Wessel Kroon
Utrecht University
The framework for topic-sensitive intentional modals (TSIMs), developed by Berto and collaborators, offers a powerful and versatile tool for modeling intentional attitudes. It validates a host of principles that accord with established philosophical intuitions. This is achieved by combining variably strict conditionals with topic algebras, enabling fine-grained distinctions between propositional contents. I argue that the basic models for TSIMs can be simplified by dispensing with topic algebras: instead, topics can be derived directly from the existing structure of logical space. While this simplification reduces the framework’s flexibility, I show that it preserves the core validities that were originally put forward as philosophical motivations for TSIMs. Moreover, the resulting framework addresses some of the limitations of the original. Most notably, it extends the semantics to formulas containing nested TSIMs in a natural manner, yielding a uniform interpretation across the entire language. In turn, this also paves the way for an axiomatization that captures the behavior of TSIMs across all depths of nesting. I provide such an axiomatization and prove that it is sound and complete. These results call for a reconsideration of the role that topics play in intentional attitudes: if the same principles can be validated in a formal setting without positing topics as primitive entities, then philosophical accounts of intentionality should perhaps not treat topics as fundamental either. In conclusion, I show that the TSIM framework can be simplified, generalized, and axiomatized—without sacrificing its philosophical virtues.
Chair: Ante Debeljuh
Time: 03 September, 14:40 – 15:10
Location: SR 1.007
SOPhiA 2026 