According to Crane’s schematicity thesis (ST) about intentional objects, intentionalia have no particular metaphysical nature qua thought-of entities; moreover, the real metaphysical nature of intentionalia is various, insofar as it is settled independently of the fact that intentionalia are targets of one’s thought. As I will point out, ST has the ontological consequence that the intentionalia that really belong to the general inventory of what there is, the overall domain, are those that fall under a good metaphysical kind, i.e., a (...) kind such that its members figure (for independent reasons) in such an inventory. Negatively put, if there are no things of a certain metaphysical kind, thoughts about things of that kind are not really committed to such things. Pace Crane, however, this does not mean that the intentionalia that are really there are only those that exist. For existence, qua first-order property, is no metaphysical kind. Thus, there may really be intentionalia that do not exist, provided that they belong to good metaphysical kinds. (shrink)

Abstract:In this paper I will first contend that semantically based arguments in favour of or against problematic entities—like those provided, respectively, in a realist Meinongian and in an antirealist Russellian camp—are ultimately inconclusive. Indeed, only genuinely ontological arguments, specifically addressed to prove (or to reject) the existence of entities of a definite kind, suit the purpose. Thus, I will sketch an argument intended to show that there really are entities of an apparently specific kind, i.e. intentionalia, broadly conceived as things (...) that may actually exist as well as actually not exist. Finally, I will try to explain why that argument proves the existence of only some sorts of intentionalia, by showing how this is related to the fact that, as some have correctly maintained, intentionalia have no intrinsic nature. (shrink)

The Platonic account of modality says, roughly, that truths about alien possibilities are grounded in uninstantiated universals. Recently, Ingram has raised a problem for this kind of view, which is that it apparently requires negative facts to play a truthmaking role. Ingram offers an alternative Platonic account which makes use of modal instantiation relations. In this paper, I highlight some of the costs of Ingram’s new account and argue that a more appealing version of Platonism—and modal theory in general—is one (...) that is supplemented with an ontology of totality facts. (shrink)

If to be is to be the value of a bound variable, then the acknowledgment and denial of the existence of chairs amounts to a serious disagreement about the range of a quantifier. However, by resorting to the intrinsic hierarchical structure of hi-world semantics, we find that the varying of domains from worlds to worlds can actually be accommodated within a unified framework. With the introduction of a universal domain D of hi-individuals and an existence predicate E that serves as (...) a realization operator, a new semantics for quantified modal logic is proposed. It allows individual variables to range over individuals in different levels of a hi-world, and is indifferent to the ontological debate about the existence of chairs. (shrink)

The grounding relation is routinely characterized by means of logical postulates. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, I show that a subset of those postulates is incompatible with a minimal characterization of metaphysical modality. Then I consider a number of ways for reconciling ground with modality. The simplest and most elegant solution consists in adopting serious actualism, which is best captured within a first-order modal language with predicate abstraction governed by negative free logic. I also explore a number (...) of alternative strategies by revising the ground-theoretic postulates, while keeping the modal ones fixed. As I argue, each of those strategies is either unviable, highly contentious, or insufficiently motivated. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson thinks that every object is a necessary, eternal existent. In defense of his view, Williamson appeals primarily to considerations from modal and tense logic. While I am uncertain about his modal claims, I think there are good metaphysical reasons to believe permanentism: the principle that everything always exists. B-theorists of time and change have long denied that objects change with respect to unqualified existence. But aside from Williamson, nearly all A-theorists defend temporaryism: the principle that there are temporary (...) existents. I think A-theorists are better off without this added commitment, but I will not argue for that in any great detail here. Instead, I will contend that a very tempting A-theoretic argument for temporaryism is unsound. In the first half of the paper, I will develop the Moorean “common sense” argument for temporaryism and dispute its central premise, namely that temporaryism is a valid generalization from highly plausible beliefs about change. I will argue that given the pervasive vagueness in our ordinary beliefs about change and the background commitments of all A-theories, no party can claim to be the common sense view because no party can accommodate most of our common sense beliefs about change in existence. In the second half of the paper, I will propose a permanentist A-theory that explains all change over time as a species of property change. I call it the minimal A-theory, since it dispenses with the change in existence assumption. As we'll see, the permanentist alternative performs well enough in explaining our ordinary beliefs about change, and it has better prospects for answering some objections commonly levied against A-theories. (shrink)

