Originally published in 1973, this book shows that methods developed for the semantics of systems of formal logic can be successfully applied to problems about the semantics of natural languages; and, moreover, that such methods can take account of features of natural language which have often been thought incapable of formal treatment, such as vagueness, context dependence and metaphorical meaning. Parts 1 and 2 set out a class of formal languages and their semantics. Parts 3 and 4 show that these (...) formal languages are rich enought to be used in the precise description of natural languages. Appendices describe some of the concepts discussed in the text. (shrink)

This book, one of the first full-length studies of the modalities to emerge from the debate to which Saul Kripke, David Lewis, Ruth Marcus, and others are contributing, is an exploration and defense of the notion of modality de re, the idea that objects have both essential and accidental properties. Plantinga develops his argument by means of the notion of possible worlds and ranges over such key problems as the nature of essence, transworld identity, negative existential propositions, and the existence (...) of unactual objects in other possible worlds. He also applies his logical theories to the elucidation of two problems in the philosophy of religion: the problem of evil and the ontological argument. (shrink)

Definite descriptions, I shall argue, have two possible functions. 1] They are used to refer to what a speaker wishes to talk about, but they are also used quite differently. Moreover, a definite description occurring in one and the same sentence may, on different occasions of its use, function in either way. The failure to deal with this duality of function obscures the genuine referring use of definite descriptions. The best known theories of definite descriptions, those of Russell and Strawson, (...) I shall suggest, are both guilty of this. Before discussing this distinction in use, I will mention some features of these theories to which it is especially relevant. (shrink)