Workshop on Meaning and Modality
CSMN, University of Oslo
June 2nd-4th, 2014
Speakers:
Kit Fine (NYU) • Timothy Williamson (Oxford)
and
Andrew Bacon (USC)
Fabrice Correia (Neuchâtel)
Peter Fritz (Oxford)
Jeremy Goodman (NYU and Oxford)
Jon Litland (Oslo and UT Austin)
Ofra Magidor (Oxford)
Øystein Linnebo (Oslo)
Barbara Vetter (HU Berlin)
Juhani Yli-Vakkuri (CSMN)
•
Organizer: Juhani Yli-Vakkuri
[Link to the CSMN event page.]
June 2nd-4th, 2014
Speakers:
Kit Fine (NYU) • Timothy Williamson (Oxford)
and
Andrew Bacon (USC)
Fabrice Correia (Neuchâtel)
Peter Fritz (Oxford)
Jeremy Goodman (NYU and Oxford)
Jon Litland (Oslo and UT Austin)
Ofra Magidor (Oxford)
Øystein Linnebo (Oslo)
Barbara Vetter (HU Berlin)
Juhani Yli-Vakkuri (CSMN)
•
Organizer: Juhani Yli-Vakkuri
[Link to the CSMN event page.]
Program
Monday, June 2nd
10:15-12:00 Skolem Lecture: Kit Fine: Truth-Conditional Content [Location: Undervisningsrom 1, Georg Sverdrups hus]
12:00-13:15 Lunch at CSMN
13:15-15:00 Timothy Williamson: Modal Metaphysics and Natural Science [Georg Morgenstiernes hus (GM), room 652]
15:00-15-15 Coffee
15:15-17:00 Peter Fritz and Jeremy Goodman: Counting Incompossibles [GM 652]
17:30 Drinks at Crowbar & Bryggeri
19:00 Dinner at Arakataka
12:00-13:15 Lunch at CSMN
13:15-15:00 Timothy Williamson: Modal Metaphysics and Natural Science [Georg Morgenstiernes hus (GM), room 652]
15:00-15-15 Coffee
15:15-17:00 Peter Fritz and Jeremy Goodman: Counting Incompossibles [GM 652]
17:30 Drinks at Crowbar & Bryggeri
19:00 Dinner at Arakataka
Tuesday, June 3rd
10:15-12:00 Ofra Magidor: Epistemicism, Distribution, and the Argument from Vagueness [GM 652]
12:00-13:15 Lunch at CSMN [GM, 6th floor, Common Area]
13:15-15:00 Jon Litland and Juhani Yli-Vakkuri: Vagueness and Modality: An Ecumenical Approach [GM 652]
15:00-15-15 Coffee
15:15-17:00 Andrew Bacon: Vagueness, Possible Worlds and Precisifications [GM 652]
17:30 Drinks at Olympen
19:00 Dinner at Olympen
12:00-13:15 Lunch at CSMN [GM, 6th floor, Common Area]
13:15-15:00 Jon Litland and Juhani Yli-Vakkuri: Vagueness and Modality: An Ecumenical Approach [GM 652]
15:00-15-15 Coffee
15:15-17:00 Andrew Bacon: Vagueness, Possible Worlds and Precisifications [GM 652]
17:30 Drinks at Olympen
19:00 Dinner at Olympen
Wednesday, June 4th
10:15-12:00 Øystein Linnebo: Modality in Mathematics [GM 652]
12:00-13:15 Lunch at CSMN [GM, 6th floor, Common Area]
13:15-15:00 Fabrice Correia: Identity, Essence, Modality, and Ground [GM 652]
15:00-15-15 Coffee
15:15-17:00 Barbara Vetter: Localizing Modality [GM 652]
17:30 Drinks at the Savoy Bar
18:30 Dinner at Eik
12:00-13:15 Lunch at CSMN [GM, 6th floor, Common Area]
13:15-15:00 Fabrice Correia: Identity, Essence, Modality, and Ground [GM 652]
15:00-15-15 Coffee
15:15-17:00 Barbara Vetter: Localizing Modality [GM 652]
17:30 Drinks at the Savoy Bar
18:30 Dinner at Eik
Abstracts
Andrew Bacon: Vagueness, Possible Worlds, and Precisifications
Abstract: Formalisms invoking precisifications and worlds are ubiquitous in the philosophy of vagueness and sets of world-precisification pairs provide a natural model of the kind of hyperintensional entities required to reason about vagueness related ignorance. Corresponding to the formalism is a metaphysical distinction between the resultant fine-grained propositions: some represent 'facts made true by the world' and are true purely in virtue of the world co-ordinates (such as, idealizing a bit, the proposition that Harry has 689 hairs), others are not (such as the proposition that Harry is bald). In this talk I will argue that the formalism and the metaphysical distinction are problematic. I will offer a more deflationary account of the distinction in which, if we want to continue thinking in terms of worlds and precisifications, the things playing the world role are certain kinds of propositions although it will be vague which propositions fit the role.