A‐theorists of time postulate a deep distinction between the present, past and future. Settling on an appropriate logic for such a view is no easy matter. This Philosophy Compass article describes one of the most vexing formal problems facing A‐theorists. It is commonly thought that A‐theories can only be formally expressed in a tense logic: a logic with operators like P and F . And it seems natural to think that we live in a world where objects come to exist (...) and cease to exist as time passes. Indeed, this is typically a key component of the most prominent kind of A‐theory, presentism. But the temporary existence assumption cannot be upheld in any tense logic with a standard quantification theory. I will explain the problem and outline the philosophical and logical considerations that generate it. I will then consider two possible solutions to the problem – one that targets our logic of quantification and one that targets our assumptions about change. I survey the costs of each solution. (shrink)

The paper is concerned with the existence of objective uncertainties. What would it take for objective uncertainties to exist, and what would be the consequences for our understanding of the world we live in? We approach these questions by considering two common theories on how we are to understand the being of propensities and how it pertains to possible outcomes that remain unmanifested. It is argued that both or these theories should be rejected, and be replaced with a theory we (...) call unrestricted actualism according to which the possible outcomes of propensities are denizens of the actual world. (shrink)

I discuss Stalnaker’s views on modality. In particular, his views on actualism, anti-essentialism, counterpart theory, and the Barcan formulas.

Timothy Williamson has argued for the radical conclusion that everything necessarily exists. In this paper, I assume that the conclusion of Williamson’s argument is more incredible than the denial of his premises. Under the assumption that Williamson is mistaken, I argue for the claim that there are some structured propositions which have constituents that might not have existed. If those constituents had not existed, then the propositions would have had an unfilled role; they would have been gappy. This gappy propositions (...) view allows for a plausible response to Williamson’s argument. Additionally, a slight variant of the gappy propositions view allows for plausible defense of Linguistic Ersatzism from the problem of contingent non-existents (also known as the problem of aliens). (shrink)

Hybrid contingentism combines first-order contingentism, the view that it is contingent what individuals there are, with higher-order necessitism, the view that it is non-contingent what properties and propositions there are (where these are conceived as entities in the range of appropriate higher-order quantifiers). This combination of views avoids the most delicate problems afflicting alternative contingentist positions while preserving the central contingentist claim that ordinary, concrete entities exist contingently. Despite these attractive features, hybrid contingentism is usually faced with rejection. The main (...) reason for this is an objection that crucially involves haecceitistic properties, properties such as being identical to Plato or being identical to Aristotle. The objection alleges that by accepting the necessary existence of such haecceities, hybrid contingentists incur an explanatory commitment that they are unable to discharge, namely that of explaining how it is that certain haecceities ‘lock onto’ their target individuals even when those individuals are absent. To defend hybrid contingentism against this charge, I first clarify the haecceities objection in several respects and consider, in particular, what notion of explanation the objection is operating with. After arguing that it can be fruitfully understood as a challenge to provide metaphysical grounds for certain haecceity facts, I develop a contingentist response to the objection that draws on recent work on the connection between ground and essence. (shrink)

This note is to show that a well-known point about David Lewis’s (1986) modal realism applies to Timothy Williamson’s (1998; 2002) theory of necessary existents as well.1 Each theory, together with certain “recombination” principles, generates individuals too numerous to form a set. The simplest version of the argument comes from Daniel Nolan (1996).2 Assume the following recombination principle: for each cardinal number, ν, it’s possible that there exist ν nonsets. Then given Lewis’s modal realism it follows that there can be (...) no set of all (that is, Absolutely All) the nonsets. For suppose for reductio that there were such a set, A; let ν be A’s cardinality; and let µ be any cardinal number larger than ν. By the recombination principle, it’s possible that there exist µ nonsets; by modal realism, there exists a possible world containing, as parts, µ nonsets; each of these nonsets is a member of A. (shrink)

According to Timothy Williamson, we should accept the simplest and most powerful second-order modal logic, and as a result accept an ontology of "bare possibilia". This general method for extracting ontology from logic is salutary, but its application in this case depends on a questionable assumption: that modality is a fundamental feature of the world.

