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  1. S5 for Aristotelian Actualists.Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin & Michael Nelson - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (6):1537-1569.
    Aristotelian Actualism is the conjunction of the theses that absolutely everything is actual, that individuals are neither reducible to nor dependent on independently identified properties, and that some individuals are genuine contingent existents. Robert Adams and Gregory Fitch, two prominent proponents of Aristotelian Actualism, have argued that this view has a consequence that any modal logic stronger than M, and so any modal logic in which symmetry and reflexivity are frame conditions, is inadequate. We argue that this is incorrect.
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  • Sets and worlds again.Christopher Menzel - 2012 - Analysis 72 (2):304-309.
    Bringsjord (1985) argues that the definition W of possible worlds as maximal possible sets of propositions is incoherent. Menzel (1986a) notes that Bringsjord’s argument depends on the Powerset axiom and that the axiom can be reasonably denied. Grim (1986) counters that W can be proved to be incoherent without Powerset. Grim was right. However, the argument he provided is deeply flawed. The purpose of this note is to detail the problems with Grim’s argument and to present a sound alternative argument (...)
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  • Modal Metatheory for Quantified Modal Logic, With and Without the Barcan Formulas.Andrew Joseph McCarthy - 2021 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 62 (2):285-301.
    This paper develops some modal metatheory for quantified modal logic. In such a theory, the logic of a first-order modal object-language is made sensitive to the modal facts, stated in the metalanguage. This is radically different from possible worlds semantics, which reduces questions of validity to questions of nonmodal set theory. We consider theories which characterize a notion of truth under a second-order interpretation, where an operator for metaphysical necessity is treated homophonically. The form they take is crucially influenced by (...)
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  • Existence Is Not Relativistically Invariant—Part 1: Meta-ontology.Florian Marion - 2024 - Acta Analytica 39:1-25.
    Metaphysicians who are aware of modern physics usually follow Putnam (1967) in arguing that Special Theory of Relativity is incompatible with the view that what exists is only what exists now or presently. Partisans of presentism (the motto ‘only present things exist’) had very difficult times since, and no presentist theory of time seems to have been able to satisfactorily counter the objection raised from Special Relativity. One of the strategies offered to the presentist consists in relativizing existence to inertial (...)
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  • Necessarily, Sherlock Holmes Is Not a Person.David Liebesman - 2014 - Analytic Philosophy 55 (3):306-318.
    In the appendix to Naming and Necessity, Kripke espouses the view that necessarily, Sherlock Holmes is not a person. To date, no compelling argument has been extracted from Kripke’s remarks. I give an argument for Kripke’s conclusion that is not only interpretively plausible but also philosophically compelling. I then defend the argument against salient objections.
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  • De Jure and De Facto Validity in the Logic of Time and Modality.Stephan Leuenberger - 2013 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 2 (2):196-205.
    What formulas are tense-logically valid depends on the structure of time, for example on whether it has a beginning. Logicians have investigated what formulas correspond to what physical hypotheses about time. Analogously, we can investigate what formulas of modal logic correspond to what metaphysical hypotheses about necessity. It is widely held that physical hypotheses about time may be contingent. If so, tense-logical validity may be contingent. In contrast, validity in modal logic is typically taken to be non-contingent, as reflected by (...)
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  • Actuality, Tableaux, and Two-Dimensional Modal Logics.Fabio Lampert - 2018 - Erkenntnis 83 (3):403-443.
    In this paper we present tableau methods for two-dimensional modal logics. Although models for such logics are well known, proof systems remain rather unexplored as most of their developments have been purely axiomatic. The logics herein considered contain first-order quantifiers with identity, and all the formulas in the language are doubly-indexed in the proof systems, with the upper indices intuitively representing the actual or reference worlds, and the lower indices representing worlds of evaluation—first and second dimensions, respectively. The tableaux modulate (...)
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  • Singular troubles with singleton socrates.Stephan Krämer - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 103 (1):40-56.
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.
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  • From Dispositions to Possible Worlds.Daniel Kodaj - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-20.
