Substance and first-order quantification over individual-concepts

Abstract

An individual-concept, hereinafter “individuation”, is a function from possible worlds to individuals. Constant individuations I will call “subsistents” (the notion will presently be generalized). A “substance”, after Thomason [35], is a subsistent whose value exists for the world at hand. In the systems of quantified modal logic developed over the past twenty years, the tendency has been to restrict the range of quantifiers to substances (often represented technically by the simple individuals that would be the values of the constant individuations), while allowing constant terms (particularly descriptions) to express arbitrary individuations. One result is to invalidate unrestricted universal instantiation (and existential generalization), rather as in free logic. Such systems approximate some features of ordinary usage rather nicely, e.g. the behavior of quantifiers and definite descriptions in tensed discourse. Stalnaker and Thomason's Q3r [34], based on the latter's Q3 [35], [36], is exemplary of this approach.The suggestion has repeatedly been considered to quantify over individuations in general (Kanger [14], Kaplan [17], Hughes and Cresswell [12, p. 196], Thomason [35, p. 136], Pollock [30]).