Results for 'Hybrid Modal Realism'

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  1. Realizm modalny i okresy warunkowe z niemożliwymi poprzednikami [Modal Realism and Counterpossibles].Maciej Sendłak - 2014 - Filozofia Nauki 22 (4).
    To solve the problem of counterpossibles, many philosophers have been arguing that one needs to invoke impossible worlds. This extension of the ontology of modality should save the analysis of counterfactuals from being insensitive to the problem of counterpossibles. Since theories of impossible worlds are extensions of original accounts of modalities, it is worth stressing that proper analyses of counterpossibles should not weaken the latter.In this paper I argue that these theories of impossible wolrds, which are based on D. Lewis' (...)
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  2. (1 other version)Impossible worlds and propositions: Against the parity thesis.Francesco Berto - 2010 - Philosophical Quarterly 60 (240):471-486.
    Accounts of propositions as sets of possible worlds have been criticized for conflating distinct impossible propositions. In response to this problem, some have proposed to introduce impossible worlds to represent distinct impossibilities, endorsing the thesis that impossible worlds must be of the same kind; this has been called the parity thesis. I show that this thesis faces problems, and propose a hybrid account which rejects it: possible worlds are taken as concrete Lewisian worlds, and impossibilities are represented as set-theoretic (...)
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  3. Modal Realism and Anthropic Reasoning.Mario Gómez-Torrente - 2024 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 102 (4):925-938.
    Some arguments against David Lewis’s modal realism seek to exploit apparent inconsistencies between it and anthropic reasoning. A recent argument, in particular, seeks to exploit an inconsistency between modal realism and typicality anthropic premises, premises common in the literature on physical multiverses, to the effect that observers who are like human observers in certain respects must be typical in the relevant multiverse. Here I argue that typicality premises are not applicable to the description of Lewis’s metaphysical (...)
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  4. Genuine modal realism and the empty world.David Efird & Tom Stoneham - 2005 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 1 (1):21-37.
    We argue that genuine modal realism can be extended, rather than modified, so as to allow for the possibility of nothing concrete, a possibility we term ‘metaphysical nihilism’. The issue should be important to the genuine modal realist because, not only is metaphysical nihilism itself intuitively plausible, but also it is supported by an argument with pre-theoretically credible premises, namely, the subtraction argument. Given the soundness of the subtraction argument, we show that there are two ways that (...)
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  5. Modal Realism and the PSR.Tarik Tijanovic - 2024 - In Yannic Kappes, Asya Passinsky, Julio De Rizzo & Benjamin Schnieder, Facets of Reality — Contemporary Debates. Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. pp. 772-779.
    Peter Van Inwagen argues that The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) either leads to contradiction or it leads to necessitarianism. Although I agree with Van Inwagen that the relationship between the PSR and necessitarianism is close, I argue that the PSR is compatible with innocent versions of necessitarianism. In this project my main argument is that modal realism can account for the PSR and integrate it within an innocent version of necessitarianism. My main claim will be that each (...)
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  6. Extended Modal Realism — a New Solution to the Problem of Intentional Inexistence.Andrew D. Thomas - 2020 - Philosophia 48 (3):1197-1208.
    Kriegel described the problem of intentional inexistence as one of the ‘perennial problems of philosophy’, 307–340, 2007: 307). In the same paper, Kriegel alluded to a modal realist solution to the problem of intentional inexistence. However, Kriegel does not state by name who defends the kind of modal realist solution he has in mind. Kriegel also points out that even what he believes to be the strongest version of modal realism does not pass the ‘principle of (...)
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  7. The limits of classical mereology: Mixed fusions and the failures of mereological hybridism.Joshua Kelleher - 2020 - Dissertation, The University of Queensland
    In this thesis I argue against unrestricted mereological hybridism, the view that there are absolutely no constraints on wholes having parts from many different logical or ontological categories, an exemplar of which I take to be ‘mixed fusions’. These are composite entities which have parts from at least two different categories – the membered (as in classes) and the non-membered (as in individuals). As a result, mixed fusions can also be understood to represent a variety of cross-category summation such as (...)
