Bachelor's Dissertation: Is And Might Not Be. Three Puzzles About Epistemic Modals

The aim of this thesis is to present three puzzles about epistemic modals which arise when adopting an orthodox propositionalist framework for modelling their semantics and pragmatics. I present a stragegy for solving these problems which I call “non-propositionalist”. This strategy consists in constructing an alternative, semi-dynamic framework for epistemic modals which is called “Domain semantics”, as well as a non-orthodox pragmatic picture. Because the non-propositionalist strategy runs into related problems, I present a more general non-propositionalist solution. It uses a fully dynamic semantics while keeping the pragmatic picture of the non-propositionalist relatively unchanged. This general strategy manages to solve the original puzzles while avoiding to run into related problems.