The semantics Vann McGee gives for his 1989 conditional logic is based on Stalnaker’s 1968 semantics but replaces the familiar concept of truth at a world with the novel concept of truth under a hypothesis. Developed here is a semantics of the standard type, in which sentences are true at worlds, only with additional constraints imposed on the accessibility relation and the selection function. McGee conditionals of the form A ⇒ X are translated into Stalnaker conditionals of the form \A (...) > X. An interpretation of the semantics is provided, and a few implications for the theory of indicative conditionals and their probabilities are noted. (shrink)

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

I give a semantics for a logic with two pairs of doxastic modals and an indicative conditional connective that all nest without restriction. Sentences are evaluated as accepted, rejected, or neither. Certainty is the necessity-like modality of acceptance. Inferences may proceed from premises that are certain, or merely accepted, or a mix of both. This semantic setup yields some striking results. Notably, the existence of inferences that preserve certainty but not acceptance very directly implies both failure of modus ponens for (...) the indicative conditional in the logic of acceptance and failure of the deduction theorem for the material conditional in the logic of certainty. The latter failure dissolves, in the logic of certainty, the much - discussed tension between modus ponens and the law of import-export. (shrink)

Most of us value the legacy of the Enlightenment, but today we often worry about the conceptual and temporal stability of its core ideals. Griswold presents Smith as having something to say to these concerns, particularly in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which, according to Griswold in chapter 1, is not an exercise in detached philosophical analysis but a piece of rhetoric designed for moral influence on the reader. Smith means, by treating virtue in the manner of a theater critic (...) discussing drama, to help his readers realize and sustain an Enlightenment model of the virtuous life. (shrink)