'Ontological dependence' is a term of philosophical jargon which stands for a rich family of properties and relations, often taken to be among the most fundamental ontological properties and relations. Notions of ontological dependence are usually thought of as 'carving reality at its ontological joints', and as marking certain forms of ontological 'non-self-sufficiency'. The use of notions of dependence goes back as far as Aristotle's characterization of substances, and these notions are still widely used to characterize other concepts and to (...) formulate metaphysical claims. This paper first gives an overview of the varieties of these notions, and then discusses some of their main applications. (shrink)

This monograph proposes a new way of implementing interaction in logic. It also provides an elementary introduction to Constructive Type Theory. The authors equally emphasize basic ideas and finer technical details. In addition, many worked out exercises and examples will help readers to better understand the concepts under discussion. One of the chief ideas animating this study is that the dialogical understanding of definitional equality and its execution provide both a simple and a direct way of implementing the CTT approach (...) within a game-theoretical conception of meaning. In addition, the importance of the play level over the strategy level is stressed, binding together the matter of execution with that of equality and the finitary perspective on games constituting meaning. According to this perspective the emergence of concepts are not only games of giving and asking for reasons, they are also games that include moves establishing how it is that the reasons brought forward accomplish their explicative task. Thus, immanent reasoning games are dialogical games of Why and How. (shrink)

In this paper I present an analysis of causal relevance for properties. I believe that most of us are already familiar with the notion of a causally relevant property. But some of us may not recognize it "under that description." So I begin below with some intuitive explanations and some illustrative examples.

Everyone knows what David Lewis' possible worlds are, what role they play in his account of possibility and necessity, and Saul Kripke's criticisms. But what, instead, are Kripke's possible worlds, and what role do they play in his account of possibility and necessity? The answers are not so obvious. Recently, it has even been claimed that, contrary to what is standardly assumed, Kripke's approach to modality has not always been consistently metaphysical. In particular, an interpretation of the famous passage in (...) the preface to Naming and Necessity with Kripke's discussion of the dice example has been put forward, according to which he purports there to clarify the modal notions in terms of that of possible world, model-theoretically construed, in a way which is reminiscent of Carnap's. In this paper, I shall point out some internal difficulties of this interpretation, and offer a different one, according to which in the dice passage Kripke is trying, consistently with his metaphysical approach, to legitimize the technically useful notion of possible world starting from modal notions, to be accounted for in another way (arguably, in an essentialistic framework). My final goal, however, will be philosophical elucidation rather than mere exegesis. Indeed, I am interested in shedding some light on what possible worlds might possibly be, if something like Kripke's metaphysical approach is on the right track. (shrink)

In this paper, I try to outline what I take to be Naming and Necessity’s fundamental legacy to my generation and those that follow, and the new perspectives it has opened up for twenty-first century philosophy. The discussion is subdivided into three sections, concerning respectively philosophy of language, metaphysics, and metaphilosophy. The general unifying theme is that Naming and Necessity is helping philosophy to recover a Golden Age, by freeing it from the strictures coming from the empiricist and Kantian traditions (...) and reconnecting it to the world and the objects that populate it. Because of this, in the concluding paragraph I tentatively suggest that Kripke’s philosophy may be seen as a sui generis form of naturalism. (shrink)

In this article I contrast two opposing forms of essentialism, definitional and transcendental versus productivist and historical, and trace both forms back to Kripke's Naming and Necessity (1980). Definitional essentialism, as developed by Fine, centers on kind-membership. Historical essentialism, as anticipated by Prior and developed by Almog, puts origin at its center. The article focuses on the fundamentally distinct manners in which these two views handle the necessity of origin thesis. In the final section of the article, inspired by a (...) Nietzschean genealogical methodology, I pursue a naturalization strategy and conclude that rather than origin being necessary, it is essentialist necessity that reduces to origin. (shrink)

Theoria, Volume 88, Issue 2, Page 276-277, April 2022.

The essay examines the proper treament of (i) naming (ii) necessity. (A) It argues their mutual independence (B) provides a treatment of naming separately from any idea of “designation” (C) gives treatment of de re modality without any use of possible worlds, essences, concepts, rigid designators (D) it argues an ultimate asymmetry–naming/referring is a key real notion of semantics; necessity should not be the central idea in the metaphysics of nature.

