A World-Semantics - An outline of a proposal

Abstract

Outside academic philosophical discourse, the World is usually thought of with a capital “W”, it is thought of as changing, and as being identical in its changes. The World was different 50 years ago, and it could have been different from what it is now. Most people also assume that the World is undecided as to the future. The possibilities of what may happen are limited, but it is not yet totally defined what the World will be like tomorrow. This article proposes a semantic model of the World in this sense. For this, it combines modality and temporality, introduces the concept of facticity as different from actuality and necessity, and devises the mixed category of an individualistic state of affairs. This may sound complicated, but it turns out that this model fits with a language that is surprisingly simple, using just one additional symbol as compared to standard modal logic – and which is structurally close to normal language.