more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 9207

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

Full Idea

The content of a sentence is often identified with the set of possible worlds in which it is true, where the worlds are metaphysically possible. But this has the awkward consequence that all metaphysically necessary truths will have the same content.

Gist of Idea

If sentence content is all worlds where it is true, all necessary truths have the same content!

Source

Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p.10)

Book Ref

Fine,Kit: 'Modality and Tense' [OUP 2005], p.10

A Reaction

I've never understood how the content of a sentence could be a vast set of worlds, so I am delighted to see this proposal be torpedoed. That doesn't mean that truth conditions across possible worlds is not a promising notion.

The 17 ideas with the same theme [giving full meaning by specifying some set of possible worlds]:

11968 The intension of a sentence is the set of all possible worlds in which it is true [Carnap, by Kaplan]
16469 Plantinga has domains of sets of essences, variables denoting essences, and predicates as functions [Plantinga, by Stalnaker]
16470 Plantinga's essences have their own properties - so will have essences, giving a hierarchy [Stalnaker on Plantinga]
16410 Extensional semantics has individuals and sets; modal semantics has intensions, functions of world to extension [Stalnaker]
16448 Possible world semantics may not reduce modality, but it can explain it [Stalnaker]
7869 Truth conditions in possible worlds can't handle statements about impossibilities [Papineau]
7868 Thought content is possible worlds that make the thought true; if that includes the actual world, it's true [Papineau]
7773 A sentence's truth conditions is the set of possible worlds in which the sentence is true [Lycan]
7774 Possible worlds explain aspects of meaning neatly - entailment, for example, is the subset relation [Lycan]
9207 If sentence content is all worlds where it is true, all necessary truths have the same content! [Fine,K]
17701 Possible worlds semantics has a nice compositional account of modal statements [Mares]
13248 We can rest truth-conditions on situations, rather than on possible worlds [Beall/Restall]
14698 Possible worlds semantics uses 'intensions' - functions which assign extensions at each world [Schroeter]
14699 Possible worlds make 'I' and that person's name synonymous, but they have different meanings [Schroeter]
14709 Possible worlds semantics implies a constitutive connection between meanings and modal claims [Schroeter]
14719 In the possible worlds account all necessary truths are same (because they all map to the True) [Schroeter]
18417 Possible worlds accounts of content are notoriously coarse-grained [Cappelen/Dever]