    Dispositions (powers, potentialities) have become popular in metaphysics in recent years, and some of their proponents are advertising them as the best metaphysical grounds for modality. This project has a logical as well as an ontological side: dispositionalists offer modal and counterfactual semantics that make no use of possible worlds. I argue that, as a result of their counterfactual semantics, dispositionalists are in fact committed to entities that play the same theoretical role as possible worlds. Roughly, the claim is that (...)
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  • Propositional apriority and the nesting problem.Jens Kipper - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (5):1091-1104.
    According to the modal account of propositional apriority, a proposition is a priori if it is possible to know it with a priori justification. Assuming that modal truths are necessarily true and that there are contingent a priori truths, this account has the undesirable consequence that a proposition can be a priori in a world in which it is false. Epistemic two-dimensionalism faces the same problem, since on its standard interpretation, it also entails that a priori propositions are necessarily a (...)
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  • Hardcore Actualism and Possible Non‐Existence.Samuel Kimpton-Nye - 2018 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 7 (2):122-131.
    According to hardcore actualism (HA), all modal truths are grounded in the concrete constituents of the actual world. In this paper, I discuss some problems faced by HA when it comes to accounting for certain alleged possibilities of non‐existence. I focus particular attention on Leech (2017)'s dilemma for HA, according to which HA must either sacrifice extensional correctness or admit mere possibilia. I propose a solution to Leech's dilemma, which relies on a distinction between weak and strong possibility. It remains (...)
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  • Can Hardcore Actualism Validate S5?Samuel Kimpton-Nye - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (2):342-358.
    Hardcore actualism (HA) grounds all modal truths in the concrete constituents of the actual world (see, e.g., Borghini and Williams (2008), Jacobs (2010), Vetter (2015)). I bolster HA, and elucidate the very nature of possibility (and necessity) according to HA, by considering if it can validate S5 modal logic. Interestingly, different considerations pull in different directions on this issue. To resolve the tension, we are forced to think hard about the nature of the hardcore actualist's modal reality and how radically (...)
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  • Strongly Millian Second-Order Modal Logics.Bruno Jacinto - 2017 - Review of Symbolic Logic 10 (3):397-454.
    The most common first- and second-order modal logics either have as theorems every instance of the Barcan and Converse Barcan formulae and of their second-order analogues, or else fail to capture the actual truth of every theorem of classical first- and second-order logic. In this paper we characterise and motivate sound and complete first- and second-order modal logics that successfully capture the actual truth of every theorem of classical first- and second-order logic and yet do not possess controversial instances of (...)
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  • Serious Actualism and Higher-Order Predication.Bruno Jacinto - 2019 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 48 (3):471-499.
    Serious actualism is the prima facie plausible thesis that things couldn’t have been related while being nothing. The thesis plays an important role in a number of arguments in metaphysics, e.g., in Plantinga’s argument for the claim that propositions do not ontologically depend on the things that they are about and in Williamson’s argument for the claim that he, Williamson, is necessarily something. Salmon has put forward that which is, arguably, the most pressing challenge to serious actualists. Salmon’s objection is (...)
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  • The Ontology of Subjective Physicalism.Robert J. Howell - 2009 - Noûs 43 (2):315-345.
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  • Actuality: Scott Soames and Keith Hossack: Actuality and Modal Rationalism.Keith Hossack - 2007 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 107 (1pt3):433-456.
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  • Closure of A Priori Knowability Under A Priori Knowable Material Implication.Jan Heylen - 2015 - Erkenntnis 80 (2):359-380.
    The topic of this article is the closure of a priori knowability under a priori knowable material implication: if a material conditional is a priori knowable and if the antecedent is a priori knowable, then the consequent is a priori knowable as well. This principle is arguably correct under certain conditions, but there is at least one counterexample when completely unrestricted. To deal with this, Anderson proposes to restrict the closure principle to necessary truths and Horsten suggests to restrict it (...)
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  • Actualism and higher-order worlds.Reina Hayaki - 2003 - Philosophical Studies 115 (2):149 - 178.
