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4 - Possible Worlds Semantics

Philosophical Foundations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Alan Berger
Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
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Summary

Introduction

Saul Kripke did more than anyone else to bring possible worlds into the contemporary philosophical discourse, first with his more formal work on the model theory for modal logic in the 1960s, and then with his more philosophical lectures on reference and modality, delivered in January 1970, that used the possible worlds apparatus informally to clarify the relations between semantic issues about names and metaphysical issues about individuals and kinds. Possible worlds semantics have been widely applied since then, both in philosophy and in other fields such as linguistic semantics and pragmatics, theoretical computer science, and game theory. Kripke’s work, along with that of David Lewis, stimulated an ongoing debate about the nature and metaphysical status of possible worlds. Kripke himself has had little to say about the issues raised in this debate, in print, beyond what he said in Naming and Necessity and in brief remarks in a preface to a later edition of the lectures, published in 1980. But there is a clear view of the nature of possible worlds, and of the status of an explanation of modality in terms of possible worlds, implicit in the lectures and the preface.

Type
Chapter
Information
Saul Kripke , pp. 100 - 116
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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References

Adams, R 1981 Actuality and ThisnessSynthese 49 3Google Scholar
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Kaplan, D 1979 Loux, M.The Possible and the Actual: Readings in the Metaphysics of ModalityIthaca, NYCornell University PressGoogle Scholar
Kripke, S 1980 Naming and NecessityCambridgeHarvard University PressGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D 1968 Counterpart theory and quantified modal logicJournal of Philosophy 65 113CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D 1986 On the Plurality of WorldsOxfordBasil BlackwellGoogle Scholar
Plantinga, A 2003 Essays in the Metaphysics of ModalityOxfordOxford University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, T 2002 O’Hear, A.Logic, Thought and LanguageCambridgeCambridge University PressGoogle Scholar

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