The aim of this paper is to show that every topological space gives rise to a wealth of topological models of the modal logic S4.1. The construction of these models is based on the fact that every space defines a Boolean closure algebra (to be called a McKinsey algebra) that neatly reflects the structure of the modal system S4.1. It is shown that the class of topological models based on McKinsey algebras contains a canonical model that can be (...) used to prove a completeness theorem for S4.1. Further, it is shown that the McKinsey algebra MKX of a space X endoewed with an alpha-topologiy satisfies Esakia's GRZ axiom. (shrink)

A great deal of discussion in the recent literature has been devoted to the so-called 'McKinsey' paradox which purports to show that semantic externalism is incompatible with the sort of authoritative knowledge that we take ourselves to have of our own thought contents. In this paper I examine one influential epistemological response to this paradox which is due to Crispin Wright and Martin Davies. I argue that it fails to meet the challenge posed by McKinsey but that, if (...) it is set within an externalist epistemology, it may have application to a related paradox that concerns the problem of radical scepticism. (shrink)

§1 It is not always true that recognizably valid reasoning from known, or otherwise epistemically warranted premises, can be enlisted to produce knowledge, or other epistemic warrant, for a conclusion. The counterexamples are cases that exhibit what I have elsewhere called warrant transmission-failure. It is nowadays widely accepted that there are indeed such counterexamples, though individual cases remain controversial. One such controversial case is the so-called McKinsey paradox. The paradox presents as a simple collision between three claims that many (...) would find attractive. (shrink)

We study a canonical modal logic introduced by Lemmon, and axiomatised by an infinite sequence of axioms generalising McKinsey’s formula. We prove that the class of all frames for this logic is not closed under elementary equivalence, and so is non-elementary. We also show that any axiomatisation of the logic involves infinitely many non-canonical formulas.

Michael McKinsey raises several important and far-reaching issues in his critical examination of Beyond Rigidity. I am happy to have a chance to respond, and thereby, I hope, to advance the debate.

(revisions posted 12/5/2006) to appear in Internalism and Externalism in Semantics and Epistemology, ed. by Sanford Goldberg (to be published by Oxford in 2006 or 2007) Michael McKinsey formulated an argument that raises a puzzle about the relation between externalism about content and our introspective awareness of content. The puzzle goes like this: it seems like I can know the contents of my thoughts by introspection alone; but philosophical reflection tells me that the contents of those thoughts are externalist, (...) and so I couldn. (shrink)

We prove that the modal logic of a crowded locally compact generalized ordered space is $\textsf {S4}$. This provides a version of the McKinsey–Tarski theorem for generalized ordered spaces. We then utilize this theorem to axiomatize the modal logic of an arbitrary locally compact generalized ordered space.

In 1945 J.C.C. McKinsey produced a ‘semantics’ for modal logic based on necessity defined in terms of validity. The present papers looks at how to update F.R. Drake’s completeness proof for McKinsey’s semantics by comparing McKinsey ‘models’ with the now standard Kripke models. It also looks at the motivation behind the system McKinsey called S4.1, but which we now call S4M; and use this motivation to produce a McKinsey semantics for that system. One lesson which (...) emerges from this work is an appreciation of the superiority of the current possible worlds semantics based on frames and models, both in terms of an intuitive understanding of modality, and also in terms of the ease of working with particular systems. (shrink)

This paper attempts to undermine Michael McKinsey’s Important objections to Kripke’s attempts to refute cluster versions of description theories of name reference. McKinsey argues that Kripke Ignores descriptions to which a clustser theorist might appeal In constructing his counterexamples, but that these same descriptions are what guide our intuitions In evaluating the examples. I argue that the descriptions McKinsey offers are question-begging, and thus of no help to a cluster theorist. In a second brief section, I offer (...) an argument designed to show that even If McKinsey*s descriptions were legitimate, the views Kripke endorses in "Naming and Necessity" would be supported rather than vitiated. (shrink)