The counterpart theorist has a problem: there is no obvious way to understand talk about actuality in terms of counterparts. Fara and Williamson have charged that this obstacle cannot be overcome. Here I defend the counterpart theorist by offering systematic interpretations of a quantified modal language that includes an actuality operator. Centrally, I disentangle the counterpart relation from a related notion, a ‘representation relation’. The relation of possible things to the actual things they represent is variable, and an adequate account (...) of modal language must keep track of the way it is systematically shifted by modal operators. I apply my account to resolve several puzzles about counterparts and actuality. In technical appendices, I prove some important logical results about this ‘representational’ counterpart system and its relationship to other modal systems. (shrink)

Naturalized metaphysics is based on the idea that philosophy should be guided by the sciences. The paradigmatic science that is relevant for metaphysics is physics because physics tells us what fundamental reality is ultimately like. There are other sciences, however, that de facto play a role in philosophical inquiries about what there is, one of them being the science of language, i.e. linguistics. In this paper I will be concerned with the question what role linguistics should and does play for (...) the metametaphysical question of how our views about fundamental reality can be reconciled with the everyday truisms about what there is. I will present several examples of two kinds of approaches to this question, linguistics-based accounts and purely philosophical accounts, and will discuss their respective methodological merits and shortcomings. In the end I will argue that even proponents of a purely philosophical answer to the metametaphysical question should take the results of linguistics seriously. (shrink)

The paper deals with cases of counting things that could exist but do not actually exist that resist common strategies for actualist paraphrases and that play an important role in motivating Timothy Williamson's ontology of contingently concrete objects. It is argued that these cases should be understood as cases of quantification not over individual possible objects but rather over kinds of objects, some of which do not actually have instances. This claim is motivated by a comparison with other cases of (...) natural-language quantification with a similar logical form that, in any case, have to be interpreted as involving quantification over kinds of things even if their surface structure seems to suggest otherwise. (shrink)

According to Essentialism, an object’s properties divide into those that are essential and those that are accidental. While being human is commonly thought to be essential to Socrates, being a philosopher plausibly is not. We can motivate the distinction by appealing—as we just did—to examples. However, it is not obvious how best to characterize the notion of essential property, nor is it easy to give conclusive arguments for the essentiality of a given property. In this paper, I elaborate on these (...) issues and explore the way in which essential properties behave in relation to other related properties, like sufficient-for-existence properties and individual essences. (shrink)

Pace Necessitism – roughly, the view that existence is not contingent – essential properties provide necessary conditions for the existence of objects. Sufficiency properties, by contrast, provide sufficient conditions, and individual essences provide necessary and sufficient conditions. This paper explains how these kinds of properties can be used to illuminate the ontological status of merely possible objects and to construct a respectable possibilist ontology. The paper also reviews two points of interaction between essentialism and modal logic. First, we will briefly (...) see the challenge that arises against S4 from flexible essential properties; as well as the moves available to block it. After this, the emphasis is put on the Barcan Formula (BF), and on why it is problematic for essentialists. As we will see, Necessitism can accommodate both (BF) and essential properties. What necessitists cannot do at the same time is to continue to understanding essential properties as providing necessary conditions for the existence of individuals; against what might be for some a truism. (shrink)

On its usual interpretation, the Barcan Formula—◊∃_xB_ → ∃_x_◊_B_—says that, if there could have been something that is such and such a way, then there is something that could have been that way. It is traditionally held that contingentist actualists should—indeed, must—reject the Barcan Formula. I argue that contingentist actualists should—indeed, must—endorse the Barcan Formula, at least assuming a standard, Tarskian conception of truth and truth preservation. I end by proposing a logic for contingentist actualists that validates the Barcan Formula. (...) This logic has the surprising feature of also validating the Converse Barcan Formula, □∀_xB_ → ∀_x_□_B_, while still invalidating related formulas—such as □∀_x_□∃_y x_ = _y_ (NNE)—that contingentist actualists should reject. It does this by employing models with fixed domains but assignments to the identity predicate that vary across worlds. (shrink)

I argue for the possibility of hypergunk: that is, it is possible that there exists an x such that every part of x has a proper part and, for any set S of parts of x, there is a set S′ of parts of...

