Necessary, Transcendental and Universal Truth (Themes from Kit Fine forthcoming)
A simple puzzle leads Fine to conclude that we should distinguish between worldly sentences like ‘Socrates exists,’ whose truth values depend on circumstances and unworldly ones like ‘Socrates is human,’ which are true or false independently of circumstances. The former, if true in every circumstance, express necessary propositions. The latter, if true, express transcendental propositions, which, for theoretical convenience, we regard as necessary in an extended sense. Here it is argued that this understanding is backwards. Transcendental truths and sentences true in every circumstances (here labeled universal truths) are both species of necessary truth. The revised understanding is clarified by a simple formal system with distinct operators for necessary, transcendental and universal truth. The system is axiomatized. Its universal-truth fragment coincides with something that Arthur Prior once proposed as System A. The ideas of necessary, transcendental truth are further clarified by considering their interaction with actual truth. Adding an operator for actually true to the formal system produces a system closely related to one of Crossley and Humberstone.
Draft
A simple puzzle leads Fine to conclude that we should distinguish between worldly sentences like ‘Socrates exists,’ whose truth values depend on circumstances and unworldly ones like ‘Socrates is human,’ which are true or false independently of circumstances. The former, if true in every circumstance, express necessary propositions. The latter, if true, express transcendental propositions, which, for theoretical convenience, we regard as necessary in an extended sense. Here it is argued that this understanding is backwards. Transcendental truths and sentences true in every circumstances (here labeled universal truths) are both species of necessary truth. The revised understanding is clarified by a simple formal system with distinct operators for necessary, transcendental and universal truth. The system is axiomatized. Its universal-truth fragment coincides with something that Arthur Prior once proposed as System A. The ideas of necessary, transcendental truth are further clarified by considering their interaction with actual truth. Adding an operator for actually true to the formal system produces a system closely related to one of Crossley and Humberstone.
Draft
Two-dimensional Logic and Two-dimensionalism in Philosophy (Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language 2012)
Survey article, containing a new normal form theorem for 2D logic with full complement of connectives.
Draft Published Version (Routledge)
Survey article, containing a new normal form theorem for 2D logic with full complement of connectives.
Draft Published Version (Routledge)
Logic and Existence (unpublished talk 1987)
This is a talk written for non-philosophers that uses Anselm's ontological argument as a vehicle for discussing various metaphysical issues.
Draft
This is a talk written for non-philosophers that uses Anselm's ontological argument as a vehicle for discussing various metaphysical issues.
Draft