Professor Mircea Dumitru
University of Bucharest, Romania
Department of Philosophy
Syllabus of the MA and PhD Class in Analytic Metaphysics
Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki
Metaphysics of Modality
Brief description and objectives of the class:
The class will cover material from the ongoing debates in analytic metaphysics of
modality. We pay close attention to the recent literature devoted to both the formal apparatus
of quantificational modal logics and to the recent work in the philosophy of modalities.
The following topics are of particular interest: the metaphysical notion of possible
worlds and individuals, the relation between modal languages and quantificational first-order
languages, different semantic systems for modalities, and the challenges which are raised by
the epistemology of the modal discourse.
Prerequisites
A working knowledge in first order logic and an intro class in analytical metaphysics.
Topics for discussion for ten hours
1. Basic notions of the possible worlds semantics (2 hours).
2. Quine’s modal skepticism (2 hours).
3. Priorism (modal actualism) (2 hours).
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Professor Mircea Dumitru
University of Bucharest, Romania
Department of Philosophy
4. Modal realism (2 hours).
5. Modal anti-realism (2 hours).
Basic references
Chihara, C. (1998), The Worlds of Possibility, Oxford University Press.
Fine, K. (2005), Modality and Tense, Clarendon Press – Oxford University Press.
Fitting Melvin & Richard L. Mendelsohn (1999), First Order Modal Logic (Synthese
Library), Springer.
Forbes, G. (1985), The Metaphysics of Modality, Oxford University Press.
Garson, J. (2006), Modal Logic for Philosophers, Cambridge University Press.
Hale, B. & A. Hoffmann (eds.) (2010), Modality. Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology,
Oxford University Press.
Lewis, D. (1986), On the Plurality of Worlds, Oxford: Blackwell.
Marcus, R. B. (1993), Modalities. Philosophycal Essays, Oxford University Press.
Melia, J. (2003), Modality, Acumen.
Plantinga, A. (1974), The Nature of Necessity, Oxford University Press.
Prior, A. & K. Fine (1977), Worlds, Times, and Selves, Amherst: University of
Massachusetts.
Quine, W. V. O. (1966), Three Grades of Modal Involvement, in The Ways of Paradox
and Other Essays, Harvard.
Rosen, G. (1990), Modal Fictionalism, in Mind, 99, 327 – 54.
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Professor Mircea Dumitru
University of Bucharest, Romania
Department of Philosophy
Stalnaker, R. (2003), Ways a World Might Be. Metaphysical and Anti-Metaphysical
Essays, Oxford University Press.
Tooley, M. (1999) (ed.), Necessity and Possibility. The Metaphysics of Modality, Harvard.
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