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Single Idea 17701

[filed under theme 19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 8. Possible Worlds Semantics ]

Full Idea

Possible worlds semantics is appealing because it gives a compositional analysis of the truth conditions of statements about necessity and possibility.

Clarification

'Compositionality' is assembly from components

Gist of Idea

Possible worlds semantics has a nice compositional account of modal statements

Source

Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 02.2)

Book Ref

Mares,Edwin: 'A Priori' [Acumen 2011], p.16


A Reaction

Not sure I get this. Is the meaning composed by the gradual addition of worlds? If not, how is meaning composed in the normal way, from component words and phrases?


The 13 ideas from 'A Priori'

The most popular view is that coherent beliefs explain one another [Mares]
Possible worlds semantics has a nice compositional account of modal statements [Mares]
Unstructured propositions are sets of possible worlds; structured ones have components [Mares]
Operationalism defines concepts by our ways of measuring them [Mares]
Light in straight lines is contingent a priori; stipulated as straight, because they happen to be so [Mares]
Empiricists say rationalists mistake imaginative powers for modal insights [Mares]
The essence of a concept is either its definition or its conceptual relations? [Mares]
Maybe space has points, but processes always need regions with a size [Mares]
Aristotelian justification uses concepts abstracted from experience [Mares]
After 1903, Husserl avoids metaphysical commitments [Mares]
Aristotelians dislike the idea of a priori judgements from pure reason [Mares]
The truth of the axioms doesn't matter for pure mathematics, but it does for applied [Mares]
Mathematics is relations between properties we abstract from experience [Mares]