Worldly Hyperintensionality : Propositions, Counterfactuals and Truthmakers

The dissertation advances a worldly conception of hyperintensionality and traces its repercussions for theories of propositions and counterfactuals. Chapter 2 secures a principled divide between worldly and representational sources of fine-grained content by showing that the familiar contrast between de re and de dicto modality already commits us to hyperintensional distinctions grounded in reality itself, thereby disarming the main conceptualist objections. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with hyperintensional accounts of propositions and propositional paradoxes, exposing some problems for Impossible World Semantics and how they can be solved by embracing a Truthmaker Semantics.The second part of the dissertation turns to counterfactuals. Chapter 5 links Hendrys strong emergence with microstructural essentialism to show that some counterpossibles are false, undermining the orthodox vacuist treatment. Chapter 6 then forges a hyperintensional semantics in which Stalnaker - Lewis similarity is recast via state-selection rather than world-selection functions inside Truthmaker Semantics, preserving intuitive counterfactual reasoning while avoiding unwanted consequences of the original accounts. Finally, an outline for an exactification of the semantics that allows for non-vacuous evaluations of counterpossibles is offered.