    It has been argued that actualism – the view that there are no non-actual objects – cannot deal adequately with statements involving iterated modality, because such claims require reference, either explicit or surreptitious, to non-actual objects. If so, actualists would have to reject the standard semantics for quantified modal logic (QML). In this paper I develop an account of modality which allows the actualist to make sense of iterated modal claims that are ostensibly about non-actual objects. Every occurrence of a (...)
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  • The Uniqueness of Necessary Truth and the Status of S4 and S5.Marco Hausmann - 2021 - Theoria 87 (6):1635-1650.
    The aim of this paper is to relate the debate about the status of S4 and S5 as modal logics for metaphysical modality to the debate about the identity of propositions. The necessary truth of the characteristic axioms of S4 and S5 (when interpreted in terms of metaphysical modality) is derived from a view about the identity of propositions, the view that necessarily equivalent propositions are identical.
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  • The actual challenge for the ontological argument.Marco Hausmann - 2022 - Analysis 82 (2):222-230.
    Many versions of the ontological argument have two shortcomings: First, despite the arguments put forward, for example, by Hugh Chandler and Nathan Salmon, they assume that S5 is the correct modal logic for metaphysical modality. Second, despite the classical arguments put forward, for example, by David Hume and Immanuel Kant or the more recent arguments put forward, for example, by John Findlay and Richard Swinburne, they assume that necessary existence is possible. The aim of the paper is to develop an (...)
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  • Logical truth in modal languages: reply to Nelson and Zalta. [REVIEW]William H. Hanson - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 167 (2):327-339.
    Does general validity or real world validity better represent the intuitive notion of logical truth for sentential modal languages with an actuality connective? In (Philosophical Studies 130:436–459, 2006) I argued in favor of general validity, and I criticized the arguments of Zalta (Journal of Philosophy 85:57–74, 1988) for real world validity. But in Nelson and Zalta (Philosophical Studies 157:153–162, 2012) Michael Nelson and Edward Zalta criticize my arguments and claim to have established the superiority of real world validity. Section 1 (...)
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  • The Basis of Necessity and Possibility.Bob Hale - 2018 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 82:109-138.
    The article argues that modal concepts should be explained in terms of the essences or nature of things: necessarily p if, and because, there is something the nature of which ensures that p; possibly p if, and because, there is nothing whose nature rules out its being true that p. The theory is defended against various objections and difficulties, including ones arising from attributing essences to contingent individuals.
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  • The (near) necessity of alternate possibilities for moral responsibility.Richard M. Glatz - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 139 (2):257-272.
    Harry Frankfurt has famously criticized the principle of alternate possibilities—the principle that an agent is morally responsible for performing some action only if able to have done otherwise than to perform it—on the grounds that it is possible for an agent to be morally responsible for performing an action that is inevitable for the agent when the reasons for which the agent lacks alternate possibilities are not the reasons for which the agent has acted. I argue that an incompatibilist about (...)
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  • S5-denying Approach to Relativized Metaphysical Modality.Fernando Furtado - 2020 - Manuscrito 43 (1):1-40.
    This paper is organised as follows: first, I present Salmon’s theory of modality and compare it with the standard interpretation of modality: ‘the nonrelativized S5-friendly interpretation of metaphysical modality’. Second, I explain Murray and Wilson’s ‘two-dimensional S5-friendly interpretation of relativized metaphysical modality’. In the third and last part, I put forward a few arguments against Murray and Wilson’s attempt to provide an essentialist S5-friendly theory for modality. In general, this paper argues that if one wants to hold an essentialist theory (...)
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  • What is the correct logic of necessity, actuality and apriority?Peter Fritz - 2014 - Review of Symbolic Logic 7 (3):385-414.
    This paper is concerned with a propositional modal logic with operators for necessity, actuality and apriority. The logic is characterized by a class of relational structures defined according to ideas of epistemic two-dimensional semantics, and can therefore be seen as formalizing the relations between necessity, actuality and apriority according to epistemic two-dimensional semantics. We can ask whether this logic is correct, in the sense that its theorems are all and only the informally valid formulas. This paper gives outlines of two (...)
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  • In the Mood for S4: The Expressive Power of the Subjunctive Modal Language in Weak Background Logics.Rohan French - 2015 - Studia Logica 103 (2):239-263.
