Figuralism in Possible Worlds Semantics
Subject Areas : Philosophy
Keywords: Fictionalism, Yablo, Figuralism, Thoughts, Mind, Meaning, Modality, Possible Worlds, Analytic Philosophy of Religio, Semantics,
Abstract :
Fictionalism about a region of discourse can provisionally be characterized as the view that claims made within that discourse are not best seen as aiming at literal truth but are better regarded as a sort of ‘fiction’. As we will see, this first characterization of fictionalism is in several ways rough. But it is a useful point of departure. In this paper, a general introduction of fictionalism is, preliminarily, provided. Then we briefly consider Yablo’s classification, along with his very own reading of it. After a quick review over the notion of “Possible Worlds” throughout the history of the idea, we will come to show that how ontological problems rise against the possible worlds semantics in contemporary methodology of philosophy, and that how Yablo’s version of fictionalism (i.e. figuralism) helps to solve those problems. As a reading of fictionalism, (Yablo’s) figuralism can lead to answer various other questions about ontology, reference, truth, etc, questions that are related to specific propositions such as mathematical or modal ones.
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