The aim of this thesis is to examine the theoretical commitments informing W.V. Quine’s rejection of alethic modality and to advance a Quinean response to Saul Kripke’s arguments in support of modal metaphysics. The novelty of this thesis consists in it being the first detailed explanation of how Quine’s arguments against modality are situated within his system and informed by his epistemological and ontological views and the first adequate study of the epistemological and metaphysical criticisms Quine would advance against Kripke’s defence of modality. The Quinean response to Kripke presented here is guided by four tenets that Quine takes to be central to the current scientific worldview and which he consequently adopts as the guiding methodological constraints of his own project: empiricism, regimentation, physicalism and simplicity. I explain how Quine’s referential opacity and mathematician-cyclist arguments against modality hang together with the rest of his philosophical project; and I show that while these arguments may seem unpersuasive and easily refuted by Kripke when taken in isolation, they are quite powerful when understood within the context of Quine’s entire system and seen in light of his guiding methodological constraints. By the end of this thesis, it will be clear why Quine remains unconvinced by Kripke’s arguments in support of modal metaphysics and how his response to Kripke is grounded in his deepest methodological constraints. He ultimately rejects Kripke’s arguments because they conflict with the tenets he takes to be the deepest commitments of the scientific worldview. Quine’s arguments against modality must be understood within the context of his philosophical system as a whole and are best seen not as arguments to be met by Kripke on Kripke’s terms but as illustrations of why, from the standpoint of Quine’s project and the standards it adheres to (the standards of science, as Quine understands it), modality is a flawed and unnecessary addition to reconstructed scientific theory. While there may well be reasons for rejecting Quine’s views about modality – and even reasons that would compel Quine, on his own terms, to reject his views – I argue that Kripke does not provide them.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed December 5, 2008). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 160-164).

Thesis (Master)--İzmir Institute of Technology, İzmir, 2006 / Keywords:Temporal logic, modal logic. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 45).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2007. / Thesis directed by Peter van Inwagen for the Department of Philosophy. "April 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 222-226).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Drexel University, 2007. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-99).

The aim of this thesis is to examine the theoretical commitments informing W.V. Quine’s rejection of alethic modality and to advance a Quinean response to Saul Kripke’s arguments in support of modal metaphysics. The novelty of this thesis consists in it being the first detailed explanation of how Quine’s arguments against modality are situated within his system and informed by his epistemological and ontological views and the first adequate study of the epistemological and metaphysical criticisms Quine would advance against Kripke’s defence of modality. The Quinean response to Kripke presented here is guided by four tenets that Quine takes to be central to the current scientific worldview and which he consequently adopts as the guiding methodological constraints of his own project: empiricism, regimentation, physicalism and simplicity. I explain how Quine’s referential opacity and mathematician-cyclist arguments against modality hang together with the rest of his philosophical project; and I show that while these arguments may seem unpersuasive and easily refuted by Kripke when taken in isolation, they are quite powerful when understood within the context of Quine’s entire system and seen in light of his guiding methodological constraints. By the end of this thesis, it will be clear why Quine remains unconvinced by Kripke’s arguments in support of modal metaphysics and how his response to Kripke is grounded in his deepest methodological constraints. He ultimately rejects Kripke’s arguments because they conflict with the tenets he takes to be the deepest commitments of the scientific worldview. Quine’s arguments against modality must be understood within the context of his philosophical system as a whole and are best seen not as arguments to be met by Kripke on Kripke’s terms but as illustrations of why, from the standpoint of Quine’s project and the standards it adheres to (the standards of science, as Quine understands it), modality is a flawed and unnecessary addition to reconstructed scientific theory. While there may well be reasons for rejecting Quine’s views about modality – and even reasons that would compel Quine, on his own terms, to reject his views – I argue that Kripke does not provide them.

This dissertation explores the interplay of grammar and context in the interpretation of modal words like ought, necessary, and need. The empirical foci of the discussion are patterns in the use of strong and weak necessity modals in conversation, and the interpretation of syntactically and semantically versatile modals like need in the various grammatical configurations they appear in across languages. It is argued that a sensitivity to collective commitments in a conversation is necessary for understanding certain aspects of modal strength, in particular the traditional distinction between strong and weak necessity modals (exhibited by must and ought to in English). It is proposed that strong necessity modals can only reference priorities that are presupposed to be collectively committed to, whereas weak necessity modals are evaluated with respect to a mixed bag of priorities, crucially including ones that are presupposed not to be collectively committed to. A domain restriction approach to weak necessity is adopted, following a demonstration that it is superior to a number of probabilistic alternatives. Modal verbs and adjectives that take both infinitival and nominal complements are shown to pattern alike across languages in requiring a teleological, or goal-oriented interpretation when their complements are not infinitives (but rather noun phrases or certain Complementizer Phrases). This limitation is lifted with infinitival complements, showing that transitive configurations of certain intensional verbs are not semantically equivalent to the infinitival configurations of the same verbs. A result of this research is a fine grained analysis of the differences between closely related necessity modals and attitude verbs.

published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Deep learning networks in the literature traditionally only used a single input modality (or data stream). Integrating multiple modalities into deep learning networks with the goal of correlating extracted features was a major issue. Traditional methods involved treating each modality separately and then writing custom code to combine the extracted features. Current solutions for small numbers of modalities (three or less) showed there are multiple architectures for modality integration. With an increase in the number of modalities, the “curse of dimensionality” affects the performance of the system. The research showed current methods for larger scale integrations required separate, custom created modules with another integration layer outside the deep learning network. These current solutions do not scale well nor provide good generalized performance. This research report studied architectures using multiple modalities and the creation of a scalable and efficient architecture.

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo proporcionar aos estudantes que precisem da lógica modal como ferramenta um texto conciso mas suficientemente completo. Embora seja um texto de cunho matemático, procura-se manter o equilíbrio entre os conceitos matemáticos e suas motivações filosóficas, pela crença de que tal equilíbrio é essencial para situar o pensamento em um texto introdutório. O primeiro capítulo começa com um breve histórico filosófico e trabalha os conceitos fundamentais de um ponto de vista sintático. O segundo capítulo retoma os conceitos do primeiro capítulo de um ponto de vista semântico e faz a conexão entre sintaxe e semântica. O terceiro capítulo trabalha o conceito de bissimulação e apresenta ferrametas que abrirão caminho para aplicações. / The goal of this work is to provide the studens who need to deal with modal logic as a tool with a text which might be concise but complete enough at the same time. Although this is a rather mathematical text, an effort is made in order to maintain the equilibrium between mathematical concepts and their philosophical origins for believing this equilibium is of great importance for clarifing the ideas in a work for beginners. The first chapter starts with a brief historical approach of logic and then discusses some fundamental concepts from a syntactical point of view. The second chapter discusses the same concepts from a semantical point of view and links syntact and semantics. The third chapter presents the concept of bisimulation and paves the way for working with applications.