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I 69
Incompleteness/completeness/incompleteness/CresswellVsSituational semantics/CresswellVsBarwise/CresswellVsPerry: the question of completeness is less clear than it seems:
1. How to understand

u [[φ]] e ?

"In context u, φ describes situation e".
e: we have understood as a proposition until now. But one can just as well understand a situation as a world, so that it would then say:

"with respect to context u, φ is true in e".

Disjunction/Barwise/Perry/Cresswell: Barwise and Perry's construction requires that situations be conceived of as possible worlds, but this turns situation semantics into semantics of possible worlds.
>Barwise/Perry, >Situation semantics, >Possible world semantics.
Incompleteness/incomplete/partial/semantics of possible worlds/Cresswell: e.g. disjunction:

(1) Tomorrow morning between 9 and 12 I will either be at home or at the university.
This is not a sentence disjunction, but it is equivalent to

(2) Either I will be at home between 9 and 12 tomorrow or
I will be at the university between 9 and 12 tomorrow.

which is a disjunction of

(3) I will be at home between 9 and 12 tomorrow

and

(4) I will be at the university between 9 and 12 tomorrow.

If we also have speaker, date etc., the possible worlds divide into two classes, those in which (1) is true and those in which (1) is false.
((s) It is always about (1) not about the single alternatives.)

Cresswell: Among the worlds in which (1) is true, there can also be some in which I am in both places, even if not at the same time!
I 70
Incomplete/cisjunction/possible Worlds/Cresswell: but of course there will also be such worlds in the crowd where I am in one place but not in the other. In this sense (1) is incomplete. I.e. the proposition can be made true in different ways.
Situation/incomolete/Cresswell: if a situation is to be like a proposition, then for the situation to be incomplete, a single (only) situation must be described by (1), which is the situation of my-being-at-home-or-at-university. ((s) "disjunctive situation", "all in one"; and not one (disjunction of situations) where I am in situation a) at home or situation b) at the university.)
Situations/Cresswell.
Cresswell: Each element of the class is either a at-home world or an at-university world but it is not true that each element is a at-home world or each is an at-university world.
That is, the proposition is incomplete (a partial proposition).
Incompleteness/Cresswell: Barwise/Perry can be understood (Perry 1986(1), p 85) as saying that they consider situations to be incomplete.
Reason: a situation does not give an answer to every question.


1. Perry. J. 1986. From worlds to situations. Journal of Philosophical Logic, Vol. 15. pp.83-107

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