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  8. MODAL REALISM AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS: THE CASE OF ISLAND UNIVERSES.Martin Vacek - 2013 - Filozofia 68 (10).
    The paper outlines and immediately discusses the so-called ‘soft’ impossibility, i.e., non-logical impossibility generated by modal realism. It will be shown that although in a particular case genuine modal realism, straightforwardly applied, deems impossible a proposition that other philosophers have claimed to be (intuitively) possible, there is a variety of methodologically acceptable moves available in order to avoid the problem. The impossibility at issue is the existence of island universes. Given the Lewisian analysis there are three (...)
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  9. The Modal (Realist) Ontological Argument.Joshua Sijuwade - 2022 - Philosophy and Theology 34 (1):203-264.
    This article aims to provide a new ontological argument for the existence of God. A specific ‘modal’ version of the ontological argument—termed the Modal Realist Ontological Argument—is formulated within the modal realist metaphysical framework of David K. Lewis, Kris McDaniel and Philip Bricker. Formulating this argument within this specific framework will enable the plausibility of its central premise (i.e., the ‘Possibility Premise’) to be established, and allow one to affirm the soundness of the argument—whilst warding off two (...)
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  10. (1 other version)Theistic Modal Realism I: The Challenge of Theistic Actualism.Michael Almeida - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (7):e12419.
    The main aim in the forthcoming discussion is to contrast theistic modal realism and theistic actualist realism. Actualist realism is the dominant view among theists and presents the most serious challenge to theistic modal realism. I discuss various prominent forms of theistic actualist realism. I offer reasons for rejecting the view of metaphysical reality that actualist realism affords. I discuss theistic modal realism and show that the traditional conception of God (...)
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  11. Modal Realism, Counterpart Theory, and Unactualized Possibilities.Joseph A. Baltimore - 2014 - Metaphysica 15 (1):209–217.
    It is a commonsense thesis that unactualized possibilities are not parts of actuality. To keep his modal realism in line with this thesis, David Lewis employed his indexical account of the term “actual.” I argue that the addition of counterpart theory to Lewis’s modal realism undermines his strategy for respecting the commonsense thesis. The case made here also reveals a problem for Lewis’s attempt to avoid haecceitism.
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  12. Modal realism, still at your convenience.Harold Noonan & Mark Jago - 2017 - Analysis 77 (2):299-303.
    Divers presents a set of de re modal truths which, he claims, are inconvenient for Lewisean modal realism. We argue that there is no inconvenience for Lewis.
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  13. Against Lewisian Modal Realism from a Metaontological Point of View.Tora Koyama - 2017 - Philosophia 45 (3):1207-1225.
    Modal realism is an ontological position made familiar by David Lewis, according to which there exist possible worlds other than the actual world that we inhabit. It is hard to uphold modal realism, and indeed modal realism has only a few advocates. However, as most contemporary metaphysicians agree, this does not mean that it is easy to refute modal realism. In this paper, I argue against modal realism from a metaontological (...)
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  14. Lewis' Modal Realism and Absence Causation.Joseph A. Baltimore - 2011 - Metaphysica 12 (2):117-124.
    A major criticism of David Lewis’ counterfactual theory of causation is that it allows too many things to count as causes, especially since Lewis allows, in addition to events, absences to be causes as well. Peter Menzies has advanced this concern under the title “the problem of profligate causation.” In this paper, I argue that the problem of profligate causation provides resources for exposing a tension between Lewis’ acceptance of absence causation and his modal realism. The result is (...)
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  15. Modal Realism, Still At Your Convenience.Mark Jago & Harold Noonan - 2016 - Analysis:anx037.
    Divers (2014) presents a set of de re modal truths which, he claims, are inconvenient for Lewisean modal realism. We argue that there is no inconvenience for Lewis.
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  16. Against Yagisawa's modal realism.Mark Jago - 2013 - Analysis 73 (1):10-17.