    Our concern here is with the extent to which the expressive equivalence of Wehmeier’s Subjunctive Modal Language and the Actuality Modal Language is sensitive to the choice of background modal logic. In particular we will show that, when we are enriching quantified modal logics weaker than S5, AML is strictly expressively stronger than SML, this result following from general considerations regarding the relationship between operators and predicate markers. This would seem to complicate arguments given in favour of SML which rely (...)
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  • Passage, becoming and the nature of temporal reality.M. Oreste Fiocco - 2007 - Philosophia 35 (1):1-21.
    I first distinguish several notions that have traditionally been conflated (or otherwise neglected) in discussions of the metaphysics of time. Thus, for example, I distinguish between the passage of time and temporal becoming. The former is, I maintain, a confused notion that does not represent a feature of the world; whereas a proper understanding of the latter provides the key for a plausible and comprehensive account of the nature of temporal reality. There are two general classes of views of the (...)
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  • Specifying Desires.Delia Graff Fara - 2012 - Noûs 47 (2):250-272.
    A report of a person's desire can be true even if its embedded clause underspecifies the content of the desire that makes the report true. It is true that Fiona wants to catch a fish even if she has no desire that is satisfied if she catches a poisoned minnow. Her desire is satisfied only if she catches an edible, meal-sized fish. The content of her desire is more specific than the propositional content of the embedded clause in our true (...)
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  • Models of Possibilism and Trivialism.Luis Estrada-González - 2012 - Logic and Logical Philosophy 21 (2):175-205.
    In this paper I probe the idea that neither possibilism nor trivialism could be ruled out on a purely logical basis. I use the apparatus of relational structures used in the semantics for modal logics to engineer some models of possibilism and trivialism and I discuss a philosophical stance about logic, truth values and the meaning of connectives underlying such analysis.
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  • Ab Esse ad Posse Non Valet Consequentia.Daniel Dohrn - 2024 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 53 (2):391-409.
    While knowledge of mere possibilities is difficult to understand, knowledge of possibilities that are actual seems unproblematic (as far as we know the actual world). The principle that what is actual is possible has been near-universally accepted. After summarizing some sporadic dissent, I present a proposal for how the validity of the principle might be restricted. While the principle certainly holds for sufficiently inclusive objective and epistemic possibilities, it may not hold when the accessibility of possibilities is contextually restricted.
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  • The Reduction of Necessity to Essence.Andreas Ditter - 2020 - Mind 129 (514):351-380.
    In `Essence and Modality', Kit Fine proposes that for a proposition to be metaphysically necessary is for it to be true in virtue of the nature of all objects whatsoever. Call this view Fine's Thesis. This paper is a study of Fine's Thesis in the context of Fine's logic of essence (LE). Fine himself has offered his most elaborate defense of the thesis in the context of LE. His defense rests on the widely shared assumption that metaphysical necessity obeys the (...)
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  • Essence and Necessity.Andreas Ditter - 2022 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 51 (3):653-690.
    What is the relation between metaphysical necessity and essence? This paper defends the view that the relation is one of identity: metaphysical necessity is a special case of essence. My argument consists in showing that the best joint theory of essence and metaphysical necessity is one in which metaphysical necessity is just a special case of essence. The argument is made against the backdrop of a novel, higher-order logic of essence, whose core features are introduced in the first part of (...)
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  • Haecceitism without individuals.Catharine Diehl - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    According to anti-individualism, the basic building blocks of the world are not individuals. The anti-individualist argues that standard, individual-entailing claims–for instance, that Theia is a cat–are mistaken in presupposing that there are individuals, but that such claims correspond to statements in a feature-placing language devoid of these presuppositions. Instead, the world is entirely made up of non-individualistic features–structurally akin to familiar examples such as it's raining or it's snowing–that are arranged in particular ways. Since features do not carve out individual (...)
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  • Possible Worlds for Modal Primitivists.Louis deRosset - 2014 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 43 (1):109-131.
