Modality and Supervenience

Abstract

Although I have argued that natural language is ontologically committed to possible worlds in the sense that it quantifies over them, I have not been concerned to say what they are. Nor will I. But it is important to be able to shew that you can’t object to the semantic use of possible worlds on the ground of their metaphysical status. In order to shew this I will produce a model in which possible worlds appear as constructions in a way which might seem to detract from their metaphysical reality. In producing this model I shall not be concerned to endorse it metaphysically, but only to use it to shew that even if worlds are not basic, or even perhaps not ‘ultimately real’, yet they can still be essential in semantics. The model which I shall produce preserves the formal similarity between times and worlds despite a clear difference in their metaphysical status.