Modal Logics and Philosophy

Rod Girle

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781844652082
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317492160
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Logic in Mathematics

The first edition, published by Acumen in 2000, became a prescribed textbook on modal logic courses. The second edition has been fully revised in response to readers' suggestions, including two new chapters on conditional logic, which was not covered in the first edition. "Modal Logics and Philosophy" is a fully comprehensive introduction to modal logics and their application suitable for course use. Unlike most modal logic textbooks, which are both forbidding mathematically and short on philosophical discussion, "Modal Logics and Philosophy" places its emphasis firmly on showing how useful modal logic can be as a tool for formal philosophical analysis. In part 1 of the book, the reader is introduced to some standard systems of modal logic and encouraged through a series of exercises to become proficient in manipulating these logics. The emphasis is on possible world semantics for modal logics and the semantic emphasis is carried into the formal method, Jeffrey-style truth-trees. Standard truth-trees are extended in a simple and transparent way to take possible worlds into account. Part 2 systematically explores the applications of modal logic to philosophical issues such as truth, time, processes, knowledge and belief, obligation and permission.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Argument and modality
• Part One Formal systems
• Chapter 2 A simple modal logic
• Chapter 3 The normal modal logics
• Chapter 4 The non-normal modal logics
• Chapter 5 Natural deduction and axiomatics
• Chapter 6 Conditional logic
• Chapter 7 Modal predicate logics
• Chapter 8 Quantifiers and existence
• Part Two Applications
• Chapter 9 Alethic modality
• Chapter 10 Temporal logic
• Chapter 11 Dynamic logic
• Chapter 12 Epistemic logic
• Chapter 13 Deontic logic
• Chapter 14 Conditionals and reliability
• Chapter 15 Synthesis and worlds
• Answers
• Index