The dogma that the propositional logic of metaphysical modality is S5 is rebutted in related installments (previously published and unpublished essays).

This paper provides an overview of the history of the notion of essence in 20th century analytic philosophy, focusing on views held by influential analytic philosophers who discussed, or relied on essence or cognate notions in their works. It in particular covers Russell and Moore’s different approaches to essence before and after breaking with British idealism, the (pre- and post-)logical positivists’ critique of metaphysics and rejection of essence (Wittgenstein, Carnap, Schlick, Stebbing), the tendency to loosen the notion of logical necessity (...) to accommodate certain metaphysical truths in Wittgenstein and others, Quine’s logical rehabilitation of metaphysics and criticism of de re modality, the modal view of essence promoted by the development of quantified modal logic (C. I. Lewis, Barcan Marcus, Kripke) and direct reference theory (Barcan Marcus, Kripke, Putnam), and the emergence of the notion of metaphysical necessity (Kneale, Kripke), and finally Fine’s re-establishment of a Neo-Aristotelian, hyperintensional notion of essence in contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

Philosophers distinguish between having a property essentially and having it accidentally. The way the distinction has been drawn suggests that it is modal in character, and so that it can be captured in terms of necessity, or cognate notions. The present chapter takes the suggestion at face value by considering a number of modal characterizations of the essential/accidental distinction that have been articulated and discussed since the early 20th century, as well as some of the challenges that they face.

This article is about Avicenna’s account of syllogisms comprising opposite premises. We examine the applications and the truth conditions of these syllogisms. Finally, we discuss the relation between these syllogisms and the principle of non-contradiction.

This monograph proposes a new way of studying the different forms of correlational inference, known in the Islamic jurisprudence as qiyās. According to the authors’ view, qiyās represents an innovative and sophisticated form of dialectical reasoning that not only provides new epistemological insights into legal argumentation in general but also furnishes a fine-grained pattern for parallel reasoning which can be deployed in a wide range of problem-solving contexts and does not seem to reduce to the standard forms of analogical reasoning (...) studied in contemporary philosophy of science and argumentation theory. After an overview of the emergence of qiyās and of the work of al-Shīrāzī penned by Soufi Youcef, the authors discuss al-Shīrāzī’s classification of correlational inferences of the occasioning factor. The second part of the volume deliberates on the system of correlational inferences by indication and resemblance. The third part develops the main theoretical background of the authors’ work, namely, the dialogical approach to Martin-Löf's Constructive Type Theory. The authors present this in a general form and independently of adaptations deployed in parts I and II. Part III also includes an appendix on the relevant notions of Constructive Type Theory, which has been extracted from an overview written by Ansten Klev. The book concludes with some brief remarks on contemporary approaches to analogy in Common and Civil Law and also to parallel reasoning in general. (shrink)

Fine is widely thought to have refuted the simple modal account of essence, which takes the essential properties of a thing to be those it cannot exist without exemplifying. Yet, a number of philosophers have suggested resuscitating the simple modal account by appealing to distinctions akin to the distinction Lewis draws between sparse and abundant properties, treating only those in the former class as candidates for essentiality. I argue that ‘sparse modalism’ succumbs to counterexamples similar to those originally posed by (...) Fine, and fails to capture paradigmatic instances of essence involving abundant properties and relations. (shrink)

Paradoxes of nested modality, like Chisholm’s paradox, rely on S4 or something stronger as the propositional logic of metaphysical modality. Sarah-Jane Leslie’s objection to the resolution of Chisholm’s paradox by means of rejection of S4 modal logic is investigated. A modal notion of essence congenial to Leslie’s objection is clarified. An argument is presented in support of Leslie’s crucial but unsupported assertion that, on pain of inconsistency, an object’s essence is the same in every possible world. A fallacy in the (...) argument is exposed. Alternative interpretations of Leslie’s objection are provided and are found to involve equivocation between different notions of “essence.” A material artifact’s modal essence, as distinct from its quiddity essence, could have been different than it is. (shrink)

This paper explores the prospects of combining two views. The first view is metaphysical rationalism : all things have an explanation. The second view is metaphysical essentialism: there are real essences. The exploration is motivated by a conflict between the views. Metaphysical essentialism posits facts about essences. Metaphysical rationalism demands explanations for all facts. But facts about essences appear to resist explanation. I consider two solutions to the conflict. Exemption solutions attempt to exempt facts about essences from the demand for (...) explanation. Explanation solutions attempt to explain facts about essences. I argue that exemption solutions are less promising than explanation solutions. I then consider how explanation solutions might be developed. I suggest that a “generative” approach is most promising. I tentatively conclude that the prospects for combining metaphysical rationalism and metaphysical essentialism turn on the viability of a generative approach. This sets the agenda for defending the combination as well as the more general project of explaining essences. (shrink)

In recent philosophical work on attention, several authors have employed versions of an argument purporting to show that attention is not identical to any cognitive process. Others have criticised this argument. The present article addresses their various criticisms, and shows the original argument to be a valid one. It also shows that this argument cannot be resisted by taking attention to be a disjunction of several processes, by taking it be a genus of process that is composed of various species, (...) nor by taking it to be a process-determinable, for which particular cognitive processes are determinates. The metaphysical position that most readily accommodates this argument’s conclusion is a version of adverbialism. It should be understood as making a claim about the essence of attention. Some of the confusions in this area are shown to originate in the difficulty of glossing such a claim in modal terms. (shrink)

This paper deals with generalisations of modally based criteria for determining whether a given property is essential to an individual to the case of generic essences. These criteria usually presuppose extensionally individuated properties. The limitations of their generalisations are demonstrated using the case of the necessarily empty individual property and the necessarily empty individual office. I do not present a novel stance on the discussion of individual essences. The novelty of this paper lies in its claim that none of these (...) criteria can be generalised to generic essences. (shrink)

This paper deals with generalisations of modally based criteria for determining whether a given property is essential to an individual to the case of generic essences. These criteria usually presuppose extensionally individuated properties. The limitations of their generalisations are demonstrated using the case of the necessarily empty individual property and the necessarily empty individual office. I do not present a novel stance on the discussion of individual essences. The novelty of this paper lies in its claim that none of these (...) criteria can be generalised to generic essences. (shrink)

In the first part ("Determination"), I consider different notions of determination, contrast and compare modal with non-modal accounts and then defend two a-modality theses concerning essence and supervenience. I argue, first, that essence is a a-modal notion, i.e. not usefully analysed in terms of metaphysical modality, and then, contra Kit Fine, that essential properties can be exemplified contingently. I argue, second, that supervenience is also an a-modal notion, and that it should be analysed in terms of constitution relations between properties. (...) In the second part ("A Theory of Truthmaking"), I first review the literature on ontological commitment, and argue that the notion of truthmaking is better suited to play its explanatory rôle. I then argue that we should take truthmaker theory seriously, and that we should provide actual truthmakers for all truths there are. In the last chapter of this part, I review Armstrong's truthmaker theories and argue that they are unsatisfactory. I generalise my criticism to an argument against truthmaker necessitarianism, the view that truthmakers necessarily make true the truths they are truthmakers of. In the third part ("Properties and their Kind(s)"), I discuss qualitative determination. I present and endorse the truthmaker argument for universals, and defend universalism against friends of tropes, states of affairs and facts. I then give a novel characterisation of the important class of intrinsic properties, building on Lewis' work. With a workable notion of intrinsicness at hand, I argue that relations are ontologically – but not "ideologically" – dispensable: qualitative determination in general is a matter of intrinsic structure. In the future, I plan to add two parts and to publish my thesis as a book: In the fourth part ("Exemplification"), I argue for the existence of an exemplification relation tying universals and particulars together. I derive theoretical benefits from this relation by providing adverbialist theories of modality and tense and identify exemplification with a type of parthood. In the fifth part ("Qua qua qua"), I investigate the curious and interesting ontological category of so-called "qua-objects" (Picasso-as-a-painter, for example) and argue that they exist, are not identical with transworld indidivuals or modal parts and that they provide (contingent) truthmakers for all true predications. (shrink)

In his influential Naming and Necessity lectures, Saul Kripke made new sense of modal statements: “Kant might have been a bachelor”, “Königsberg is necessarily identical with Kaliningrad”. Many took the notions he introduced-metaphysical necessity and rigid designation -- to herald new metaphysical issues and have important consequences. In fact, the Kripkean insight is at bottom semantic, rather than metaphysical: it is part of how proper names work that they purport to refer to individuals to whom modal properties can be ascribed. (...) We can see this by reflecting on analytic truths that ground modal claims like the two examples above. (shrink)