    In his book Worlds and Individuals, Possible and Otherwise (2010), Takashi Yagisawa presents and argues for a novel and imaginative version of modal realism. It differs both from Lewis’s modal realism (Lewis 1986) and from actualists’ ersatz accounts (Adams 1974; Sider 2002). In this paper, I’ll present two arguments, each of which shows that Yagisawa’s metaphysics is incoherent. The first argument shows that the combination of Yagisawa’s metaphysics with impossibilia leads to triviality: every sentence whatsoever comes (...)
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  17. Cross-World Comparatives for Modal Realists.Robert Michels - 2018 - Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 25 (3):368-391.
    Divers (2014) argues that a Lewisian theory of modality which includes both counterpart theory and modal realism cannot account for the truth of certain intuitively true modal sentences involving cross-world comparatives. The main purpose of this paper is to defend the Lewisian theory against Divers’s challenge by developing a response strategy based on a degree-theoretic treatment of comparatives and by showing that this treatment is compatible with the theory.
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  18. (1 other version)Theistic modal realism?Michael Almeida - 2011 - Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 3:1-15.
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  19. On the Humphrey Objection to Modal Realism.Michael De - 2018 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 95 (2):159-179.
    An intuitive objection to modal realism is that merely possible worlds and their inhabitants seem to be irrelevant to an analysis of modality. Kripke originally phrased the objection in terms of being concerned about one’s modal properties without being concerned about the properties one’s other-worldly counterparts have. The author assesses this objection in a variety of forms, and then provides his own formulation that does not beg the question against the modal realist. Finally, the author considers (...)
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  20. 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 (...)
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  21. Modal realism: The poisoned pawn.Fabrizio Mondadori & Adam Morton - 1976 - Philosophical Review 85 (1):3-20.
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  22. David Lewis on Ways Things Might Be: An Examination of Modal Realism through Lewis’s Correspondence.A. R. J. Fisher - 2024 - Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 80 (4):1059-1080.
    David Lewis is widely known for maintaining the bizarre thesis known as genuine modal realism (hereafter, modal realism). He argued for modal realism on grounds of serviceability in On the Plurality of Worlds. However, earlier in Counterfactuals, he proposed a different kind of argument: from talk of ways things might be to possible worlds. In this paper, I examine the evolution of the latter argument in Lewis’s thought and evaluate its place in his overall (...)
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  23. How to Be a Modal Realist.Cian Dorr - manuscript
    This paper investigates the form a modal realist analysis of possibility and necessity should take. It concludes that according to the best version of modal realism, the notion of a world plays no role in the analysis of modal claims. All contingent claims contain some de re element; the effect of modal operators on these elements is described by a counterpart theory which takes the same form whether the de re reference is to a world (...)
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  24. Spread Worlds, Plenitude and Modal Realism: A Problem for David Lewis.Charles Pigden & Rebecca E. B. Entwisle - 2012 - In James Maclaurin, Rationis Defensor: Essays in Honour of Colin Cheyne. Springer.
    In his metaphysical summa of 1986, The Plurality of Worlds, David Lewis famously defends a doctrine he calls ‘modal realism’, the idea that to account for the fact that some things are possible and some things are necessary we must postulate an infinity possible worlds, concrete entities like our own universe, but cut off from us in space and time. Possible worlds are required to account for the facts of modality without assuming that modality is primitive – that (...)
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  25. Modal Realism and Coincident Objects. [REVIEW]F. Sohani - manuscript
    Imagine two objects, a lump of clay called Lumpl and a statue named Goliath, which are created and destroyed simultaneously, sharing all spatiotemporal properties. Despite their complete coincidence throughout existence, they appear to possess different properties, leading to a philosophical debate among metaphysicians. Monists argue for their identity, while pluralists deny it. Pluralists face the challenge of explaining the differences between these coincident objects, while monists must account for the modal differences if they are identical. Monists often turn to (...)
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  26. Ontological omniscience in Lewisian modal realism.J. Reinert - 2013 - Analysis 73 (4):676-682.