    Among the most remarkable developments in metaphysics since the 1950’s is the explosion of philosophical interest in possible worlds. This paper proposes an explanation of what possible worlds are, and argues that this proposal, the interpreted models conception, should be attractive to anyone who thinks that modal facts are primitive, and so not to be explained in terms of some non-modal notion of “possible world.” I articulate three constraints on any acceptable primitivist explanation of the nature of possible worlds, and (...)
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  • Possible worlds II: Non-reductive theories of possible worlds.Louis DeRosset - 2009 - Philosophy Compass 4 (6):1009-1021.
    It is difficult to wander far in contemporary metaphysics without bumping into talk of possible worlds. And, reference to possible worlds is not confined to metaphysics. It can be found in contemporary epistemology and ethics, and has even made its way into linguistics and decision theory. What are those possible worlds, the entities to which theorists in these disciplines all appeal? Some have hoped that a theory of possible worlds can be used to reduce modality to non-modal terms. This paper (...)
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  • Possible Worlds as Propositions.Daniel Deasy - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.
    Realists about possible worlds typically identify possible worlds with abstract objects, such as propositions or properties. However, they face a significant objection due to Lewis (1986), to the effect that there is no way to explain how possible worlds-as-abstract objects represent possibilities. In this paper, I describe a response to this objection on behalf of realists. The response is to identify possible worlds with propositions, but to deny that propositions are abstract objects, or indeed objects at all. Instead, I argue (...)
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  • Ideal Reasoners don’t Believe in Zombies.Danilo Fraga Dantas - 2017 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 21 (1):41-59.
    The negative zombie argument concludes that physicalism is false from the premises that p ∧¬q is ideally negatively conceivable and that what is ideally negatively conceivable is possible, where p is the conjunction of the fundamental physical truths and laws and q is a phenomenal truth (Chalmers 2002; 2010). A sentence φ is ideally negatively conceivable iff φ is not ruled out a priori on ideal rational reflection. In this paper, I argue that the negative zombie argument is neither a (...)
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  • Is Kripke's puzzle really a puzzle?J. Angelo Corlett - 1989 - Theoria 55 (2):95-113.
    In his famous essay, "A Puzzle About Belief," Saul Kripke poses a puzzle regarding belief. In this paper I shall first describe Kripke's puzzle. Second, I shall introduce and examine five positions one might take in attempting to solve Kripke's Puzzle. In so doing, I shall show why each of these attempts fails to solve Kripke's Puzzle. The significance of this analysis is that if Kripke's Puzzle remains unresolved, then (as Kripke himself claims) the normal apparatus for belief ascription needs (...)
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  • The a Priori Truth of Modal Rationalism.Harry Cleeveley - 2022 - Philosophical Quarterly 72 (4):816-836.
    Modal rationalism is the claim that for any proposition p, if it is ideally conceivable that p, then there is a metaphysically possible world, W, in which p is true. If true, modal rationalism must itself be an a priori truth. Moreover, modal rationalism is true just if there are no strong a posteriori necessities. But are there any strong necessities? In this paper, I set out a transcendental argument to show that there cannot be any, because they are not (...)
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  • The deep incoherence of strong necessities.Harry Cleeveley - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Modal rationalism is the claim that for all p, if it is ideally conceivable that p, then there is a metaphysically possible world, W, in which p is true. This will be true just if there are no strong a posteriori necessities, where a strong necessity (for short) is a proposition that is conceivably false, but which is true in all metaphysically possible worlds. But are there any strong necessities? Various alleged examples have been proposed and argued over in the (...)
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  • Knowledge and modality.A. Casullo - 2010 - Synthese 172 (3):341 - 359.
    Kripke claims that there are necessary a posteriori truths and contingent a priori truths. These claims challenge the traditional Kantian view that (K) All knowledge of necessary truths is a priori and all a priori knowledge is of necessary truths. Kripke’s claims continue to be resisted, which indicates that the Kantian view remains attractive. My goal is to identify the most plausible principles linking the epistemic and the modal. My strategy for identifying the principles is to investigate two related questions. (...)
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  • Priority monism, dependence and fundamentality.Claudio Calosi - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (1):1-20.
