Mighty Knowledge

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (5) ◽  
pp. 229-269
Author(s):  
Bob Beddor ◽  
Simon Goldstein ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Modals ◽  
Modal Operator ◽  
Gettier Cases

We often claim to know what might be—or probably is—the case. Modal knowledge along these lines creates a puzzle for information-sensitive semantics for epistemic modals. This paper develops a solution. We start with the idea that knowledge requires safe belief: a belief amounts to knowledge only if it could not easily have been held falsely. We then develop an interpretation of the modal operator in safety (could have) that allows it to non-trivially embed information-sensitive contents. The resulting theory avoids various paradoxes that arise from other accounts of modal knowledge. It also delivers plausible predictions about modal Gettier cases.

Suppose and Tell

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Conditional Probability ◽  
Natural Deduction ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Modal Operator ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Deduction Rules ◽  
Psychological Sense

The book argues that our use of conditionals is governed by imperfectly reliable heuristics, in the psychological sense of fast and frugal (or quick and dirty) ways of assessing them. The primary heuristic is this: to assess ‘If A, C’, suppose A and on that basis assess C; whatever attitude you take to C conditionally on A (such as acceptance, rejection, or something in between) take unconditionally to ‘If A, C’. This heuristic yields both the equation of the probability of ‘If A, C’ with the conditional probability of C on A and standard natural deduction rules for the conditional. However, these results can be shown to make the heuristic implicitly inconsistent, and so less than fully reliable. There is also a secondary heuristic: pass conditionals freely from one context to another under normal conditions for acceptance of sentences on the basis of memory and testimony. The effect of the secondary heuristic is to undermine interpretations on which ‘if’ introduces a special kind of context-sensitivity. On the interpretation which makes best sense of the two heuristics, ‘if’ is simply the truth-functional conditional. Apparent counterexamples to truth-functionality are artefacts of reliance on the primary heuristic in cases where it is unreliable. The second half of the book concerns counterfactual conditionals, as expressed with ‘if’ and ‘would’. It argues that ‘would’ is an independently meaningful modal operator for contextually restricted necessity: the meaning of counterfactuals is simply that derived compositionally from the meanings of their constituents, including ‘if’ and ‘would’, making them contextually restricted strict conditionals.

Hedged Assertion

2019 ◽  
pp. 243-263
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Benton ◽  
Peter van Elswyk
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Epistemic Modals ◽  
Epistemic Position ◽  
Normative Issues

Surprisingly little has been written about hedged assertion. Linguists often focus on semantic or syntactic theorizing about, for example, grammatical evidentials or epistemic modals, but they pay far less attention to what hedging does at the level of action. By contrast, philosophers have focused extensively on normative issues regarding what epistemic position is required for proper assertion, yet they have almost exclusively considered unqualified declaratives. This article considers the linguistic and normative issues side by side. It aims to bring some order and clarity to thinking about hedging, so as to illuminate aspects of interest to both linguists and philosophers. In particular, it considers three broad questions. (1) The structural question: when one hedges, what is the speaker’s commitment weakened from? (2) The functional question: what is the best way to understand how a hedge weakens? And (3) the taxonomic question: are hedged assertions genuine assertions, another speech act, or what?

On finite and infinite modal systems

1938 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. West Churchman
Keyword(s):  
Modal Logic ◽  
Symbolic Logic ◽  
Modal Operator ◽  
Image Position ◽  
Modal Systems ◽  
Complex Modal

In Oskar Becker's Zur Logik der Modalitäten four systems of modal logic are considered. Two of these are mentioned in Appendix II of Lewis and Langford's Symbolic logic. The first system is based on A1–8 plus the postulate,From A7: ∼◊p⊰∼p we can prove the converse of C11 by writing ∼◊p for p, and hence deriveThe addition of this postulate to A1–8, as Becker points out, allows us to “reduce” all complex modal functions to six, and these six are precisely those which Lewis mentions in his postulates and theorems: p, ∼p, ◊p, ∼◊p, ∼◊∼p, and ◊∼p This reduction is accomplished by showingwhere ◊n means that the modal operator ◊ is repeated n times; e.g., ◊3p = ◊◊◊p. Then it is shown thatBy means of (1), (2), and (3) any complex modal function whatsoever may be reduced to one of the six “simple” modals mentioned above.It might be asked whether this reduction could be carried out still further, i.e., whether two of the six “irreducible” modals could not be equated. But such a reduction would have to be based on the fact that ◊p = p which is inconsistent with the set B1–9 of Lewis and Langford's Symbolic logic and independent of the set A1–8. Hence for neither set would such a reduction be possible.

scholarly journals New Horizons for a Theory of Epistemic Modals

2018 ◽  
Vol 97 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-324
Author(s):  
Justin Khoo ◽  
Jonathan Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Modals ◽  
New Horizons

scholarly journals Mínimo e máximo em estruturas nominais – uma análise semântica

2019 ◽  
pp. 250-264
Author(s):  
Rui Marques
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Modal Operator ◽  
Possible World

This paper is concerned with the semantics of the portuguese phrases with the form o mínimo/máximo N (‘the minimum N’) and o mínimo/máximo de N (‘the minimum/maximum of N’). Some nouns may occur in both of these constructions, while others might occur in only one of them, and still other nouns might occur only if accompanied by a modal operator. The proposal is made that these facts can be straightforwardly explained by the hypothesis that the first and the second of these syntactic constructions have, respectively, an extensional and an intensional meaning, together with the fact that some nouns have the same denotation in any possible world, while others denote different sets of entities in different possible worlds.

scholarly journals Epistemic stance without epistemic modals: the case of the presumptive future

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 459
Author(s):  
Michela Ippolito ◽  
Donka F. Farkas
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Modals ◽  
Epistemic Stance ◽  
Semantic Account ◽  
The Future

This paper deals with the non-temporal use of the future in Italian knownas ‘epistemic’ or ‘presumptive’ (PF) in declaratives and interrogatives. We firstdistinguish PF from epistemic necessity and possibility, as well as from weaknecessity modals, providing in the process the main empirical challenges PF raises.We then propose and justify a semantic account that treats PF as a special normalitymodal that involves a subjective likelihood component. Since in our account theprejacent (the proposition in the scope of the modal) is at issue, the use of PF triggersthe implicature that the speaker is not in a position to appeal to what she knows inorder to support her commitment to the prejacent. This, we claim, is the source ofthe intuition that PF is often used to offer a “guess” relative to the question underdiscussion (QUD).

Simple Contextualism about Epistemic Modals Is Incorrect

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 252-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Lennertz
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Modals

On Scope Relations between Quantifiers and Epistemic Modals

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-540 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Swanson
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Modals

Fallibilism and the flexibility of epistemic modals

2013 ◽  
Vol 167 (3) ◽  
pp. 597-606 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charity Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Modals
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document