Roles,Rigidity,andQuantificationinEpistemicLogic.PDFVIP

Roles, Rigidity, and Quantification in Epistemic Logic⇤ Wesley H. Holliday and John Perry Abstract Epistemic modal predicate logic raises conceptual problems not faced in the case of alethic modal predicate logic: Frege’s “Hesperus-Phosphorus” problem— how to make sense of ascribing to agents ignorance of necessarily true identity statements—and the related “Hintikka-Kripke” problem—how to set up a logical system combining epistemic and alethic modalities, as well as others problems, such as Quine’s “Double Vision” problem and problems of self-knowledge. In this paper, we lay out a philosophical approach to epistemic predicate logic, imple- mented formally in Melvin Fitting’s First-Order Intensional Logic, that we argue solves these and other conceptual problems. Topics covered include: Quine on the “collapse” of modal distinctions; the rigidity of names; belief reports and unarticu- lated constituents; epistemic roles; counterfactual attitudes; representational vs. in- terpretational semantics; ignorance of co-reference vs. ignorance of identity; two- dimensional epistemic models; quantification into epistemic contexts; and an ap- proach to multi-agent epistemic logic based on centered worlds and hybrid logic. 1 Introduction In Modal Logic for Open Minds, Johan van Benthem (2010b) remarks on the step from modal propositional logic to modal predicate logic: “it is important to perform this extension also from a practical point of view. Knowing objects like persons, ⇤ Version of May 2, 2013. Forthcoming in Trends in Logic, Outstanding Contributions: Johan van Benthem on Logic and Information Dynamics, eds. A. Baltag and S. Smets (Springer). Wesley H. Holliday Department of Philosophy, 314 Moses Hall #2390, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, e-mail: wesholliday@berkeley.edu John Perry Department of Philosophy, HMNSS Building, Room 1604, 900 University Avenue, University of California, Riverside,