Grice and Barcan on Modalities

Speranza


Barcan's "Modalities" is a collection of papers covering much ground and spanning from 1961 to 1990.

Many of the papers deal with logical, semantic, metaphysical, and epistemological issues in intensional logic, and in particular, modalities.

Some important themes that run through these papers are

extensionality, the
necessity of identity, the
directly referential conception of proper names as “tags,”
essentialism,
substitutional quantification, and
possibilia and
possible worlds.

What emerges from them is a robust defense of quantified modal logic in the light of a host of objections, particularly from Quine.

The volume includes two papers on belief, which have consequences for epistemic logic and more widely for theories of rationality.

The volume includes two essays on ethical issues, which have consequences for deontic logic and practical reasoning.

Finally, the volume inclues two essays on historical figures, Spinoza and Russell, dealing with the ontological proof of God's existence, and the nature of particularity, identity, and individuation, respectively

Keywords:

belief,
deontic logic,
essentialism,
Ruth Barcan Marcus,
modal logic,
moral dilemmas,
philosophy of logic,
proper names,
quantified modal logic,
Quine,
rationality,
Russell,
Spinoza,
substitutional quantification,
tags


Bibliographic Information



Print publication date: 1995

Print ISBN-13: 9780195096576



Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003

DOI:10.1093/0195096576.001.0001



Authors

Affiliations are at time of print publication.

Ruth Barcan Marcus, Author
Yale University
Author Webpage






Subject(s) in Oxford Scholarship Online
General
Philosophy


Reviews








Contents



Essay 1:

"Modalities and Intensional Languages"


Appendix 1A: Discussion


Appendix 1B: Smullyan on Modality and Description


Essay 2:

"Iterated Deontic Modalities"


Essay 3:

"Essentialism in Modal Logic"


Essay 4:

"Essential Attribution"


Appendix 4A: Strict Implication, Deducibility, and the Deduction Theorem


Essay 5:

"Quantification and Ontology"


Essay 6:

"Classes, Collections, Assortments, and Individuals"


Essay 7:

"Does the Principle of Substitutivity Rest on a Mistake?"


Essay 8:

"Nominalism and the Substitutional Quantifier"


Essay 9:

"Moral Dilemmas and Consistency"


Essay 10:

"Rationality and Believing the Impossible"


Essay 11:

"Spinoza and the Ontological Proof"


Essay 12:

"On Some Post‐1920s Views of Russell on Particularity, Identity, and Individuation"


Essay 13:

"Possibilia and Possible Worlds"


Essay 14:

"A Backward Look at Quine's Animadversions on Modalities"


Essay 15:

"Some Revisionary Proposals About Belief and Believing"