    A simple argument against Lewisian modal realism as portrayed in On the Plurality of World arises from its treatment of doxastic modalities. It is easily shown that if it is true, it is impossible to doubt the theory on ontological grounds, or, that, if it is possible to maintain doubt about modal realism’s existential postulate, it has to be false. The argument hinges on the fact that modal realism’s main ontological hypothesis, if true, is (...)
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  27. Necessitism, Contingentism, and Lewisian Modal Realism.Cristina Nencha - 2022 - Acta Analytica 37 (2):227-247.
    Necessitism is the controversial thesis that necessarily everything is necessarily something, namely that everything, everywhere, necessarily exists. What is controversial about necessitism is that, at its core, it claims that things could not have failed to exist, while we have a pre-theoretical intuition that not everything necessarily exists. Contingentism, in accordance with common sense, denies necessitism: it claims that some things could have failed to exist. Timothy Williamson is a necessitist and claims that David Lewis is a necessitist too. The (...)
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  28. Hegel’s Expressivist Modal Realism.Christopher Yeomans - 2017 - In Mark Sinclair, The Actual and the Possible: Modality and Metaphysics in Modern Philosophy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 227-251.
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  29. Sidestepping the Frege-Geach Problem.Graham Bex-Priestley & Will Gamester - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.
    Hybrid expressivists claim to solve the Frege-Geach problem by offloading the explanation of the logico-semantic properties of moral sentences onto beliefs that are components of hybrid states they express. We argue that this strategy is undermined by one of hybrid expressivism’s own commitments: that the truth of the belief-component is neither necessary nor sufficient for the truth of the hybrid state it composes. We articulate a new approach. Instead of explaining head-on what it is for, say, (...)
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  30.  45
    A Comprehensive Review of the Metaphysics of Possible Worlds: Modal Realism and Modal Logic.Murari Ambati - manuscript
    The metaphysical theory of possible worlds has played a central role in contemporary philosophical discourse, with Modal Realism, particularly as developed by David Lewis, offering one of the most rigorous and provocative frameworks for understanding modality, necessity, and possibility. This paper provides an in-depth review of Modal Realism, exploring its ontological implications, its formalization within modal logic, and its relationship to probability theory. Special attention is given to counterfactuals, the interpretation of modal statements, and (...)
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  31. A Comparative Analysis of David Lewis' Modal Realism and Everett's Many Worlds on Closed Time-like Curves and Time Travel.Fabian Kerj - 2023 - Dissertation, King's College London
    This paper explores the physical and metaphysical implications of time travel, focusing on the possibility of changing the past, through a comparative analysis of David Lewis' modal realism and Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. The existence of closed timelike curves (CTCs) in certain solutions to Einstein's field equations provides a theoretical basis for the possibility of backwards time travel, but this leads to a range of paradoxes, most notably the grandfather paradox. David Lewis argues that time travel (...)
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  32. Many Worlds Model resolving the Einstein Podolsky Rosen paradox via a Direct Realism to Modal Realism Transition that preserves Einstein Locality.Sascha Vongehr - 2011
    The violation of Bell inequalities by quantum physical experiments disproves all relativistic micro causal, classically real models, short Local Realistic Models (LRM). Non-locality, the infamous “spooky interaction at a distance” (A. Einstein), is already sufficiently ‘unreal’ to motivate modifying the “realistic” in “local realistic”. This has led to many worlds and finally many minds interpretations. We introduce a simple many world model that resolves the Einstein Podolsky Rosen paradox. The model starts out as a classical LRM, thus clarifying that the (...)
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  33. Naturalised Modal Epistemology and Quasi-Realism.Michael Omoge - 2021 - South African Journal of Philosophy 40 (3):229-241.
    Given quasi-realism, the claim is that any attempt to naturalise modal epistemology would leave out absolute necessity. The reason, according to Simon Blackburn, is that we cannot offer an empirical psychological explanation for why we take any truth to be absolutely necessary, lest we lose any right to regard it as absolutely necessary. In this paper, I argue that not only can we offer such an explanation, but also that the explanation won’t come with a forfeiture of the (...)