Fabrice Correia: Identity, Essence, Modality and Ground
Abstract: I sketch a systematic theory of these four notions in which identity and essence are the building blocks
Jeremy Goodman and Peter Fritz: Counting Incompossibles
Abstract: We often speak as if there are merely possible people -- for example, when we make such claims as that most possible people are never going to be born. Yet most metaphysicians deny that anything is both possibly a person and never born. Since our unreflective talk of merely possible people serves to draw non-trivial distinctions, these metaphysicians owe us some paraphrase by which we can draw those distinctions without committing ourselves to there being merely possible people. We show that such paraphrases are unavailable if we limit ourselves to the expressive resources of even highly infinitary first-order modal languages. We then show that such paraphrases are available in higher-order modal languages given the assumption that every possible individual has a haecceity -- a property necessarily equivalent to being identical to that individual. To argue on the basis of these observations that every possible individual does in fact have a haecceity, we consider a number of other paraphrase strategies, and argue that all of them are unpromising. In particular, we discuss appeals to fictionalism, modalities of possibility wider than metaphysical possibility, and ontological pluralism.
Øystein Linnebo: Modality in Mathematics
Abstract: Some examples of uses of modality in mathematics are described, drawing especially on the work of Charles Parsons. It appears this modality cannot be metaphysical. So what is it, and how does it interact with metaphysical modality? Two families of answers are discussed, both with roots in the work of Parsons.
Ofra Magidor: Epistemicism, Distribution, and the Argument from Vagueness
Abstract: One principle that theorists of vagueness from very different camps typically agree on is the principle of Distribution: If definitely p and definitely if p then q, then definitely q (i.e. the analogue of the K-axiom in modal logic). In the first part of the paper, I argue that epistemicist about vagueness – in particular those who develop the theory along Willimsonian lines – should reject Distribution. In the second part of the paper I discuss the Sider-Lewis argument from vagueness. I raise the question of whether epistemicists have any special reason to resist the argument, and argue that while there is no obvious reason, the rejection of Distribution argued for in the first part of the paper leads to a distinctive way for resisting the argument.
Barbara Vetter: Localizing Modality
Abstract: 'Local' modality is modality that is relativized to an object. Thus essence, on a Finean conception, is the local counterpart of metaphysical necessity, and Fine has proposed that we explain necessity in terms of its local counterpart (rather than vice versa). I make a corresponding proposal that starts with the local counterpart of possibility - which I call potentiality - and is importantly linked to an increasingly popular view in the metaphysics of science, dispositionalism. Dispositionalism, however, does not give us potentiality straightforwardly: dispositions as standardly understood do not seem to exhibit the logical structure required of potentiality, if it is to be the local counterpart of possibility (and the basis of a successful account of possibility). I argue that the gap between dispositions and potentiality can be closed, and that dispositionalism therefore provides a starting point for a potentiality-based view of modality. Finally, I argue that the potentiality-based view is not equivalent to Fine's essentialist proposal.