맥킨지는 우선권 부여 사용의 경우에 고유명의 의미론적 지시체가 어떻게 결정되는지를 책임전가기술구를 통해 설명한다. 최근에 나는 크립키의 비판을 기초로 하여 맥킨지의 설명이 실패한다고 논증하였다. 그러나 이러한 나의 논증은 맥킨지의 기술구주의 지칭이론을 충실하게 반영하지 못한 채 맥킨지의 입장을 단순화시키고 있다. 본 논문에서 나는 맥킨지의 책임전가기술구 전략이 무엇인지 정확하게 설명하고, 이를 바탕으로 맥킨지 측에서 설득력 있는 반론을 내놓을 수 있음을 보일 것이다. 따라서 맥킨지의 지칭 이론을 경쟁 이론들과 비교하는 작업의 초점은 책임전가기술구 전략이 적용되는 우선권 부여 사용이 아니라 우선권 비부여 사용을 비롯한 그 외의 (...) 지칭 현상이 되어야 한다. (shrink)

Externalists about mental content are supposed to face the following dilemma. Either they must give up the claim that we have privileged access to our own mental states or they must allow that we have privileged access to the world. The dilemma is posed in its most precise form through the McKinsey-Brown argument (McKinsey 1991; Brown 1995). Over the years since it was ?rst published in 1991, our understanding of the precise character of the premisses which constitute the (...) argument has been re?ned. It is based on three claims (where A partially serves to characterise the content of some belief state for which Externalism is true and E is some proposition about the external world). (shrink)

In this paper I argue first, that a contrastive account of self-knowledge and the propositional attitudes entails an anti-individualist account of propositional attitude concepts, second, that the final account provides a solution to the McKinsey paradox, and third, that the account has the resources to explain why certain anti-skeptical arguments fail.

The McKinsey Problem concerns a puzzling implication of the doctrines of Content Externalism and Privileged Access. I provide a categorization of possible solutions to the problem. Then I discuss Crispin Wright’s work on the problem. I argue that Wright has misconceived the status of his own proferred solution to the problem.

(No abstract is available for this citation).

In this essay, Crispin Wright’s various attempts at solving the so-called McKinsey paradox are reconstructed and criticized. In the first section, I argue against Anthony Brueckner that Wright’s solution does require that there is a failure of warrant transmission in McKinsey’s argument. To this end, a variant of the McKinsey paradox for earned a priori warrant is reconstructed, and it is claimed that Wright’s putative solution of this paradox is best understood as drawing on the contention that (...) there is a transmission failure in the argument in question. In section II, I focus on Wright’s views in the second part of his pivotal article on the McKinsey paradox. It is argued that the solution to the paradox proposed there by Wright is convincing if his theory of entitlements is accepted. In the third section, however, I raise an objection against Wright’s account of entitlements. Finally, in section IV, Wright’s views in his most recent essay on the McKinsey paradox are examined. It is shown that his new solution to this problem does not work any better than his earlier attempts at solving it. (shrink)

En décadas recientes se ha considerado que una formulación adecuada del autoconocimiento (AC) debería ser consistente con la tesis del externalismo (E). Michael McKinsey es uno de los personajes que ha enfatizado con mayor ahínco que la conjunción de ambas posturas es inconsistente. En este trabajo defiendo la idea de que las objeciones presentadas por McKinsey no afectan de manera importante la formulación davidsoniana de la autoridad de la primera persona (AC3) en conjunción con (E); señalo, además, que (...) si no pudiera hacerse una reconstrucción à la Davidson de (AC3) desde la postura de McKinsey sería en virtud de las diferencias metodológicas, semánticas, epistemológicas y ontológicas entre ambos autores, y no debido a que esta reconstrucción en sí misma sea incompatible con el externalismo. (shrink)

McKinsey-style incompatibilist arguments attempt to show that the thesis that subjects have privileged, a priori access to the contents of their thoughts is incompatible with semantic externalism. This incompatibility follows – it is urged – from the fact that these theses jointly entail an absurd conclusion, namely, the possibility of a priori knowledge of the world. In a recent paper I argued that a large and important class of such arguments exemplifies a dialectical failure: if they are valid, the (...) putatively absurd conclusion can be generated without the privileged access premise. Michael McKinsey has responded by arguing that the semantic externalist should adopt a neutral free logic invalidating a principle that my argument essentially relies on. I will say why the semantic commitments of the externalist are in tension with free logic, thereby vindicating my original argument. (shrink)