As Price (2009) famously mused, if a philosopher were to be magically transported, perhaps through means of time travel, from the 1950s to the modern day, they would indeed be shocked by the resurgence of metaphysics in the analytic tradition. Most of all, perhaps, they would be shocked by the popularity of power metaphysics. What a strange item to have in a philosopher’s curriculum, they might think: after all, didn’t David Hume claim that “[t]here are no ideas which can occur (...) in metaphysics more obscure and uncertain than those of power, force, energy, or necessary connection”? Indeed, much has changed since then. At the pain of using overly vague terminology, we can call “power metaphysics” the subdiscipline of metaphysics interested in the development and evaluation of a family of positions which we will refer to under the umbrella term of “dispositionalism”. According to dispositionalists, the world we inhabit is also populated by genuine and irreducible powers, dispositions, and capacities of objects. (shrink)

Karen Bennett has recently argued that the views articulated by Linsky and Zalta (Philos Perspect 8:431–458, 1994) and (Philos Stud 84:283–294, 1996) and Plantinga (The nature of necessity, 1974) are not consistent with the thesis of actualism, according to which everything is actual. We present and critique her arguments. We first investigate the conceptual framework she develops to interpret the target theories. As part of this effort, we question her definition of ‘proxy actualism’. We then discuss her main arguments that (...) the theories carry a commitment to actual entities that do not exist. We end by considering and addressing a worry that might have been the driving force behind Bennett’s claim that Linsky and Zalta’s view is not fully actualistic. (shrink)

This article surveys some of the key issues that arise when one tries to use tense logic as a metaphysical theory of the nature of time. Topics discussed include basic tense logic, tense logic and verb tense, the structure of the time series, instants of time, quantified tense logic, and the expressive resources of tense logic.

Fara and Williamson (Mind, 2005) argue that counterpart theory is unable to account for modal claims that use an actuality operator. This paper argues otherwise. Rather than provide a different counterpart translation of the actuality operator itself, the solution presented here starts out with a quantified modal logic in which the actuality operator is redundant, and then translates the sentences of this logic into claims of counterpart theory.

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 (...) whether the Barcan formulas are part of the metalogic. The main result is that, with the Barcan formulas, formulating a modal metatheory is easy; principles of classical semantics transfer over smoothly with natural adaptations to the modal setting. Without the Barcan formulas, it seems to be much harder. Several options are considered, but each involves commitments plausibly in tension with the underlying philosophical motivations for rejecting them. (shrink)

This paper presents structural similarities and historical connections between Prior’s rejection of the Barcan formula and his critique of Berkeley’s master argument for idealism in his 1955 paper “Berkeley in Logical Form”. Making use of Mackie’s paper “Self-Refutation—A Formal Analysis”, it concludes with some suggestions concerning what is at stake in the debate between Prior and Berkeley and in structurally similar debates such as whether to accept the Barcan formula.

Pure mathematical truths are commonly thought to be metaphysically necessary. Assuming the truth of pure mathematics as currently pursued, and presupposing that set theory serves as a foundation of pure mathematics, this article aims to provide a metaphysical explanation of why pure mathematics is metaphysically necessary.

When some objects are the parts of another object, they compose that object and that object is composite. This article is intended as an introduction to the central questions about composition and a highly selective overview of various answers to those questions. In §1, we review some formal features of parthood that are important for understanding the nature of composition. In §2, we consider some answers to the question: which pluralities of objects together compose something? As we will see, the (...) dominant answers are all of them and none of them. In §§3-4, we examine one of the main arguments that has driven philosophers to these extreme answers: the argument from vagueness. In §5, we turn to the question of whether composition is unique: is it sometimes the case that some things compose more than one thing? Finally, in §6, we turn from the question of which composites exist to the question of which composites exist fundamentally. (shrink)

The sample space of the chance distribution at a given time is a class of possible worlds. Thanks to this connection between chance and modality, one’s views about modal space can have significant consequences in the theory of chance and can be evaluated in part by how plausible these implications are. I apply this methodology to evaluate certain forms of modal contingentism, the thesis that some facts about what is possible are contingent. Any modal contingentist view that meets certain conditions (...) that I specify generates difficulties in the philosophy of chance, including a problem usually associated with Humeanism that is known as ‘the problem of undermining futures’. I consider two well-known versions of modal contingentism that face this difficulty. The first version, proposed by Hugh Chandler and Nathan Salmon, rests on an argument for the claim that many individuals have their modal features contingently. The second version is motivated by the thesis that the existence of a possible world depends on the existence of the contingent individuals inhabiting it, and that many worlds are therefore contingent existents. (shrink)

