Kit Fine; XIV*—Ontological Dependence, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 95, Issue 1, 1 June 1995, Pages 269–290, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristote.

This book is a defense of modal realism; the thesis that our world is but one of a plurality of worlds, and that the individuals that inhabit our world are only a few out of all the inhabitants of all the worlds. Lewis argues that the philosophical utility of modal realism is a good reason for believing that it is true.

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

The principle of modal ubiquity - that every truth is necessary or contingent - and the validity of possibility introduction, are principles that any modal theory suffers for failing to accommodate. Advanced modal claims are modal claims about entities other than spatiotemporally unified individuals (perhaps, then, spatiotemporally disunified individuals, sets, numbers, properties, propositions and events). I show that genuine modal realism, as it has thus far been explicitly developed, and in so far as it deals with advanced modal claims, cannot (...) accommodate the principles in question. On behalf of the genuine modal realist I motivate and propose a redundancy interpretation of advanced possibility claims and extend that interpretation to the cognate cases of necessity, impossibility and contingency. I then show that the problematic principles as they apply to advanced modal claims can be derived from these interpretations. I show further how the proposed interpretation enables the genuine modal realist to deal with a number of objections that centre on the alleged inadequacy of the genuine modal realist's expressive resources. I conclude that genuine modal realism emerges the stronger for having been shown capable of dealing with advanced modal claims on the basis of no conceptual and ontological resources beyond those it requires to deal with ordinary modal claims. (shrink)

This dissertation attempts to explain the ontological ground of modality, and the source of our knowledge of modal facts. The standard accounts of modal metaphysics, possible world theories, can explain neither the truth of modal concepts nor how we could come to know them. The concept of a possible world is as coherent as the concept of a set of all truths, and such sets are ultimately paradoxical. If no other account of modality can be given, then recent philosophical advances (...) using modal concepts are simply apparent ones. ;As an alternative, I advocate a return to the Aristotelian notion of essence. Essences are the properties that comprise the real definitions of things. Every natural kind has an essence that is not simply a reflection of our interests, but is an objective feature of reality. These essences comprise the real natures of the members of the kind, and in turn determine what is necessary, impossible, or possible for a thing of that kind. ;Knowing what is necessary or possible requires that one know the essences of natural kinds, which is the real goal of science. We can formulate hypotheses concerning kinds and their essences, and test them for their explanatory and predictive value. ;Essentialism is not anti-empirical as it is often portrayed. We do not begin with a concept of the essential, and force experience to fit our preconceptions. Instead, we begin with a hypothesis about what constitutes a kind, and study that kind to find the most likely candidates for its essential properties. As these hypotheses are tested and revised, we know increasingly more about the nature of things. As we come to know more about how things are, we come to know more about how they must be. Increased knowledge of such necessities, in turn, brings increased knowledge of possibilities. Essentialism, then, is not the stagnant doctrine that it is often portrayed to be, but the real window to the range of possibilities before us. (shrink)