journals The Demandingness of Virtue

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Weston Siscoe
Keyword(s):  
Small Degree ◽  
Maximal Degree ◽  
Major Difficulty ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Gradable Adjectives ◽  
Threshold Concept ◽  
Virtuous Life ◽  
Way Of Thinking

How demanding is the virtuous life?  Can virtue exist alongside hints of vice?  Is it possible to be virtuous within a vicious society?  A line of thinking running through Diogenes and the Stoics is that even a hint of corruption is inimical to virtue, that participating in a vicious society makes it impossible for a person to be virtuous.  One response to this difficulty is to claim that virtue is a threshold concept, that context sets a threshold for what is considered virtuous.  On this way of thinking, what counts as virtuous in one society may be more demanding than what passes for virtuous in another.  This response seems plausible when considering that virtue-theoretic terms like `honest' are gradable adjectives.  Many gradable adjectives, like `tall' and `expensive,' have contextual thresholds that shift depending on the situation, and so is tenable that virtue-theoretic adjectives might function with contextual thresholds as well.   A major difficulty for this response, however, is that virtue terms are absolute gradable adjectives, a variety of gradable adjectives that do not require a contextual threshold.  Absolute gradable adjectives instead draw their truth conditions from their maximal degree, suggesting that Diogenes and the Stoics were correct to think that virtue is incompatible with even a small degree of vice.

Counterfactuals and Probability

2021 ◽  
pp. 100-121
Author(s):  
Robert Stalnaker
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Objective Probability ◽  
Indicative Conditionals ◽  
Conditional Belief ◽  
Subjunctive Conditionals ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
The World

Dorothy Edgington has been a resolute defender of an NTV account of conditionals, according to which a conditional does not express a proposition that makes a categorical claim about the world, but instead make a qualified claim, or express a conditional belief, qualified by or conditional on the proposition expressed by the antecedent. Unlike some philosophers who defend an NTV view for indicative conditionals, but not for subjunctive or counterfactual conditionals, Edgington argues for the more radical thesis that both kinds of conditionals should be given a non-propositional analysis. This chapter considers Edgington’s NTV account of subjunctive conditionals, the role of objective probability in the account, and its relation to the possible-worlds propositional analysis of subjunctive conditionals.

Infinitive Perfect and Backward Causation

1980 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kjell Johan Sæbø
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
The Other ◽  
Counterfactual Analysis ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Semantic Framework ◽  
Causative Constructions ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
General Semantic ◽  
Backward Causation

The present paper represents an attempt to explain the semantically deviant nature of causative constructions with present perfect effect sentences. As far as I known, such constructions have not been commented upon in the literature on causativity. I show that any counterfactual analysis of the traditional sort will bring them out as synthetic sentences, provided they are syntactically well-formed. On the other hand, if the notion os counterfactural dependence is re-interpreted along the lines of branching possible worlds, they can be shown to be systematically contradictory. I discuss the various revisions of the truth conditions for tensed formulae and of the general semantic framework which are necessary to accomplish this.

The Metaphysics of Meaning: Propositions and Possible Worlds

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Soames
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Possible World ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Theories Of Truth ◽  
Cognitive States

This chapter examines two crucial aspects of the metaphysics of meaning—propositions and possible world-states. It reviews why propositions—needed as meanings of sentences and objects of the attitudes—can neither be extracted from theories of truth conditions, nor defined in terms of possible world-states, It then explains why they also cannot be the mysterious, inherently representational, abstract objects they have traditionally been taken to be. Instead of explaining the representationality of sentences and cognitive states in terms of their relations to the supposedly prior and independent representationality of propositions, we must explain the representationality of propositions in terms of the representationality of the cognitive states with which they are connected. A new account of is presented along these lines.

Do We Need Propositions?

Disputatio ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (52) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Gordon Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Viable Alternative ◽  
Valid Argument ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Trenton Merricks ◽  
Abstract Entities

Abstract Trenton Merricks argues that we need propositions to serve as the premises and conclusions of modally valid arguments (Merricks 2015). A modally valid argument is an argument in which, necessarily, if the premises are true, then the conclusion is also true. According to Mer- ricks, the premises and conclusions of modally valid arguments have their truth conditions essentially, and they exist necessarily. Sentences do not satisfy these conditions. Thus, we need propositions. Merricks’ argument adds a new chapter to the longstanding debate over the exis- tence of propositions. However, I argue that Merricks’ argument does not quite succeed. Merricks has overlooked one viable alternative to pos- tulating propositions. However, this alternative employs the relation of being true-at-a-world, which is difficult to analyze. Thus, the soundness of Merricks’ argument ultimately depends on the comparative merits of accepting propositions as abstract entities, versus accepting truth-at-a- world as an unanalyzed relation between sentences and possible worlds.

(Non-)Intersective adjectives and root suppletion

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 507-530
Author(s):  
Miloje Despić
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Morphology ◽  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Gradable Adjectives ◽  
Positive Form ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
Long Form ◽  
Semantic Properties

Abstract In this paper I examine certain gradable adjectives in Serbian, whose suppletive comparative forms display unexpected semantic properties. In particular, while these adjectives are ambiguous between intersective and non-intersective readings in the positive form, their suppletive comparative and superlative forms are limited to the non-intersective interpretation. These facts show, I argue, that in a theory like Distributed Morphology either adjectival roots or category-assigning heads they combine with come in semantic subtypes (i.e. are specified for certain semantic properties; Harley 2005, Anagnostopoulou and Samioti 2014). I show how the analysis I propose explains semantic properties of change-of-state verbs derived from these adjectives and why these adjectives are restricted to the intersective interpretation when their positive form takes the long-form (definite) inflection. I also provide an illustration of how Arregi and Nevins’s (2014) analysis of the so-called “disuppletive” roots, such worse/badder, can deal with the facts presented in this paper. Finally, I discuss implications of these facts in the context of Bobaljik’s (2012) approach to suppletive comparative morphology.

scholarly journals Expressing Expectations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inés Crespo ◽  
Hadil Karawani ◽  
Frank Veltman
Keyword(s):  
Intentional State ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Gradable Adjectives ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Generic Sentences

This chapter addresses a variety of topics: (i) conditionals (there is a third kind of conditionals, somewhere between indicatives and counterfactuals); (ii) relative gradable adjectives (how do they get their evaluative force?); and (iii) generic sentences (why aren’t they all equally general?). What these topics have in common is that one cannot explain the meaning—not even the logical properties—of the expressions concerned without explaining how they affect people’s expectations. This can best be done in a framework in which the meaning of a sentence is not equated with its truth conditions but with its (potential) impact on the intentional state of an addressee.

scholarly journals Set-Theoretic Dependence

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Wigglesworth
Keyword(s):  
Modal Logic ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Impossible Worlds ◽  
Logical Framework ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
First Order ◽  
Dependence Relations ◽  
Asymmetric Dependence ◽  
Satisfactory Account ◽  
First Order Modal Logic

In this paper, we explore the idea that sets depend on, or are grounded in, their members.  It is said that a set depends on each of its members, and not vice versa.  Members do not depend on the sets that they belong to.  We show that the intuitive modal truth conditions for dependence, given in terms of possible worlds, do not accurately capture asymmetric dependence relations between sets and their members.  We extend the modal truth conditions to include impossible worlds and give a more satisfactory account of  the dependence of a set on its members. Focusing on the case of singletons, we articulate a logical framework in which to evaluate set-theoretic dependence claims, using a normal first-order modal logic.  We show that on this framework the dependence of a singleton on its single members follows from logic alone. However, the converse does not hold.

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