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545The Truth About the FutureErkenntnis 79 (3): 365-401. 2014.There is a long-standing disagreement among Branching-Time theorists. Even though they all believe that the branching representation accurately grasps the idea that the future, contrary to the past, is open, they argue whether this representation is compatible with the claim that one among many possible futures is distinguished—the single future that will come to be. This disagreement is paralleled in an argument about the bivalence of future contingents. The single, privileged future is often c…Read more
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514Towards a new theory of historical counterfactualsIn Pavel Arazim & Michal Dancak (eds.), Logica Yearbook 2014, College Publications. pp. 293-310. 2015.We investigate the semantics of historical counterfactuals in indeterministic contexts. We claim that "plain" and "necessitated" counterfactuals differ in meaning. To substantiate this claim, we propose a new semantic treatment of historical counterfactuals in the Branching Time framework. We supplement our semantics with supervaluationist postsemantics, thanks to which we can explain away the intuitions which seem to talk in favor of the identification of "would" with "would necessarily".
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395Causes and (in)DeterminismErkenntnis 79 (S3): 339-341. 2014.Introduction to a special issue of Erkenntnis.
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274A future for the thin red lineSynthese 188 (1): 117-142. 2012.The thin red line ( TRL ) is a theory about the semantics of future-contingents. The central idea is that there is such a thing as the ‘actual future’, even in the presence of indeterminism. It is inspired by a famous solution to the problem of divine foreknowledge associated with William of Ockham, in which the freedom of agents is argued to be compatible with God’s omniscience. In the modern branching time setting, the theory of the TRL is widely regarded to suffer from several fundamental pro…Read more
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182Back to the actual futureSynthese 197 (5): 2193-2213. 2020.The purpose of the paper is to rethink the role of actuality in the branching model of possibilities. We investigate the idea that the model should be enriched with an additional factor—the so-called Thin Red Line—which is supposed to represent the single possible course of events that gets actualized in time. We believe that this idea was often misconceived which prompted some unfortunate reactions. On the one hand, it suggested problematic semantic models of future tense and and on the other, …Read more
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90A problem with the fixed past fixedSynthese 202 (5): 1-15. 2023.A novel fatalistic argument that combines elements of modal, temporal, and epistemic logic to prove that the fixed past is not compatible with the open future has recently been presented by Lampert (Analysis 82(3):426–434, 2022). By the construction of a countermodel, it is shown that his line of reasoning is defective. However, it is also explained how Lampert’s argument could be corrected if it were supported with an extra premise regarding the temporal status of a priori knowledge. This addit…Read more
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68Some Problems with the Russellian Open FutureActa Analytica 33 (4): 413-425. 2018.In a recently published paper, Patrick Todd (2016, 'Future contingents are all false! On behalf of a Russellian open future') advocates a novel treatment of future contingents. On his view, all statements concerning the contingent future are false. He motivates his semantic postulates by considerations in philosophy of time and modality, in particular by the claim that there is no actual future. I present a number of highly controversial consequences of Todd’s theory. Inadequacy of his semantics…Read more
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20Tensed Metaphysics and Non-Local Grounding of TruthDisputatio 13 (63): 411-422. 2021.It is argued that the assignment of truth values to future contingents is threatened not by a tensed metaphysics but by a temporally “local” notion of truth, i.e., by the assumption that whatever is true at a given time needs to be grounded in what exists at that time. If this assumption is accepted, tensed and tenseless metaphysics are equally vulnerable; if it is rejected, both can accommodate true future contingents. This means that semantic decisions are largely independent of metaphysical c…Read more
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19The Problem of Index-Initialisation in the Tempo-Modal SemanticsStudia Semiotyczne—English Supplement 30 21-41. 2019.In Kripke-semantics for modal logic, the truth value of a sentence depends on the choice of a semantic index. It means that application of such semantics to natural language analysis requires indication of an index relevant for semantic analysis. It is commonly accepted that the relevant index is initialised by the context of an utterance. The idea has been rejected by the semanticists investigating tempo-modal languages in the framework of indeterminism, which generated the problem of initializ…Read more
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14How contingent and how a priori are contingent a priori truths?Studia Semiotyczne—English Supplement 28 25-56. 2016.In the presented article, I have analyzed the famous Saul Kripke statement that some a priori truths are contingent. I show, that despite Kripke’s thesis, in the historical understanding of contingency, the notions of contingency and apriority are in deep conflict with each other. In this understanding of contingency, the past, which can be known a priori, is not contingent, and the future, which is contingent, has difficulty acquiring a priori knowledge. Having stated Kripke’s thesis more preci…Read more
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11Problem ustalania indeksu w semantyce temporalno-modalnejStudia Semiotyczne 31 (1): 109-130. 2017.W ramach semantyk Kripkego dla języków modalnych wartość logiczna zdania może zmieniać się wraz ze zmianą parametru indeksu semantycznego. Oznacza to, że stosując tego typu semantykę do analizy zdań języka naturalnego, musimy wskazać indeks istotny dla analizy semantycznej. Zwykło się przyjmować, że odpowiedni indeks jest ustalany przez kontekst wypowiedzi. Pomysł ten został odrzucony przez semantyków analizujących języki temporalno-modalne w kontekście indeterminizmu, co wygenerowało problem us…Read more
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10Jak przygodne i jak a priori są przygodne prawdy a priori?Studia Semiotyczne 28 (1): 145-172. 2015.W artykule poddaję analizie słynne twierdzenie Saula Kripkego, że niektóre prawdy a priori są przygodne. Pokazuję, że wbrew tezie Kripkego, przy historycznym rozumieniu przygodności, pojęcia przygodności i aprioryczności stoją ze sobą w głębokim konflikcie. Przy tym rozumieniu przygodności przeszłość, którą można poznać a priori, nie jest przygodna, a o przyszłości, która jest przygodna, trudno zdobyć wiedzę a priori. Doprecyzowawszy tezę Kripkego, proponuję trzy sposoby jej obrony w kontekście …Read more
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6There will be a space-battle tomorrow: Future contingents in the 21st centuryAnaliza I Egzystencja 68 117-127. 2024.This is a summary of the recent research related to the issue of future contingents. It focuses on the aspects that were largely neglected in the traditional debate, such as relativism, pragmatics of assertion, probability, epistemology, and metaphysics.
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Language |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |