A syntactical approach to modality (Q1185040)

The syntactical approach to modality is to treat necessity as a property of sentences, rather than an operation on propositions. Montague, however, proved that any formal system following such an approach, if it contains the language of arithmetic, is inconsistent. In this paper the author demonstrates that Montague's result may be avoided, and the syntactical approach preserved, by carefully designing the language of one's system so that the self-referential processes required by Montague's proof cannot be implemented. Two systems are defined here. In \(L_ N\) there is a special class of singular terms denoting syntactical objects, and through a strict stratification of hierarchies of languages only sentences applying the necessity predicate to these special terms, and not, e.g., to the objects' Gödel numerals, will be truths within the system. \(L_ M\) does allow Gödel numerals to designate sentences within necessity formulas, but consistency is preserved by limiting the scope of the modal axioms to a proper subset of \(L_ M\) which corresponds to the metalinguistic hierarchy of \(L_ N\). Both systems are proved to be equivalent to the standard operator approach to modal logic, which means that no weakening of modal logic is required by the syntactical approach. Montague's inconsistency result is thus seen to arise because the metalanguage containing the necessity predicate has, if unregulated, an expressive and deductive power enormously greater than the usual object language of the modal operator. If the metalanguage is suitably governed, that inconsistency is obviated.