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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.
| 9200 | Empiricists suspect modal notions: either it happens or it doesn't; it is just regularities. [Fine,K] |
| 9202 | Objects, as well as sentences, can have logical form [Fine,K] |
| 9205 | The three basic types of necessity are metaphysical, natural and normative [Fine,K] |
| 9206 | We must distinguish between the identity or essence of an object, and its necessary features [Fine,K] |
| 9208 | Philosophers with a new concept are like children with a new toy [Fine,K] |
| 9209 | Metaphysical necessity may be 'whatever the circumstance', or 'regardless of circumstances' [Fine,K] |
| 9207 | If sentence content is all worlds where it is true, all necessary truths have the same content! [Fine,K] |
| 9210 | Possible objects are abstract; actual concrete objects are possible; so abstract/concrete are compatible [Fine,K] |
| 9211 | A non-standard realism, with no privileged standpoint, might challenge its absoluteness or coherence [Fine,K] |