180163 SE Modality in Logic and Language (2019S)

In this seminar, we will investigate the category of modality as it occurs in formal logic and in natural languages.

In the first part of the seminar, we will study modality in logic, where it is first and foremost understood through possibility and necessity. Hence modal logic is the logic of possibility and necessity.

Modality in natural language is a much wider phenomenon–it is understood to account for "displacement"', a design feature of human languages that allows for discourse that goes beyond the actual here and now. In the second part of the seminar, we will investigate two primary types of modal expressions in natural language: modal auxiliaries (may, might, could, should, must) and conditional constructions (if... then). We will study their semantics and learn about the formal system called "intensional semantics'".

In the third part, we take a look at the interaction of epistemic modals (expressing what may or must be the case, given one's information or knowledge) with the context of speech.

This is primarily a course in formal logic and formal semantics. We will acquire tools that will be widely useful to your studies beyond logic and semantics: modal notions play a central role occur in philosophy of language, metaphysics, metaethics, epistemolgy, (meta)aesthetics, and others.

Professor Andy Egan (Rutgers, New Jersey) will join us for a one-day workshop at the end of June. Attendance at the workshop is mandatory.

The course language as well as all readings will be in English.