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6 - The non-existent

from PART II - PREDICATE LOGIC: TENSE AND MODAL

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2012

A. A. Rini
Affiliation:
Massey University, Auckland
M. J. Cresswell
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington
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Summary

In interpreting the formulae of any predicate language we have to specify a domain D of individuals, and it is by no means a trivial question what D should contain. In the special case of modal and tense languages there is the question of whether D should contain things which do not presently exist but which did or will, or things which never actually existed but which might have. We shall try to show that there are at least prima facie reasons for permitting (as on p. 59) the quantifiers to range over the whole domain, and not just over the things which exist in the world in question at the time in question. At any rate we will give reasons for supposing that whatever you say on this question about times you should also say about worlds. We will begin by considering tense, and will try to isolate what we regard as some important semantical features of tensed language. We will then go on to show that modal sentences share these same features. Take the simple tensed sentence (17) on p. 6, relabelled here as (1):

(1) A child prodigy studied at this school.

From the point of view of English grammar the tense (at least at the surface level) attaches to the verb ‘studied’. Yet it is not hard to see that the semantics of (1) is more complex.

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The World-Time Parallel
Tense and Modality in Logic and Metaphysics
, pp. 62 - 74
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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  • The non-existent
  • A. A. Rini, Massey University, Auckland, M. J. Cresswell, Victoria University of Wellington
  • Book: The World-Time Parallel
  • Online publication: 05 March 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139084215.008
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  • The non-existent
  • A. A. Rini, Massey University, Auckland, M. J. Cresswell, Victoria University of Wellington
  • Book: The World-Time Parallel
  • Online publication: 05 March 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139084215.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The non-existent
  • A. A. Rini, Massey University, Auckland, M. J. Cresswell, Victoria University of Wellington
  • Book: The World-Time Parallel
  • Online publication: 05 March 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139084215.008
Available formats
×