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  1. Actualism without Presentism? Not by way of the Relativity Objection.Nina Emery - 2018 - Noûs 53 (4):963-986.
    Actualism is the view that only actually existing things exist. Presentism is the view that only presently existing things exist. In this paper, I argue that being an actualist without also being a presentist is not as easy as many philosophers seem to think. A common objection to presentism is that there is an unavoidable conflict between presentism and relativity theory. But actualists who do not wish to be presentists cannot point to this relativity objection alone to support their position. (...)
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  • Applications and Extensions of Counterpart Theory.Peterson Bridgette - 2017 - Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst
    An exploration of the details of counterpart theory, and some applications of the view. In Chapter 1, I set out the view and clarify the most important features: that the counterpart relation is a context dependent similarity relation, and that individuals are world-bound entities. I then set out what I take to be the most promising methods of filling in important details. Chapter 2 is a discussion of an alternative view, lump theory. I attempt to distinguish lump theory from counterpart (...)
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  • Interpretation and equivalence; or, equivalence and interpretation.Neil Dewar - 2023 - Synthese 201 (4):1-24.
    This paper argues that much of the literature on interpreting scientific theories presupposes a certain picture of what interpretation involves: a picture according to which interpreting a theory is like translating from one language to another. In place of this “external” approach to interpretation, this paper proposes an “internal” approach, according to which interpretation is more concerned with delineating a theory’s internal semantic architecture.
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  • On Characterizing the Presentism/Eternalism and Actualism/Possibilism Debates.Ross P. Cameron - 2016 - Analytic Philosophy 57 (2):110-140.
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  • Non-qualitative Properties.Sam Cowling - 2015 - Erkenntnis 80 (2):275-301.
    The distinction between qualitative properties like mass and shape and non-qualitative properties like being Napoleon and being next to Obama is important, but remains largely unexamined. After discussing its theoretical significance and cataloguing various kinds of non-qualitative properties, I survey several views about the nature of this distinction and argue that all proposed reductive analyses of this distinction are unsatisfactory. I then defend primitivism, according to which the distinction resists reductive analysis.
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  • The Semantics of Actuality Terms: Indexical vs. Descriptive Theories.Wayne A. Davis - 2013 - Noûs 49 (3):470-503.
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  • The Way of Actuality.Sam Cowling - 2014 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (2):231-247.
    In this paper, I defend an indexical analysis of the abstract-concrete distinction within the framework of modal realism. This analysis holds the abstract-concrete distinction to be conceptually inseparable from the distinction between the actual and the merely possible, which is assumed to be indexical in nature. The resulting view contributes to the case for modal realism by demonstrating how its distinctive resources provide a reductive analysis of the abstract-concrete distinction. This indexical analysis also provides a solution to a sceptical problem (...)
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  • Ideological parsimony.Sam Cowling - 2013 - Synthese 190 (17):3889-3908.
    The theoretical virtue of parsimony values the minimizing of theoretical commitments, but theoretical commitments come in two kinds : ontological and ideological. While the ontological commitments of a theory are the entities it posits, a theory’s ideological commitments are the primitive concepts it employs. Here, I show how we can extend the distinction between quantitative and qualitative parsimony, commonly drawn regarding ontological commitments, to the domain of ideological commitments. I then argue that qualitative ideological parsimony is a theoretical virtue. My (...)
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  • What are impossible worlds?Barak Krakauer - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 165 (3):989-1007.
    In this paper, I argue for a particular conception of impossible worlds. Possible worlds, as traditionally understood, can be used in the analysis of propositions, the content of belief, the truth of counterfactuals, and so on. Yet possible worlds are not capable of differentiating propositions that are necessarily equivalent, making sense of the beliefs of agents who are not ideally rational, or giving truth values to counterfactuals with necessarily false antecedents. The addition of impossible worlds addresses these issues. The kinds (...)
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  • Counterpossibles.Barak Krakauer - 2012 - Dissertation, University of Massachusetts
    Counterpossibles are counterfactuals with necessarily false antecedents. The problem of counterpossibles is easiest to state within the "nearest possible world" framework for counterfactuals: on this approach, a counterfactual is true (roughly) when the consequent is true in the "nearest" possible world where the antecedent is true. Since counterpossibles have necessarily false antecedents, there is no possible world where the antecedent is true. On the approach favored by Lewis, Stalnaker, Williamson, and others, counterpossibles are all trivially true. I introduce several arguments (...)
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  • Worlds Enough for Junk.David Sanson - 2016 - Res Philosophica 93 (1):1-18.
    The possibility of Junk is the possibility that something exists and everything is a proper part. Just as we might imagine that there are no simples—that everything has a proper part, all the way down—we might imagine that there are no caps—that everything is a proper part, all the way up. It is not obvious that this apparent possibility can be accommodated within a Lewisian modal framework. For Lewis, every possibility involves the existence of a possible world, and a possible (...)
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  • Realism without parochialism.Phillip Bricker - 2020 - In Modal Matters: Essays in Metaphysics. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 40-76.
    I am a realist of a metaphysical stripe. I believe in an immense realm of "modal" and "abstract" entities, of entities that are neither part of, nor stand in any causal relation to, the actual, concrete world. For starters: I believe in possible worlds and individuals; in propositions, properties, and relations (both abundantly and sparsely conceived); in mathematical objects and structures; and in sets (or classes) of whatever I believe in. Call these sorts of entity, and the reality they comprise, (...)
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  • Concrete possible worlds.Phillip Bricker - 2008 - In Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Contemporary debates in metaphysics. Malden, MA: Blackwell. pp. 111--134.
    In this chapter, I survey what I call Lewisian approaches to modality: approaches that analyze modality in terms of concrete possible worlds and their parts. I take the following four theses to be characteristic of Lewisian approaches to modality. (1) There is no primitive modality. (2) There exists a plurality of concrete possible worlds. (3) Actuality is an indexical concept. (4) Modality de re is to be analyzed in terms of counterparts, not transworld identity. After an introductory section in which (...)
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  • David Lewis: On the Plurality of Worlds.Phillip Bricker - 2006 - In John Shand (ed.), Central Works of Philosophy, Vol. 5: The Twentieth Century: Quine and After. Acumen Publishing. pp. 246-267.
    David Lewis's book 'On the Plurality of Worlds' mounts an extended defense of the thesis of modal realism, that the world we inhabit the entire cosmos of which we are a part is but one of a vast plurality of worlds, or cosmoi, all causally and spatiotemporally isolated from one another. The purpose of this article is to provide an accessible summary of the main positions and arguments in Lewis's book.
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  • Some Ways the Ways the World Could Have Been Can't Be.Christopher James Masterman - 2024 - Journal of Philosophical Logic:1-29.
    Let serious propositional contingentism (SPC) be the package of views which consists in (i) the thesis that propositions expressed by sentences featuring terms depend, for their existence, on the existence of the referents of those terms, (ii) serious actualism—the view that it is impossible for an object to exemplify a property and not exist—and (iii) contingentism—the view that it is at least possible that some thing might not have been something. SPC is popular and compelling. But what should we say (...)
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  • The Incompatibility of Free Will and Naturalism.Jason Turner - 2009 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (4):565-587.
    The Consequence Argument is a staple in the defense of libertarianism, the view that free will is incompatible with determinism and that humans have free will. It is often thought that libertarianism is consistent with a certain naturalistic view of the world — that is, that libertarian free will can be had without metaphysical commitments beyond those pro- vided by our best (indeterministic) physics. In this paper, I argue that libertarians who endorse the Consequence Argument are forced to reject this (...)
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  • Time and Modality.Samuele Iaquinto - forthcoming - In Nina Emery (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Time. Routledge.
    Time and modality show remarkable similarities. Each of the most discussed theories in philosophy of time finds an analogous counterpart in modal metaphysics, suggesting that the parallel between the two notions is metaphysically deep. This chapter offers a brief overview of their analogies. Section 1 addresses the analogy between presentism and actualism. Section 2 explores the analogy between non-presentist theories and possibilism. Section 3 discusses the analogy between temporal and modal persistence.
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  • Essays in Formal Metaphysics.Daniel Rubio - 2019 - Dissertation, Rutgers - New Brunswick
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  • Branching with a Humean Face.Leszek Wroński - 2023 - Metaphysica 24 (2):359-380.
    This paper investigates the prospects of developing a branching modal framework while keeping with the spirit of Humean Supervenience. It is argued that such an approach is bound to face hard problems regarding haecceitism and the notion of recombination. Possible directions for future philosophical developments of branching frameworks are suggested.
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  • Chains of Being: Infinite Regress, Circularity, and Metaphysical Explanation.Ross P. Cameron - 2022 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    'Chains of Being' argues that there can be infinite chains of dependence or grounding. Cameron also defends the view that there can be circular relations of ontological dependence or grounding, and uses these claims to explore issues in logic and ontology.
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  • Ideological innocence.Daniel Rubio - 2022 - Synthese 200 (5):1-22.
    Quine taught us the difference between a theory’s ontology and its ideology. Ontology is the things a theory’s quantifiers must range over if it is true, Ideology is the primitive concepts that must be used to state the theory. This allows us to split the theoretical virtue of parsimony into two kinds: ontological parsimony and ideological parsimony. My goal is help illuminate the virtue of ideological parsimony by giving a criterion for ideological innocence—a rule for when additional ideology does not (...)
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  • Middle Knowledge and the Grounding Objection: A Modal Realist Solution.Joshua R. Sijuwade - 2022 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14 (4):1-42.
    This article aims to provide a defense of the coherence of the doctrine of middle knowledge against the Grounding Objection. A solution to the Grounding Objection is provided by utilising the metaphysical thesis of Modal Realism proposed by David K. Lewis (as further developed by Kris McDaniel and Philip Bricker). Utilising this metaphysical thesis will enable the Counterfactuals of Creaturely Freedom, that are part of God’s middle knowledge, to have pre-volitional truthmakers, and thus, ultimately, we will have a means to (...)
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  • Heraclitean Flux Metaphysics.Andrew Dennis Bassford - 2023 - Metaphysica: International Journal for Ontology and Metaphysics 24 (2):299-322.
    This essay offers an original interpretation and defense of the doctrine of flux, as it is presented in Plato’s Theaetetus. The methodology of the paper’s analysis is in the style of rational reconstruction, and it is highly analytic in scope, in the sense that I will focus on the text itself, and only on certain parts of it too, while ignoring the rest of Plato’s extensive corpus, and without worrying about whether, how, and to what extent the interpretation of the (...)
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  • A Philosophically Neutral Semantics for Perception Sentences.Samuele Iaquinto & Giuseppe Spolaore - 2022 - Theoria 88:532-544.
    Jaakko Hintikka proposed treating objectual perception sentences, such as “Alice sees Bob,” as de re propositional perception sentences. Esa Saarinen extended Hintikka’s idea to eventive perception sentences, such as “Alice sees Bob smile.” These approaches, elegant as they may be, are not philosophically neutral, for they presuppose, controversially, that the content of all perceptual experiences is propositional in nature. The aim of this paper is to propose a formal treatment of objectual and eventive perception sentences that builds on Hintikka’s modal (...)
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  • The Metaphysics of Theism: A Classical and Neo-Classical Synthesis.Joshua R. Sijuwade - 2021 - Religions 12 (11):1-29.
    This article aims to provide a metaphysical elucidation of the notion of Theism and a coherent theological synthesis of two extensions of this notion: Classical Theism and Neo-Classical Theism. A model of this notion and its extensions is formulated within the ontological pluralism framework of Kris McDaniel and Jason Turner, and the (modified) modal realism framework of David Lewis, which enables it to be explicated clearly and consistently, and two often raised objections against the elements of this notion can be (...)
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  • Should an Ontological Pluralist Be a Quantificational Pluralist?Byron Simmons - 2022 - Journal of Philosophy 119 (6):324-346.
    Ontological pluralism is the view that there are different fundamental ways of being. Recent defenders of this view—such as Kris McDaniel and Jason Turner—have taken these ways of being to be best captured by semantically primitive quantifier expressions ranging over different domains. They have thus endorsed, what I shall call, quantificational pluralism. I argue that this focus on quantification is a mistake. For, on this view, a quantificational structure—or a quantifier for short—will be whatever part or aspect of reality’s structure (...)
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  • Qualitative properties and relations.Jan Plate - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (4):1297-1322.
    This paper is concerned with two concepts of qualitativeness that apply to intensional entities. I propose an account of pure qualitativeness that largely follows the traditional understanding established by Carnap, and try to shed light on its ontological presuppositions. On this account, an intensional entity is purely qualitative iff it does not ‘involve’ any particular. An alternative notion of qualitativeness—which I propose to refer to as a concept of strict qualitativeness—has recently been introduced by Chad Carmichael. However, Carmichael’s definition presupposes (...)
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  • Critical note on Williamson: A defence of the actualism‐possibilism debate.Benjamin L. Curtis & Harold W. Noonan - 2021 - Philosophical Forum 52 (1):91-96.
    In his book Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Williamson argues that the traditional actualist‐possibilist debate should be abandoned as hopelessly unclear and that we should get on with the clearer contingentism‐necessitism debate. We think that Williamson’s pessimism is not warranted by the brief arguments he gives. In this paper, we explain why and provide a clear formulation of the traditional actualist‐possibilist debate.
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  • A Case for Modal Fragmentalism.Yiwen Zhan - 2020 - Philosophia 49 (3):1309-1328.
    The idea of fragmentalism has been proposed by Kit Fine as a non-standard view of tense realism. This paper examines a modal version of the view, called modal fragmentalism, which combines genuine realism and realism of modality. Modal fragmentalism has been recently discussed by Iaquinto. But unlike Iaquinto, who primarily focused on possibilities de re, in this paper, we focus on expressions of possibilities de dicto. We argue that the chief idea of modal realism should be that different worlds are (...)
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  • New powers for Dispositionalism.Giacomo Giannini - 2021 - Synthese 199:2671-2700.
    Establishing Dispositionalism as a viable theory of modality requires the successful fulfilment of two tasks: showing that all modal truths can be derived from truths about actual powers, and offering a suitable metaphysics of powers. These two tasks are intertwined: difficulties in one can affect the chances of success in the other. In this paper, I generalise an objection to Dispositionalism by Jessica Leech and argue that the theory in its present form is ill-suited to account for de re truths (...)
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  • Malebranche on Intelligible Extension: A Programmatic Interpretation.Andrew Dennis Bassford - 2020 - Metaphysica: International Journal for Ontology and Metaphysics 21 (2):199-221.
    The purpose of this essay is exegesis. I explicate Nicolas Malebranche's (1674, 1678, 1688, 1714) concept of intelligible extension. I begin by detailing how the concept matured throughout Malebranche's work, and the new functions it took on within his metaphysical system. I then examine Gustav Bergmann's “axiomatic” interpretation, as well as the criticism of it offered by Daise Radner. I argue that Radner's criticism of the interpretation is only partly successful; some of her objections can be met; others cannot. I (...)
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  • Explaining contingent facts.Fatema Amijee - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 178 (4):1163-1181.
    I argue against a principle that is widely taken to govern metaphysical explanation. This is the principle that no necessary facts can, on their own, explain a contingent fact. I then show how this result makes available a response to a longstanding objection to the Principle of Sufficient Reason—the objection that the Principle of Sufficient Reason entails that the world could not have been otherwise.
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  • Ontological Pluralism and the Generic Conception of Being.Byron Simmons - 2022 - Erkenntnis 87 (3):1275-1293.
    Ontological pluralism is the view that there are different fundamental ways of being. Trenton Merricks has recently raised three objections to combining pluralism with a generic way of being enjoyed by absolutely everything there is: first, that the resulting view contradicts the pluralist’s core intuition; second, that it is especially vulnerable to the charge—due to Peter van Inwagen—that it posits a difference in being where there is simply a difference in kind; and, third, that it is in tension with various (...)
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  • Fundamental non-qualitative properties.Byron Simmons - 2021 - Synthese 198 (7):6183-6206.
    The distinction between qualitative and non-qualitative properties should be familiar from discussions of the principle of the identity of indiscernibles: two otherwise exactly similar individuals, Castor and Pollux, might share all their qualitative properties yet differ with respect to their non-qualitative properties—for while Castor has the property being identical to Castor, Pollux does not. But while this distinction is familiar, there has not been much critical attention devoted to spelling out its precise nature. I argue that the class of non-qualitative (...)
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  • A Defense of Hume's Dictum.Cameron Gibbs - 2019 - Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst
    Is the world internally connected by a web of necessary connections or is everything loose and independent? Followers of David Hume accept the latter by upholding Hume’s Dictum, according to which there are no necessary connections between distinct existences. Roughly put, anything can coexist with anything else, and anything can fail to coexist with anything else. Hume put it like this: “There is no object which implies the existence of any other if we consider these objects in themselves.” Since Hume’s (...)
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  • The Lump Sum: A Theory of Modal Parts.Meg Wallace - 2019 - Philosophical Papers 48 (3):403-435.
    A lump theorist claims that ordinary objects are spread out across possible worlds, much like many of us think that tables are spread out across space. We are not wholly located in any one particular world, the lump theorist claims, just as we are not wholly spatially located where one’s hand is. We are modally spread out, a trans-world mereological sum of world-bound parts. We are lump sums of modal parts. And so are all other ordinary objects. In this paper, (...)
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  • Contingencies within Spacetime.Baptiste Le Bihan - 2015 - Dissertation, University of Rennes 1
    I begin by giving reasons to accept the block-universe view, the strongly supported by physics view that we live in a four-dimensional world. According to it, the past and the future are as real as the present. As a result, it seems that the future is determined in the sense that what will be the case will necessarily be the case. In the dissertation, I examine whether we have to accept this consequence. I show that we do not have to (...)
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  • Recombining non-qualitative reality.Sam Cowling - 2021 - Synthese 198 (3):2273-2295.
    Haecceitism and Hume’s Dictum are each controversial theses about necessity and possibility. According to haecceitism, there are qualitatively indiscernible possible worlds that differ only with respect to which individuals occupy which qualitative roles. According to Hume’s Dictum, there are no necessary connections between distinct entities or, as Humeans sometimes put it, reality admits of “free recombination” so any entities can co-exist or fail to co-exist. This paper introduces a puzzle that results from the combination of haecceitism and Hume’s Dictum. This (...)
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  • Impure concepts and non-qualitative properties.Byron Simmons - 2020 - Synthese 197 (7):3065-3086.
    Some properties such as having a beard and being a philosopher are intuitively qualitative, while other properties such as being identical to Plato and being a student of Socrates are intuitively non-qualitative. It is often assumed that, necessarily, a property is qualitative if and only if it can be designated descriptively without the aid of directly referential devices. I argue that this linguistic thesis fails in both directions: there might be non-qualitative properties that can be designated descriptively, and there appear (...)
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  • L’actualité est-elle vraiment indexicale?Filipe Drapeau Vieira Contim - 2017 - Quaestio 17:367-390.
    The common wisdom, among philosophers of language and metaphysicians of analytic tradition, is that though only actual things exist, ‘being actual’ and its cognates do not ascribe a special feature...
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  • A Puzzle for Modal Realism.Daniel Graham Marshall - 2016 - Philosophers' Imprint 16.
    Modal realists face a puzzle. For modal realism to be justified, modal realists need to be able to give a successful reduction of modality. A simple argument, however, appears to show that the reduction they propose fails. In order to defend the claim that modal realism is justified, modal realists therefore need to either show that this argument fails, or show that modal realists can give another reduction of modality that is successful. I argue that modal realists cannot do either (...)
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  • Composition as Identity.Meg Wallace - 2009 - Dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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  • Modality, compatibilism, and Leibniz: a critical defense.Seth Adam Jones - unknown
    In this dissertation, I develop an interpretation of Leibniz on modality and free will. I do so for two reasons: first, I am attempting to revitalize the notion that Leibniz is the predecessor of contemporary modal semantics; second, I am using Leibniz's philosophical system to motivate responses to contemporary philosophical issues in modality and free will. In Chapter One, I argue that Leibniz's basic principles are plausible theoretical tools that ought to be used by contemporary philosophers in developing their philosophical (...)
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  • Actuality and the amodal perspective.Olla Solomyak - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 164 (1):15-40.
    In this paper, I examine our intuitive understanding of metaphysical contingency, and ask what features a metaphysical picture must possess in order to satisfy our intuitions about modal matters. After spelling out what I think are the central intuitions in this domain, I examine the debate between the two most widely held views on the nature of modality, namely, modal realism and modal actualism. I argue that while each of these views is able to accommodate some of our intuitions, it (...)
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  • Haecceitism for Modal Realists.Sam Cowling - 2012 - Erkenntnis 77 (3):399-417.
    In this paper, I examine the putative incompatibility of three theses: (1) Haecceitism, according to which some maximal possibilities differ solely in terms of the non-qualitative or de re possibilities they include; (2) Modal correspondence, according to which each maximal possibility is identical with a unique possible world; (3) Counterpart theory, according to which de re modality is analyzed in terms of counterpart relations between individuals. After showing how the modal realism defended by David Lewis resolves this incompatibility by rejecting (...)
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