green numbers give full details.     |    back to list of philosophers     |     expand these ideas

Ideas of Nathan Salmon, by Text

[American, b.1951, Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.]

1981 Reference and Essence (1st edn)
1.1.1 p.11 Frege's 'sense' solves four tricky puzzles
1.1.2 p.16 The perfect case of direct reference is a variable which has been assigned a value
238-40 p.92 S4, and therefore S5, are invalid for metaphysical modality [Williamson]
3.8.2 p.82 Essentialism says some properties must be possessed, if a thing is to exist
4.11.2 p.101 Ostensive definitions needn't involve pointing, but must refer to something specific
6.23.1 p.186 Nothing in the direct theory of reference blocks anti-essentialism; water structure might have been different
1989 The Logic of What Might Have Been
Intro p.129 System B has not been justified as fallacy-free for reasoning on what might have been
Intro p.130 In B it seems logically possible to have both p true and p is necessarily possibly false
Intro p.130 For metaphysics, T may be the only correct system of modal logic
Intro n2 p.130 Metaphysical (alethic) modal logic concerns simple necessity and possibility (not physical, epistemic..)
I p.131 What is necessary is not always necessarily necessary, so S4 is fallacious
I p.131 Possible worlds are maximal abstract ways that things might have been
I p.132 Possible worlds just have to be 'maximal', but they don't have to be consistent
I p.132 Impossible worlds are also ways for things to be
I n3 p.131 You can't define worlds as sets of propositions, and then define propositions using worlds
II p.133 Nomological necessity is expressed with intransitive relations in modal semantics
II p.133 Metaphysical necessity is said to be unrestricted necessity, true in every world whatsoever
II p.134 Any property is attached to anything in some possible world, so I am a radical anti-essentialist
III p.136 Bizarre identities are logically but not metaphysically possible, so metaphysical modality is restricted
III p.137 Logical necessity is free of constraints, and may accommodate all of S5 logic
III p.137 Logical possibility contains metaphysical possibility, which contains nomological possibility
III p.138 Denial of impossible worlds involves two different confusions
IV p.139 Possible worlds rely on what might have been, so they can' be used to define or analyse modality
IV p.140 A world is 'accessible' to another iff the first is possible according to the second
IV p.141 S5 modal logic ignores accessibility altogether
IV p.141 Metaphysical necessity is NOT truth in all (unrestricted) worlds; necessity comes first, and is restricted
IV p.142 Without impossible worlds, how things might have been is the only way for things to be
IV p.142 Without impossible worlds, the unrestricted modality that is metaphysical has S5 logic
IV p.143 In the S5 account, nested modalities may be unseen, but they are still there
IV p.143 Necessity and possibility are not just necessity and possibility according to the actual world
V p.145 S5 believers say that-things-might-have-been-that-way is essential to ways things might have been
V p.146 System B implies that possibly-being-realized is an essential property of the world
V n18 p.149 The unsatisfactory counterpart-theory allows the retention of S5
2005 Reference and Essence: seven appendices
Pref to Exp Ed p.-1 Kripke and Putnam made false claims that direct reference implies essentialism
App I p.243 It can't be indeterminate whether x and y are identical; if x,y is indeterminate, then it isn't x,x