58吃瓜

Title: Intensional Subject-Matter in Subsystems of Analytic Implication

Abstract: Although one tends to think of truth or falsity as the predominant semantic feature with which logic is concerned, a number of logics exist that give the feature of topic or subject-matter equal weight. Just as we expect compositional truth conditions to extend to the entirety of a formal language, the promise of such topic-sensitive logics requires that conditions on subject-matter are defined over the full language. Past treatments of the subject-matter of intensional connectives (like intensional conditionals) have been relatively coarse and carry with them a number of counterintuitive features. A natural place to start is by examining Kit Fine’s 1986 semantics for Parry’s logic of analytic implication, in which the conditionals play either no role—or a degenerate, token role—in the determination of subject-matter. In this talk, I will present axiomatizations for subsystems of Parry’s analytic implication in which the subject-matter of the intensional conditional allows a fine degree of control. Given the proximity between Fine’s 1986 semantics and Berto’s semantics for topic-sensitive intentional modals (TSIMs), the framework can be immediately exported to TSIMs. I will conclude by discussing how to derive accounts of the subject-matter of other intensional conditionals, modal operators, and TSIMs themselves in this context.