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SUMMARY:SEMANTICS AND ONTOLOGY - Professor Max Cresswell\, Victoria Univer
 sity of Wellington\, Flemish Academic Centre for Science and the Arts (VLA
 C)
DTSTART:20101101T170000Z
DTEND:20101101T183000Z
UID:TALK26625@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr. Luna Filipovic
DESCRIPTION:Ontology is that part of metaphysics which is concerned with w
 hat there is. How then can we justify an\nontology of ordinary everyday th
 ings? I suggest that the entry into such an ontology is the truth of ordin
 ary\nnon-philosophical sentences. But such sentences do not wear their ont
 ology on their sleeves. You need\nto discern quantificational structure\, 
 and so I discuss the syntactic and semantic tests for discerning such\nstr
 ucture.\nIn this talk I look particularly at the evidence from the underly
 ing logical structure of modal and temporal\ndiscourse that natural langua
 ge presupposes an ontology of times and possible worlds. The claim may be\
 nexpressed in the following argument:\n(1) Temporal operators are quantifi
 ers.\n(2) ‘times’ are whatever temporal operators quantify over.\n(3) 
 Some appropriate temporal sentences are true.\n(4) Modal operators are qua
 ntifiers.\n(5) ‘worlds’ are whatever modal operators quantify over.\n(
 6) Some appropriate modal sentences are true.\n[This research is part of a
  joint project with A.A.Rini on the ‘World-Time Parallel’\, supported 
 by the\nMarsden Fund Council from Government funding\, administered by the
  Royal Society of New Zealand\,\nand by Visiting Fellowships at the Flemis
 h Academic Centre for Science and the Arts\, Royal Flemish\nAcademy of Bel
 gium for Science and the Arts.]
LOCATION:GR4\,  English Faculty\, 9 West Road (Sidgwick Site)
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