Abstract

Franz Berto has recently proposed two distinct semantics for the logic of ceteris paribus imagination, one which combines a theory of topics with a standard possible worlds semantics, another based on impossible worlds. An important motivation for using these tools is to handle the hyperintensionality of imagination reports. I argue however that both semantics prove inadequate for different reasons: the former fails to draw some intuitive hyperintensional distinctions, while the latter draws counterintuitive hyperintensional distinctions. I propose an alternative truthmaker semantics, guided by an independently motivated philosophical analysis of the content of imagination acts, that preserves the attractive features of both approaches, while avoiding their symmetrical defects in the treatment of hyperintensionality.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-021-00393-2