Substantive counterlegal discourse poses a problem for those according to whom the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. I discern two types of necessitarianism about laws: dispositional essentialism and modal necessitarianism. I argue that Toby Handfield’s response to the problem of counterlegals cannot help the modal necessitarian, according to whom all possible worlds are identical with respect to the laws. I thus propose a fictionalist treatment of counterlegals. Fictions are not limited by metaphysical possibility; hence, fictionalism affords the modal necessitarian (...) the means to account for the apparent substance of counterlegals even granting the metaphysical necessity of the laws. (shrink)

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 (...) this departs from possible worlds orthodoxy. Once we achieve this departure, the prospects of a hardcore actualist validation of S5 look considerably brighter. This paper thus strengthens hardcore actualism by arguing that it can indeed validate S5–arguably the most popular logic of metaphysical modality–and, in the process, it elucidates the very nature of modality according to this revisionary, but very attractive, modal metaphysics. (shrink)

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 (...) the Barcan and Converse Barcan formulae as theorems, nor of their second-order analogues. What makes possible these results is an understanding of the individual constants and predicates of the target languages as strongly Millian expressions, where a strongly Millian expression is one that has an actually existing entity as its semantic value. For this reason these logics are called ‘strongly Millian’. It is shown that the strength of the strongly Millian second-order modal logics here characterised afford the means to resist an argument by Timothy Williamson for the truth of the claim that necessarily, every property necessarily exists. (shrink)

This paper examines the logic of fictions within fictions. I argue that consistently nested consistent fictions must have certain formal characteristics. The most important is that they form a tree structure. Depending on one’s theory of fictional objects, additional constraints may apply regarding the appearance of a fictional object in two or more fictional universes. The background motivation for the paper is to use iterated fiction operators as a tool for making sense of iterated modal operators; I conclude by noting (...) briefly where the results about nested fictions can, and where they cannot, be extended to nested possible worlds. (shrink)

It has been argued by Bernard Linsky and Edward Zalta, and independently by Timothy Williamson, that the best quantified modal logic is one that validates both the Barcan Formula and its converse. This requires that domains be fixed across all possible worlds. All objects exist necessarily; some – those we would usually consider contingent – are concrete at some worlds and non-concrete (but still existent) at others. Linsky and Zalta refer to such objects as ‘contingently non-concrete’. I defend the standard (...) usage of the word ‘exists’, and the view that many objects exist only contingently. I argue that the Linsky/Zalta analysis, and to a lesser extent Williamson’s, suffers not only from a peculiar ontology but also from two related formal difficulties. Their analysis gives either counter-intuitive or ad hoc results about essences, and it fails to accommodate contingently existing abstracta. (shrink)

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 (...) modal operator involves the stipulation of a possible world, and nested modal operators require stipulation of nested possible worlds. I provide an actualistically acceptable (AA) semantics for QML wherein the nesting relation is irreflexive and intransitive and forms a tree. Despite these restrictions, AA models can beshown to be sound and complete for a wide variety of modal logics. (shrink)

We argue that certain modal questions raise serious problems for a modal metaphysics on which we are permitted to quantify unrestrictedly over all possibilia. In particular, we argue that, on reasonable assumptions, both David Lewis's modal realism and Timothy Williamson's necessitism are saddled with the remarkable conclusion that there is some cardinal number of the form ℵα such that there could not be more than ℵα-many angels in existence. In the last section, we make use of similar ideas to draw (...) a moral for a recent debate in meta-ontology. (shrink)

This paper presents a new argument for necessitism, the claim that necessarily everything is necessarily something. The argument appeals to principles about the metaphysics of quantification and predication which are best seen as constraints on reality’s fineness of grain. I give this argument in section 4; the impatient reader may skip directly there. Sections 1-3 set the stage by surveying three other arguments for necessitism. I argue that none of them are persuasive, but I think it is illuminating to consider (...) my argument in light of the others and vice versa. These interconnections should be of interest even to those who reject necessitism; of particular interest may be the new conception of validity proposed in section 5. (shrink)