    Priority monism is roughly the view that the universe is the only fundamental object, that is, a concrete object that does not depend on any other concrete object. Schaffer, the main advocate of PM, claims that PM is compatible with dependence having two different directions: from parts to wholes for subcosmic wholes, and from whole to parts for the cosmic whole. Recently it has been argued that this position is untenable. Given plausible assumptions about dependence, PM entails that dependence has (...)
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  • Metaphysical Nihilism and Modal Logic.Ethan Brauer - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (9):2751-2763.
    In this paper I argue, that if it is metaphysically possible for it to have been the case that nothing existed, then it follows that the right modal logic cannot extend D, ruling out popular modal logics S4 and S5. I provisionally defend the claim that it is possible for nothing to have existed. I then consider the various ways of resisting the conclusion that the right modal logic is weaker than D.
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  • Existentialism entails anti-haecceitism.Kenneth Boyce - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 168 (2):297-326.
    Existentialism concerning singular propositions is the thesis that singular propositions ontologically depend on the individuals they are directly about in such a way that necessarily, those propositions exist only if the individuals they are directly about exist. Haecceitism is the thesis that what non-qualitative facts there are fails to supervene on what purely qualitative facts there are. I argue that existentialism concerning singular propositions entails the denial of haecceitism and that this entailment has interesting implications for debates concerning the philosophy (...)
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  • A Response to Chisholm’s Paradox.Andrew Dennis Bassford - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (4):1137-1155.
    Essentialists suppose that for every individual, if that individual exists at any possible world, then necessarily that individual exemplifies some non-trivial qualitative property essential to it, as such. Anti-essentialists deny this. One important argument leveled by some anti-essentialists against essentialism takes the form of a thought experiment, one originally introduced by Roderick Chisholm, sometimes referred to as Chisholm's Paradox (CP). In this essay, I defend essentialism against CP. I begin by presenting the argument and showing how it leads to a (...)
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  • VIII—Vagueness at Every Order.Andrew Bacon - 2020 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 120 (2):165-201.
    There are some properties, like being bald, for which it is vague where the boundary between the things that have it and the things that do not lies. A number of arguments threaten to show that such properties can still be associated with determinate and knowable boundaries: not between the things that have it and those that don’t, but between the things such that it is borderline at some order whether they have it and the things for which it is (...)
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  • The Broadest Necessity.Andrew Bacon - 2018 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 47 (5):733-783.
    In this paper the logic of broad necessity is explored. Definitions of what it means for one modality to be broader than another are formulated, and it is proven, in the context of higher-order logic, that there is a broadest necessity, settling one of the central questions of this investigation. It is shown, moreover, that it is possible to give a reductive analysis of this necessity in extensional language. This relates more generally to a conjecture that it is not possible (...)
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  • From Possibility to Properties? Or from Properties to Possibility?Sophie R. Allen - 2017 - Philosophy 92 (1):21-49.
    This paper contrasts two metaphysical accounts of modality and properties: Modal Realism which treats possible entities as primitive; and Strong Dispositionalism in which metaphysical possibility and necessity are determined by actually existing dispositions or powers. I argue that Strong Dispositionalism loses its initial advantages of simplicity and parsimony over Modal Realism as it is extended and amended to account for metaphysical rather than just causal necessity. Furthermore, to avoid objections to its material and formal adequacy, Strong Dispositionalism requires a richer (...)
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  • Modalité et changement: δύναμις et cinétique aristotélicienne.Marion Florian - 2023 - Dissertation, Université Catholique de Louvain
    The present PhD dissertation aims to examine the relation between modality and change in Aristotle’s metaphysics. -/- On the one hand, Aristotle supports his modal realism (i.e., worldly objects have modal properties - potentialities and essences - that ground the ascriptions of possibility and necessity) by arguing that the rejection of modal realism makes change inexplicable, or, worse, banishes it from the realm of reality. On the other hand, the Stagirite analyses processes by means of modal notions (‘change is the (...)
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  • The Hole Argument.Oliver Pooley - 2021 - In Eleanor Knox & Alastair Wilson (eds.), The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Physics. New York, USA: Routledge. pp. 145-158.
    This paper reviews the hole argument as an argument against spacetime substantivalism. After a careful presentation of the argument itself, I critically review possible responses.
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