New Books in Philosophy Fabrizio Cariani, "The Modal Future: A Theory of Future-Directed Thought and Talk" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
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Nov 10, 2023 Fabrizio Cariani challenges the traditional view of the word 'will' and proposes an asymmetric semantics. He explores the similarities between future-directed and counterfactual discourse, defends an extended version of Stalnaker's selectionist semantics, and examines connections to speech act theory and knowledge about the future.
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Will Is Modal Not Tense-Mirrored
- Fabrizio Cariani argues "will" is modal, not merely the tense-mirror of "was."
- Future discourse aligns more with counterfactuals like "would" than past-tense symmetry.
Academic Journey From Nietzsche To Language
- Cariani recounts his shift from continental philosophy to logic and then to philosophy of language.
- He describes how teaching and longer projects motivated writing the book.
The Zero Credence Objection
- Cariani rejects necessity-style modal analyses that quantify over all possible continuations.
- He highlights the "zero credence problem" showing such analyses wrongly predict certainty in many cases.