The Center for the Advancement of Logic, its Philosophy, History and Applications presents

"On Truth-Aptness in Modal Language"
with Kai Wehmeier, Department of Logic & Philosophy of Science, UC Irvine

February 12, 2014
11:00 a.m.
Social Science Tower, Room 777

It is universally assumed that the language of ordinary propositional logic is homophonically embedded in the familiar languages of propositional modal logic. Wehmeier argues that this is, in general, false. His case has two prongs, one purely formal, the other linguistic. The formal prong identifies a syntactical mechanism in a broad class of modal languages as a result of which not all formulas in such languages are truth-apt. The linguistic prong observes that, in the most common philosophical applications of modal logic at least, such a restriction of truth-aptness is in fact implemented in natural language. He will discuss some philosophical consequences of the proposed analysis, such as the transparency of modal contexts, and explore the scope of the argument given.

For further information, please contact Patty Jones, patty.jones@uci.edu or 949-824-1520.