Modal fictionalism and compositionality

Philosophical Studies 114 (3):223 - 251 (2003)
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Abstract

Modal fictionalists propose to defuse the unwanted ontological commitments of modal realism by treating modal realism as a fictional story, and modal assertions as assertions, prefixed by a fictionalist operator, that something is true in that story. However, consideration of conditionals with modal antecedents raises the problem ofembedding, which shows that the simple prefixing strategy cannotsucceed. A compositional version of the fictionalist strategy isdeveloped and critiqued, and some general semantic morals aredrawn from the failures of both strategies.

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Josh Dever
University of Texas at Austin

Citations of this work

Modal fictionalism.Daniel Nolan - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Modal fictionalism and possible-worlds discourse.David Liggins - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 138 (2):151-60.
Fictionalism.E. C. Bourne - 2013 - Analysis 73 (1):147-162.

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References found in this work

Assertion.Peter Geach - 1965 - Philosophical Review 74 (4):449-465.
Modal fictionalism.Gideon Rosen - 1990 - Mind 99 (395):327-354.
Modal Fictionalism Fixed.Gideon Rosen - 1995 - Analysis 55 (2):67-73.

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