Call for Papers

Special Issue of Studia Logica:
40 Years in Possible Worlds

'Possible worlds' have been one of the true conundrum notions in philosophy. On the hand possible worlds have proved very useful in philosophical logic for obtaining significant formal results with substantial philosophical import. Yet on the other they have generated much noise and commotion in especially metaphysics and epistemology. From a logical point of view they are useful tools or conceptual constructions, from philosophical point of view troublesome entities generating endless discussions. Since the birth of Kripke-semantics, approximately 40 years ago, possible worlds have however largely been the preferred framework for doing modal logic.

In standard Kripke-semantics possible worlds are taken to be unanalyzable primitives complete in the spatio-temporal history. Furnishing these fundamental entities with different interpretations the familiar alethic, temporal, epistemic, deontic, and other modal logics are obtained. Relying only on Kripke-semantics has shortcomings both in theory and for applications. By way of example, multi-modalities are hard to implement in the standard setup, but multi-modalities are crucial for pertinent modeling in game theory, computer science, social software, methodology, etc. Philosophers, economists, mathematicians, computer scientists and linguists have in recent years developed rich formal models diverging significantly from the classical possible world semantics. Besides having turned the study of 'possible worlds' into an interdisciplinary affair, these models have also proved very useful for applications while at the same time honestly deflating much of the metaphysical hysteria.

The purpose of this special issue of Studia Logica is twofold: To track the formal and philosophical history and development of possible worlds semantics; and to demonstrate how alternative approaches in philosophy, computer science, economics and mathematics have come together to form theoretically as well as practically richer, and philosophically less trouble-some notions of other states of affairs.

Invited Contributors

Submission of Papers

Submitted papers should not exceed 20 pages (including bibliography), formatted according to the Studia Logica LaTex style (see http://www.studialogica.org/authorsinfo.html). Only electronic submissions will be accepted. The authors should send an email with subject Studia Logica Submission to both guest editors (see below), with the file of the paper as an attachment (in postscript or pdf format), and the following information in the body of the email in plain text:

Important Dates

Guest Editors

Vincent F. Hendricks
Associate Professor of Epistemology, Logic and Methodology
Editor-in-chief: Synthese Library
Editor: Trends in Logic (Studia Logica Library)
Department of Philosophy and Science Studies
Roskilde University P.O. Box 260, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark
Phone: (+45) 4674 2343
Fax: (+45) 4674 3012
Email: vincent@ruc.dk

Stig Andur Pedersen
Professor of Philosophy of Science
Department of Philosophy and Science Studies
Roskilde University P.O. Box 260, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark
Phone: (+45) 4674 2265
Fax: (+45) 4674 3012
Email: sap@ruc.dk

last modfied 27.05.2004; designer and webmaster: Krzysztof Pszczola

Studia Logica

An International Journal publishing papers in Logic and all applications of Formal Mathematical Methods
Published by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Springer