Does Hyperintensionality Earn Its Keep?
Mark Bedingham Room, Library and Study Centre
St John's College
Oxford ox1 3jp
United Kingdom
Sponsor(s):
- C-FORS: Construction in the Formal Sciences, University of Oslo
- St John's College, University of Oxford
Speakers:
Organisers:
Details
Intensionalists claim that necessarily equivalent propositions are identical; hyperintensionalists deny this. Whereas possible worlds semantics provides a canonical intensionalist framework, there is no canonical hyperintensionalist framework. Recent years have rather seen a thousand flowers bloom with the development of truthmakers semantics, aboutness theory, grounding theory, and logics of essence, to mention but a few hyperintensionalist theories.
A lot of recent work has focused on various paradoxes that threaten hyperintensionalism - the so-called Russell-Myhill paradox in particular. We now have reason to think that these paradoxes can be resolved.
The mere consistency of hyperintensionalist theories does not, obviously, mean that they are worth having. Even staunch adherents of hyperintensionalists approaches would admit that they are more complicated than their intensionalist competitors. So, what work can be done by hyperintensionalists theories that cannot be done by their intensionalist competitors? Is the work being done worth the price of the greater complexity? The goal of the workshop is to bring together some leading proponents and opponents of hyperintensionalism to discuss these questions.
The workshop will be held at St John's College, Oxford, 1-2 OCtober 2026.
Registration is now closed. If you have not registered and would like to attend, please contact Nicholas Jones.
Schedule
1 October
09.25-09.30: Welcome
09.30-10.45: Introductory remarks (Jones, Linnebo, Litland)
10.45-11.00: coffee break
11.00-12.15: Rosen, "Worldly Hyperintensionality and the Metaphysics of Explanation"
12.15-1.30: lunch
1.30-2.45: Ditter , "Non-Naturalism, Supervenience, and Essentialism about Modality"
2.45-3.00: break
3.00 - 4.15: Moltmann, "Object-Based Truthmaker Semantics and the Generation of Modal Objects"
4.15-4.45: coffee & cake break
4.45 - 6.00: Correia, “Factual Equivalence, Its Logic, and Higher-Order Identity”
2 October
09.30-10.45: Williamson, "Semantically Complex Directly Referential Expressions"
10.45-11.00: coffee break
11.00-12.15: Mahtani, "Hyperintensionality and Action-Guiding Principles"
12.15-1.30: lunch
1.30-2.45: Jones or Litland (TBC)
2.45-3.00: break
3.00 - 4.15: Krämer, "Intensional Ground?"
4.15-4.45: coffee & cake break
4.45 - 6.00: Schnieder (TBC)
Who is attending?
4 people are attending:
and 2 more.
1 person may be attending:
Will you attend this event?