Wild Thoughts on Modality, Propositions and Concepts

Wild Thoughts on Modality, Propositions and Concepts (PDF format)

See also my newer, less wild paper: Toward an Understanding of De Dicto Subjunctive Necessity (PDF format)

This is an unsystematic selection of fairly rough notes toward a book on modality. Maybe it will interest some people. There's 'a lot of hard thinking in it', although some parts of it are certainly foolish. (At one point I get overexcited and claim to have solved "the problem of the contingent a priori", whereas on reflection the things I was saying at the time are none too clear.)

The notes date roughly from October 2010 to May 2011, one of the most intellectually active periods of my life. Readers of Wittgenstein may notice that I am trying to make positive use of something like his method.

For newer, shorter, clearer material cf. http://sprachlogik.blogspot.com/2011/06/sketch-of-way-of-thinking-about.html (UPDATE Sep 22 2011: Now this material is out-dated also. This draft is currently the best statement of the main ideas.)

My book will be much better worked-out, and just better, than all of this.

Keywords: modality, metaphysics, Kripke, Wittgenstein's method, epistemic modality, metaphysical modality, subjunctive modality, the problem of reference, the problem of representation, theories of reference.