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Work #1473 · Mid-career period

Inquiry

Stalnaker's 1984 book — propositions as sets of possible worlds, belief and assertion as the central propositional attitudes

Robert Stalnaker · 1984 · English · Philosophical monograph

Tradition: Analytic metaphysics / philosophy of mind and language / possible-worlds semantics

Stalnaker's 1984 monograph — propositions as sets of possible worlds, assertion as adding to common ground

Published by MIT Press in 1984, 'Inquiry' is Stalnaker's first systematic monograph and the locus classicus for his programme of identifying propositions with sets of possible worlds and treating belief, assertion, and inquiry in those terms. The book was a development of papers Stalnaker had been writing through the 1970s ('Assertion', 1978; 'Pragmatic Presuppositions', 1974; 'Indicative Conditionals', 1975) but here organised into a single coherent systematic statement. Key claims include: belief is a relation to a set of possible worlds (the doxastically accessible worlds — the worlds compatible with what the agent believes); assertion adds a proposition to the conversational 'common ground' (the set of worlds compatible with the conversation's shared presuppositions); the pragmatic theory of presupposition follows from the common-ground model (presupposing P is treating P as in the common ground); conditional belief is what governs inquiry under uncertainty; and reasoning about counterfactuals can be analysed as conditional belief revision. The book is one of the central texts of late-twentieth-century analytic philosophy of language and mind; the common-ground model has become standard in formal pragmatics and dynamic semantics.

Author

Editions cited

  • Inquiry (MIT Press / Bradford Books, Cambridge MA, 1984)
  • Reprinted, with new preface, 1987 paperback
  • Selected papers reprinted in Context and Content (Oxford, 1999)
  • Commentary: Robert Stalnaker, Our Knowledge of the Internal World (2008); Daniel Stoljar and Yujin Nagasawa (eds.), There's Something About Mary (MIT, 2004); Brian Skyrms, 'Possible Worlds, Physics and Metaphysics', PhilStudies 30 (1976)
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School Embodiments

Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism · 28%
Philosophy of Language · 22%
Pragmatism · 18%
Naturalism · 12%
Realism · 10%
Structuralism · 10%
Analytic Philosophy · 8%
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism 28%

Defining systematic statement of the possible-worlds programme in philosophy of mind and language.

"Propositions are sets of possible worlds." (Inquiry, ch. 1)
Philosophy of Language 22%

Foundational work on assertion and the common-ground model.

"To assert a proposition is to propose adding it to the common ground." (Inquiry, ch. 4)
Pragmatism 18%

Pragmatic-conversational account of context, presupposition, and assertion.

"Presupposition is a pragmatic relation between speaker and context." (Inquiry, ch. 5)
Naturalism 12%

Naturalistic background — possible-worlds talk is to be ultimately reduced or naturalised.

"The talk of possible worlds need not commit us to a Lewisian modal realism." (Inquiry, ch. 2)
Realism 10%

Realism about propositions and their truth-conditions.

"Propositions are objective bearers of truth and falsehood." (Inquiry, ch. 1)
Structuralism 10%

Structural account of belief as relation to a set of worlds.

"Belief is a relation between a believer and a structured space of possibilities." (Inquiry, ch. 3)
Analytic Philosophy 8%

Analytic-philosophical tradition.

Internal Tensions

The single most concentrated statement of Stalnaker's possible-worlds programme. The common-ground model of conversation it introduces has become standard across analytic philosophy of language, formal pragmatics, and dynamic semantics; its theory of propositions as sets of possible worlds has been a major target of structured-propositions theorists (Soames, King) but remains influential.

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I. Time

1984. Stalnaker's mid-career.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Grain: Continuous Freedom: NDet Traversability: Linear Direction: Uni-directional Dimensionality: One
✦

II. Space

MIT philosophy department — Stalnaker's longstanding institutional base.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Curvature: Curved Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
◉

III. Matter

Single-volume philosophical monograph (~170 pages).

Attributes
Extent: Finite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
◎

IV. Observer

Mid-Stalnaker — the theorist of propositional attitudes and pragmatic context.

Attributes
Time Instance: Single Space Instance: Single Knowledge Extent: Immediate Knowledge Retainment: Total Physicality: Embodied Agency: Active Number: Plural Metaphysical Agency: Impersonal
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V. Energy

Programmatic-systematic energies of the analytic-metaphysics 1980s. The book consolidates and systematises a decade of papers.

