Table of Contents

Preface 1: Contingentism and Necessitism 2: The Barcan Formula and its Converse: Early Developments 3: Possible Worlds Model Theory 4: Predication and Modality 5: From First-Order to Higher-Order Modal Logic 6: Intensional Comprehension Principles and Metaphysics 7: Mappings between Contingentist and Necessitist Discourse 8: Consequences of necessitism Methodological Afterword Bibliography Index

About the Author

Timothy Williamson is the Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of New College Oxford. He was previously Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh, and has also taught at Trinity College Dublin, and as a visitor at MIT, Princeton, the Australian National University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and elsewhere. He has published dentity and Discrimination (Wiley-Blackwell, 1990), Vagueness (Routledge, 1994), Knowledge and its Limits (Clarendon Press, 2000), The Philosophy of Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), and many articles on logic and philosophy.

Reviews

I am inclined to say that Modal Logic as Metaphysics is the greatest ever integrated study of the logic and the metaphysics of modality: it is almost certainly the most comprehensive. [It] is also, in my judgment, the most important book on the metaphysics of modality since On The Plurality of Worlds * John Divers, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research *
a very important addition to the literature... clear, meticulous, and ingenious... This tightly argued book contains a large number of interesting arguments, claims, observations, and comments on a wide variety of topics in modal logic and metaphysics. It reminds us that there is much useful philosophizing to be done beyond an incredulous stare. * Takashi Yagisawa, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
the issues raised by the book are among the most important in current work on modal metaphysics, and I very much hope that all metaphysicians of modality make the effort required to come to terms with its many ideas and arguments. * M. L. Cresswell, The Philosophical Quarterly, *