Practice question · Put in order
Arrange these developments in the order they occurred in the history of modal logic.
- Metaphysical debate begins about what possible worlds are
- Modal axioms are proposed without a semantics to interpret them
- Possible-worlds semantics is developed
- Correspondence results link axioms to properties of accessibility
Hints
- The axioms came before any account of what they meant.
- The metaphysical question only becomes pressing once the semantics is being relied on.
Show the answer
- Modal axioms are proposed without a semantics to interpret them
- Possible-worlds semantics is developed
- Correspondence results link axioms to properties of accessibility
- Metaphysical debate begins about what possible worlds are
Why
Axioms first, semantics second, correspondence results third, metaphysics last. The order matters: the metaphysical debate is a consequence of the semantics succeeding, not a preliminary to it.
Practise Modal Systems and Possible Worlds
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