Sententialism is the view that intensional positions in natural languages occur within clausal complements only. According to proponents of this view, intensional transitive verbs such as 'want', 'seek' or 'resemble' are actually propositional attitude verbs in disguise. I argue that 'conceive' cannot fit this mould: conceiving-of is not reducible to conceiving-that. I offer a new diagnosis of where Berkeley's 'master argument' goes astray, analysing what is odd about saying that Hylas conceives a tree which is not conceived. A sententialist semantics (...) cannot account for the absurdity in attitude ascriptions of this type: we need to acknowledge irreducibly non-propositional conceiving. (shrink)

Quantified modal logic has reputation for complexity. Completeness results for the various systems appear piecemeal. Different tactics are used for different systems, and success of a given method seems sensitive to many factors, including the specific combination of choices made for the quantifiers, terms, identity, and the strength of the underlying propositional modal logic. The lack of a unified framework in which to view QMLs and their completeness properties puts pressure on those who develop, apply, and teach QML to work (...) with the simplest systems, namely those that adopt the Barcan Formulas and predicate logic rules for the quantifiers. In these systems, the quantifier ranges over a fixed domain of possible individuals, so advocates of these logics are sometimes called possibilists. A literature has grown up rationalizing the choice of possibilist logics despite ordinary intuitions that the resulting theorems are too strong.Williamson even takes the view that the complications to be faced within the weaker logics “are a warning sign of philosophical error”. It is the purpose of this paper to show that abandonment of the weaker QMLs is excessively fainthearted, since most QMLs can be given relatively simple formulations within one general framework. Given the straightforward nature of the systems and their completeness results, the purported complications evaporate, along with any philosophical warnings one might have associated with them. (shrink)

In this article I defend a form of classical possibilism with an actualist foundation. As a matter of fact, I believe that this position is more in keeping with the classical metaphysical tradition. According to this form of possibilism, I construe possible objects as possible non-existing objects of an existing producing power. Consequently, they are nothing vis-à -vis the modality of their own actual being, although they do exist with regard to the modality of the producing power’s being. The actualist (...) requirement prescribed by the Frege-Quinean criterion of the quantification domain is thus fulfilled; indeed, really possible objects are not actual objects, but their possibility is actual. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to provide a new system of logic for existence and essence, in which the traditional distinctions between essential and accidental properties, abstract and concrete objects, and actually existent and possibly existent objects are described and related in a suitable way. In order to accomplish this task, a primitive relation of essential identity between different objects is introduced and connected to a first order existence property and a first order abstractness property. The basic idea is (...) that possibly existent objects are completely determinate and that essentially identical objects are just different individuations of the same individual essence. Accordingly, essential properties are defined as properties that are invariant with respect to this kind of identity, while abstract objects are determined by being characterized by essential properties only. Once such ideas are implemented, a number of classical intuitions about objects, their essence, and their way of existence can be consistently interpreted. (shrink)

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 (...) upon its being expressively equivalent to AML. (shrink)

I attempt to meet some criticisms that Williamson makes of my attempt to carry out Prior's project of reducing possibility discourse to actualist discourse.

Here I propose a coherent way of preserving the identity of material objects with the matter that constitutes them. The presentation is formal, and intended for RSL. An informal presentation is in preliminary draft! -/- Relative-sameness relations—such as being the same person as—are like David Lewis's "counterpart" relations in the following respects: (i) they may hold between objects that aren't identical (I propose), and (ii) there are a multiplicity of them, different ones of which may be variously invoked in different (...) contexts. They differ from counterpart relations, however, in that they are weak equivalence relations (transitive, symmetric and weakly reflexive). The likenesses to counterpart relations make them suitable for an analysis of de-re temporal and modal predications. The difference renders the resulting counterpart theory immune to standard criticisms of Lewis's Counterpart Theory (e.g., in Hazen 1979, and Fara and Williamson 2005). (shrink)

Many philosophers, following David Lewis, believe that we should look to counterpart theory, not quantified modal logic, as a means of understanding modal discourse. We argue that this is a mistake. Significant parts of modal discourse involve either implicit or explicit reference to what is actually the case, raising the question of how talk about actuality is to be represented counterpart-theoretically. By considering possible modifications of Lewis's counterpart theory, including actual modifications due to Graeme Forbes and Murali Ramachandran, we argue (...) that no coherent version of counterpart theory can provide a plausible representation of talk about actuality, and so, we conclude, counterpart theory should be rejected. (shrink)