Abstract: Formalisms invoking precisifications and worlds are ubiquitous in the philosophy of vagueness and sets of world-precisification pairs provide a natural model of the kind of hyperintensional entities required to reason about vagueness related ignorance. Corresponding to the formalism is a metaphysical distinction between the resultant fine-grained propositions: some represent 'facts made true by the world' and are true purely in virtue of the world co-ordinates (such as, idealizing a bit, the proposition that Harry has 689 hairs), others are not (such as the proposition that Harry is bald). In this talk I will argue that the formalism and the metaphysical distinction are problematic. I will offer a more deflationary account of the distinction in which, if we want to continue thinking in terms of worlds and precisifications, the things playing the world role are certain kinds of propositions although it will be vague which propositions fit the role.
Fabrice Correia: Identity, Essence, Modality and Ground
Abstract: I sketch a systematic theory of these four notions in which identity and essence are the building blocks
Jeremy Goodman and Peter Fritz: Counting Incompossibles
Abstract: We often speak as if there are merely possible people -- for example, when we make such claims as that most possible people are never going to be born. Yet most metaphysicians deny that anything is both possibly a person and never born. Since our unreflective talk of merely possible people serves to draw non-trivial distinctions, these metaphysicians owe us some paraphrase by which we can draw those distinctions without committing ourselves to there being merely possible people. We show that such paraphrases are unavailable if we limit ourselves to the expressive resources of even highly infinitary first-order modal languages. We then show that such paraphrases are available in higher-order modal languages given the assumption that every possible individual has a haecceity -- a property necessarily equivalent to being identical to that individual. To argue on the basis of these observations that every possible individual does in fact have a haecceity, we consider a number of other paraphrase strategies, and argue that all of them are unpromising. In particular, we discuss appeals to fictionalism, modalities of possibility wider than metaphysical possibility, and ontological pluralism.
Øystein Linnebo: Modality in Mathematics
Abstract: Some examples of uses of modality in mathematics are described, drawing especially on the work of Charles Parsons. It appears this modality cannot be metaphysical. So what is it, and how does it interact with metaphysical modality? Two families of answers are discussed, both with roots in the work of Parsons.
Ofra Magidor: Epistemicism, Distribution, and the Argument from Vagueness
Abstract: One principle that theorists of vagueness from very different camps typically agree on is the principle of Distribution: If definitely p and definitely if p then q, then definitely q (i.e. the analogue of the K-axiom in modal logic). In the first part of the paper, I argue that epistemicist about vagueness – in particular those who develop the theory along Willimsonian lines – should reject Distribution. In the second part of the paper I discuss the Sider-Lewis argument from vagueness. I raise the question of whether epistemicists have any special reason to resist the argument, and argue that while there is no obvious reason, the rejection of Distribution argued for in the first part of the paper leads to a distinctive way for resisting the argument.
Barbara Vetter: Localizing Modality
Abstract: 'Local' modality is modality that is relativized to an object. Thus essence, on a Finean conception, is the local counterpart of metaphysical necessity, and Fine has proposed that we explain necessity in terms of its local counterpart (rather than vice versa). I make a corresponding proposal that starts with the local counterpart of possibility - which I call potentiality - and is importantly linked to an increasingly popular view in the metaphysics of science, dispositionalism. Dispositionalism, however, does not give us potentiality straightforwardly: dispositions as standardly understood do not seem to exhibit the logical structure required of potentiality, if it is to be the local counterpart of possibility (and the basis of a successful account of possibility). I argue that the gap between dispositions and potentiality can be closed, and that dispositionalism therefore provides a starting point for a potentiality-based view of modality. Finally, I argue that the potentiality-based view is not equivalent to Fine's essentialist proposal.