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  34. Realism, reliability, and epistemic possibility: on modally interpreting the Benacerraf–Field challenge.Brett Topey - 2021 - Synthese 199 (1-2):4415-4436.
    A Benacerraf–Field challenge is an argument intended to show that common realist theories of a given domain are untenable: such theories make it impossible to explain how we’ve arrived at the truth in that domain, and insofar as a theory makes our reliability in a domain inexplicable, we must either reject that theory or give up the relevant beliefs. But there’s no consensus about what would count here as a satisfactory explanation of our reliability. It’s sometimes suggested that giving such (...)
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  35. The Modal Status of Laws: In Defence of a Hybrid View.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2015 - Philosophical Quarterly 65 (260):509-528.
    Three popular views regarding the modal status of the laws of nature are discussed: Humean Supervenience, nomic necessitation, and scientific/dispositional essentialism. These views are examined especially with regard to their take on the apparent modal force of laws and their ability to explain that modal force. It will be suggested that none of the three views, at least in their strongest form, can be maintained if some laws are metaphysically necessary, but others are metaphysically contingent. Some reasons (...)
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  36. Anti-Realism and Modal-Epistemic Collapse: Reply to Marton.Jan Heylen - 2021 - Erkenntnis 88 (1):397-408.
    Marton ( 2019 ) argues that that it follows from the standard antirealist theory of truth, which states that truth and possible knowledge are equivalent, that knowing possibilities is equivalent to the possibility of knowing, whereas these notions should be distinct. Moreover, he argues that the usual strategies of dealing with the Church–Fitch paradox of knowability are either not able to deal with his modal-epistemic collapse result or they only do so at a high price. Against this, I argue (...)
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  37. Moral Realism by Other Means: The Hybrid Nature of Kant’s Practical Rationalism.Stefano Bacin - 2017 - In Elke Elisabeth Schmidt & Robinson dos Santos, Realism and Anti-Realism in Kant’s Moral Philosophy. De Gruyter. pp. 155-178.
    After qualifying in which sense ‘realism’ can be applied to eighteenth-century views about morality, I argue that while Kant shares with traditional moral realists several fundamental claims about morality, he holds that those claims must be argued for in a radically different way. Drawing on his diagnosis of the serious weaknesses of traditional moral realism, Kant proposes a novel approach that revolves around a hybrid view about moral obligation. Since his solution to that central issue combines elements (...)
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  38. Inferentialism, Modal Anti-Realism, and the Problem of Affection.Griffin Klemick - 2024 - In Mahdi Ranaee & Luz Christopher Seiberth, Reading Kant with Sellars: reconceiving Kantian themes. New York, NY: Routledge.
    Sellars was an inferentialist about meaning. He thus effectively accorded modality a categorial function, maintaining that any meaningful assertion involves implicit commitment to rules of material inference, which modal propositions explicitly endorse. But Sellars was also a modal anti-realist, construing modality as “entirely immanent to thought” (LRB §40), not present in the world an sich. These two commitments, Klemick argues, render it impossible in principle for us to describe the world an sich adequately, undermining Sellars’ scientific realism, (...)
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  39. The modal status of the laws of nature. Tahko’s hybrid view and the kinematical/dynamical distinction.Salim Hireche, Niels Linnemann, Robert Michels & Lisa Vogt - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (1):1-15.
    In a recent paper, Tuomas Tahko has argued for a hybrid view of the laws of nature, according to which some physical laws are metaphysically necessary, while others are metaphysically contingent. In this paper, we show that his criterion for distinguishing between these two kinds of laws — which crucially relies on the essences of natural kinds — is on its own unsatisfactory. We then propose an alternative way of drawing the metaphysically necessary/contingent distinction for laws of physics based (...)
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  40. Structural Realism or Modal Empiricism?Quentin Ruyant - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (4):1051-1072.
