In Defense of the Simplest Quantified Modal Logic

By combining the laws of classical quantification theory with the modal propositional logic K in the most direct manner, one produces the simplest Quantified Modal Logic. The models of this simple QML relativize predication to possible worlds and interpret the quantifiers as ranging over a single, fixed domain. But simple QML has many controversial features, not the least of which are that it validates the Barcan formula and appears to require quantification over possibilia. Whereas possibilists employ distinctions that render these features of simple QML unobjectionable, 1 actualists find the distinctions and the controversial features ∗ This paper was published in Philosophical Perspectives 8: Logic and Language,