Modal Semantics without Worlds

Abstract

Over the last half century, possible worlds have bled into almost every area of philosophy. In the metaphysics of modality, for example, philosophers have used possible worlds almost exclusively to illuminate discourse about metaphysical necessity and possibility. But recently, some have grown dissatisfied with possible worlds. Why are horses necessarily mammals? Because the property of being a horse bears a special relationship to the property of being a mammal, they say. Not because every horse is a mammal in every possible world. Some have recently begun to use properties to develop rivals to possible worlds semantics which may someday compare in formal power and capture the different systems of modal logic. In this paper, I do two things. I first offer a quick primer on possible worlds semantics. Then I discuss three rivals and the work they have left to do.

Natural necessity: An introductory guide for ontologists

“…To achieve the same goal, Vetter (2015) builds a dispositional semantics for modal operators based on her original concept of potentiality. See Warmke's (2016) general survey of dispositional semantics for modal logic, which are presently generally underdeveloped, though.…”