Attributes
Extent: Finite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dispersibility: Irreversible
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VI. Information

Single book, systematic and tightly argued. The introduction sets up the propositions-as-sets-of-worlds framework; subsequent chapters apply it to belief, assertion, presupposition, inquiry, and counterfactuals.

Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival Cosmic Conservation: Conserved Personal Conservation: Non-conserved Granularity: Continuous

Personas that cite this work

Robert Stalnaker David Lewis Saul Kripke David J. Chalmers

Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint

Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.

97%
John Searle
33/34
97%
Robert Stalnaker
33/34
94%
Ernst Cassirer
32/34
94%
Karl Popper
32/34
94%
Roy Bhaskar
32/34
93%
Diogenes of Sinope (the Cynic)
28/30

Computed school proximity

The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.

62%
Stoicism
21/26
60%
Presentism
22/26
59%
Deontological Ethics
22/26
58%
Classical Greek Thought
20/26
58%
Structuralism
20/26
57%
Cognitivism (Mind)
21/26
57%
Critical Realism
21/26
56%
Virtual Realism
20/26

How Inquiry resolves each dilemma

31 resolved positions across 4 dimensions · 26 unaligned.

Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.

Time · 9 dilemmas, all mainstream
How much weight do future people deserve? Future people are as real as you are — and their interests count for as much. 47% Is regret rational? The past is as real as the present; regret is a real attitude toward a real thing. 47% Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them? Extinct species are as real as we are; they have standing. 47% Is the universe running out of usable energy? Time is unbounded but matter is finite; usable energy can fail without time failing. 47% Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so? Time goes on but matter is bounded; we are eventually constrained even with infinite time. 47% Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide? Time is unbounded but matter is not; we can owe more across long time than the matter can provide. 47% Are addicts responsible for their addiction? — — Do you really choose? — — Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do? — —
Matter · 7 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is the world created from nothing? Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance. 55% Is the physical world fully real? Yes — the physical world is fully real, mind-independent, persisting. 55% Does matter have intrinsic moral standing? Matter is morally considerable insofar as it is created or conserved good. 55% What is money? Money is a real institution with intrinsic features. 54% What is a nation? A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character. 54% What makes someone male or female? Sex is a real biological kind with given content. 54% Should we edit the human germline? Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given. 54%
Observer · 37 dilemmas, all mainstream
Could causation work backwards? Causation runs one way — the arrow of time is real and structural. 68% Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us? The asymmetry is real because time itself has a real direction. 68% Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it? The arrow is real and structural; the asymmetry isn't an artifact of description. 68% Is environmental damage ever truly permanent? Damage is real and permanent on the relevant timescales. There is no recovery; there is only limitation. 66% Can a civilization recover from collapse? Civilizational complexity is hard to build and easy to lose; recovery is at best partial. 66% Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally? Entropy is what time is. The moral weight, if any, is the weight of working against the current. 66% When does a person begin? A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence. 54% What is marriage? Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make. 54% What is our place in nature? Active in a real nature — we cultivate, steward, transform. 48% Should we colonize space? Cultivating worlds beyond Earth is the next form of stewardship. 48% Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination? Genetic modification is cultivation by other means. 48% Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it? Trust expertise whose conclusions a competent mind can in principle reproduce. 32% Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge? Revelation is evaluable by reason — and not above it. 32% Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces? An LLM can produce correct outputs but not reason to them; useful, not knowing. 32% Are coincidences ever more than coincidence? — — Are the dead morally present to the living? — — Are there indivisible units of experience? — — Can prayer for someone far away affect them? — — Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious? — — Could an AI have a mind that matters? — — Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans? — — Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally? — — Does history have a direction or meaning? — — Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless? — — Does prayer change God's mind? — — How is knowledge of reality produced? — — If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived? — — Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom? — — Is memory stored or reconstructed? — — Is reality fundamentally digital? — — Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal? — — Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married? — — Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed? — — What happens to "you" when you die? — — What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize? — — What makes someone the same person over time? — — Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species? — —
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets? Information is lost when a mind forgets; matter and energy continue, but the pattern is gone. 51% Does deleting your data online destroy something real? Information is genuinely lost when the substrate that hosted it goes; deletion really destroys. 51% Could the dead, in principle, be brought back? The information dissipates with the substrate; restoration is in principle impossible. 51% Is forgiveness ontologically possible? The offense is locally constituted by its substrate; when the substrate dissolves, the offense genuinely passes away. 51%
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