Sliding from possible worlds semantics to truth

Relativism and strong forms of contextualism assert, from what I gather, that the content of a proposition is not true or false simpliciter, but rather true or false at a time/world/context. A motivation for accepting semantic relativism is the success of possible worlds semantics. It becomes easy to make the move from thinking about possible [...]

Hilary Putnam’s anti-Skepticism Argument

1) If I am a brain in a vat, I express a falsehood in uttering the sentence “I am a brain in a vat.” 2) If I am not a brain in a vat, I express a falsehood in uttering the sentence “I am a brain in a vat.” 3) I am either a brain [...]

Entailment and Inference

I’ve been doing a little thinking about the differences between implications/entailments and inferences, or rather the rules or activity of inferring. The former is a relation between things like premises and conclusions and beliefs. Sentences can be in an entailment-relationship. Inferring seems to be an art form, even in deductive arguments. ‘Drawing an inference’ is [...]

Is male-ness a physical property?

Recall my previous discussion of Descartes’ possible version of the replacement argument. Let’s take this premise: The mind and body do not have the same essential properties. And modify it slightly to a specific property (if existence is a property at all, which we will just suppose): Possibly, I exist and my body does not. [...]

Daily Analysis: Rigid Designator

Kripke’s term for an expression that has the same referent in every possibly world. This includes proper names and natural-kinds. Example: “The 44th president of the United States” designates Barack Obama in the actual world, but it does not rigidly designate him because in some possible world John McCain is the 44th President of the [...]

Descartes on the Replacement Argument?

(You can read the context here, but I’m taking the translation from the IEP) [T]here is a great difference between the mind and the body, inasmuch as the body is by its very nature always divisible, while the mind is utterly indivisible. For when I consider the mind, or myself in so far as I [...]

Plantinga’s Replacement Argument

*Just a friendly warning* I’m going to take a few days (or so) looking at Plantinga’s replacement argument along with related issues (Kripke, van Inwangen). I’ll have something by tomorrow afternoon. Carry on.