Kripke S Worlds

Possible worlds models were introduced by Saul Kripke in the early 1960s. Basically, a possible world's model is nothing but a graph with labelled nodes and labelled edges. Such graphs provide semantics for various modal logics (alethic, temporal, epistemic and doxastic, dynamic, deontic, description logics) and also turned out useful for other nonclassical logics (intuitionistic, conditional, several paraconsistent and relevant logics). All these logics have been studied intensively in philosophical and mathematical logic and in computer science, and have been applied increasingly in domains such as program semantics, artificial intelligence, and more recently in the semantic web. Additionally, all these logics were also studied proof theoretically. The proof systems for modal logics come in various styles: Hilbert style, natural deduction, sequents, and resolution. However, it is fair to say that the most uniform and most successful such systems are tableaux systems. Given logic and a formula, they allow one to check whether there is a model in that logic. This basically amounts to trying to build a model for the formula by building a tree. This book follows a more general approach by trying to build a graph, the advantage being that a graph is closer to a Kripke model than a tree. It provides a step-by-step introduction to possible worlds semantics (and by that to modal and other nonclassical logics) via the tableaux method. It is accompanied by a piece of software called LoTREC (www.irit.fr/Lotrec). LoTREC allows to check whether a given formula is true at a given world of a given model and to check whether a given formula is satisfiable in a given logic. The latter can be done immediately if the tableau system for that logic has already been implemented in LoTREC. If this is not yet the case LoTREC offers the possibility to implement a tableau system in a relatively easy way via a simple, graph-based, interactive language.

If there is such a thing as essential reading in metaphysics or in philosophy of language, this is it. Ever since the publication of its original version, Naming and Necessity has had great and increasing influence. It redirected philosophical attention to neglected questions of natural and metaphysical necessity and to the connections between these and theories of reference, in particular of naming, and of identity. From a critique of the dominant tendency to assimilate names to descriptions and more generally to treat their reference as a function of their Fregean sense, surprisingly deep and widespread consequences may be drawn. The largely discredited distinction between accidental and essential properties, both of individual things (including people) and of kinds of things, is revived. So is a consequent view of science as what seeks out the essences of natural kinds. Traditional objections to such views are dealt with by sharpening distinctions between epistemic and metaphysical necessity; in particular by the startling admission of necessary a posteriori truths. From these, in particular from identity statements using rigid designators whether of things or of kinds, further remarkable consequences are drawn for the natures of things, of people, and of kinds; strong objections follow, for example to identity versions of materialism as a theory of the mind. This seminal work, to which today's thriving essentialist metaphysics largely owes its impetus, is here published with a substantial new Preface by the author.

Saul Kripke is one of the most original and creative philosophers writing today. His work has had a tremendous impact on the direction that philosophy has taken in the last thirty years and continues to dominate some of its most fundamental aspects. Given Kripke's importance it is perhaps surprising that there is no introduction to his philosophy available to the general student. This book fills that gap. As much of Kripke's work is highly technical, the book's central aim is to provide clear exposition of Kripke's ideas in a form that is understandable to a beginning readership as well as a commentary on them that more advanced students will find useful. The book begins with a discussion of Kripke's early work on modal logic, which provides the foundation for many of his later philosophical contributions, before examining in detail Kripke's central ideas and arguments contained in Naming and Necessity. In further chapters, Kripke's work on semantic paradoxes and his theory of truth are outlined as well as his controversial interpretation of Wittgenstein's famous private language argument. Kripke's ideas are situated alongside those of his precursors and some of the most important and interesting responses to them are explored. The reader is thus able to appreciate the path-breaking nature of Kripke's contributions, how they have challenged fundamentally traditional interpretations, and how they have sparked some of the most important philosophical debates of recent years.

Takashi Yagisawa argues for a new version of modal realism, the view that non-actual possible worlds and individuals are as real as the actual ones. He asserts that the notion of reality is primitive, existence is a relation between a thing and a domain, and ordinary objects are extended in spatial, temporal, and modal dimensions.

This collection of essays on Saul Kripke and his philosophy is the first and only collection of essays to examine both published and unpublished writings by Kripke. Its essays, written by distinguished philosophers in the field, present a broader picture of Kripke's life and work than has previously been available to scholars of his thought. New topics covered in these essays include vacuous names and names in fiction, Kripke on logicism and de re attitude toward numbers, Kripke on the incoherency of adopting a logic, Kripke on colour words and his criticism of the primary versus secondary quality distinction, and Kripke's critique of functionalism. These essays not only present Kripke's basic arguments but also engage with the arguments and controversies engendered by his work, providing the most comprehensive analysis of his philosophy and writings available. This collection will become a classic in contemporary analytic philosophy.

CONSCIOUSNESS Consciousness is a thought-provoking collection of classic and contemporary philosophical literature on consciousness, bringing together influential scholarship by seminal thinkers and the work of emerging voices who reflect the diversity of the field. Editors Josh Weisberg and David Rosenthal have selected discussions that animate modern debates and connect consciousness to broader philosophical topics. Providing an expansive view of the philosophical landscape of consciousness studies, this carefully calibrated reader features classic work from the past four decades by seminal thinkers such as Thomas Nagel, David Lewis, Ned Block, Gilbert Harman, and Daniel Dennett, as well as important recent work from David Chalmers, Fiona Macperson, Joseph Levine, Kathleen Akins, and other contemporary philosophers. Divided into five parts, Consciousness explores the nature of consciousness, consciousness and knowledge, qualitative consciousness, and theories of consciousness. A final section on agency and physicalism includes work by Galen Strawson and a previously unpublished article by Myrto Mylopoulos. Philosophically challenging yet accessible to students, Consciousness is an ideal reader for many undergraduate and graduate courses on consciousness or philosophy of mind, as well as a useful supplementary text for general classes in philosophy and a valuable reference text for philosophers of mind, cognitive scientists, and psychologists.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Rapid Integration of Software Engineering Techniques, RISE 2005. The book presents 19 revised full papers together with the abstract of a keynote paper. Among the topics addressed are modelling safety case evolution, practical approaches in model mapping, context-aware service composition, techniques for representing product line core assets for automation, formal development of reactive fault-tolerant systems, and more.