    Structural realism has been suggested as the best compromise in the debate on scientific realism. It proposes that we should be realist about the relational structure of the world, not its nature. However, it faces an important objection, first raised by Newman against Russell: if relations are not qualified, then the position is either trivial or collapses into empiricism, but if relations are too strongly qualified, then it is no longer SR. A way to overcome this difficulty is (...)
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  41. Methodological realism and modal resourcefulness: out of the web and into the mine.Lydia Patton - 2015 - Synthese 192 (11):3443-3462.
    Psillos, Kitcher, and Leplin have defended convergent scientific realism against the pessimistic meta-induction by arguing for the divide et impera strategy. I argue that DEI faces a problem more serious than the pessimistic meta-induction: the problem of accretion. When empirically successful theories and principles are combined, they may no longer make successful predictions or allow for accurate calculations, or the combination otherwise may be an empirical failure. The shift from classical mechanics to the new quantum theory does not reflect (...)
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  42. Realistic structuralism's identity crisis: A hybrid solution.Tim Button - 2006 - Analysis 66 (3):216–222.
    Keränen (2001) raises an argument against realistic (ante rem) structuralism: where a mathematical structure has a non-trivial automorphism, distinct indiscernible positions within the structure cannot be shown to be non-identical using only the properties and relations of that structure. Ladyman (2005) responds by allowing our identity criterion to include 'irreflexive two-place relations'. I note that this does not solve the problem for structures with indistinguishable positions, i.e. positions that have all the same properties as each other and exactly the same (...)
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  43. Advanced Modalizing Problems.Mark Jago - 2016 - Mind 125 (499):627-642.
    I present an internal problem for David Lewis’s genuine modal realism. My aim is to show that his analysis of modality is inconsistent with his metaphysics. I consider several ways of modifying the Lewisian analysis of modality, but argue that none are successful. I argue that the problem also affects theories related to genuine modal realism, including the stage theory of persistence and modal fictionalism.
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  44. Ontic Structural Realism and Modality.Nora Berenstain & James Ladyman - 2012 - In Elaine Landry & Dean Rickles, Structural Realism: Structure, Object, and Causality. Springer.
    There is good reason to believe that scientific realism requires a commitment to the objective modal structure of the physical world. Causality, equilibrium, laws of nature, and probability all feature prominently in scientific theory and explanation, and each one is a modal notion. If we are committed to the content of our best scientific theories, we must accept the modal nature of the physical world. But what does the scientific realist’s commitment to physical modality require? We (...)
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  45. Modal Rationalism and Constructive Realism: Models and Their Modality.William Kallfelz - 2010
    I present a case for a rapprochement between aspects of rationalism and scientific realism, by way of a general framework employing modal epistemology and elements of 2-dimensional semantics (2DS). My overall argument strategy is meta-inductive: The bulk of this paper establishes a “base case,” i.e., a concretely constructive example by which I demonstrate this linkage. The base case or constructive example acts as the exemplar for generating, in a constructively ‘bottom-up’ fashion, a more generally rigorous case for rationalism- (...) qua modal epistemology. The exemple I choose in D. Chalmers’ (2002) modal rationalism and R. Giere’s (1985, 1988) constructive realism. I show by way of a thorough analysis how Giere’s claims concerning modal scope are characterized as instances of Chalmers’ modal rationalism, both weak and strong. In essence, as I demonstrate via Chalmers’ notions, ceteris paribus the constructive realist ultimately opts for a comparatively wider gate, characterized by modal reasoning, to lead from the rooms of conceivability qua thought experiments and models, to the pastures of metaphysical possibility. Chalmers likewise tries to erect such a wider gate, in his general conceivability-possibility theses. Anti-realists, on the other hand, see a narrower passage and my contention herein is that they suffer from modal myopia, which hopefully the ‘corrective vision’ of Chalmers’ modal rationalism can restore. In the introduction and concluding sections I sketch out suggestions of constructing ‘inductive steps’ from my base case, to generate more extensively general claims regarding realism qua rationalism. -/- . (shrink)
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  46. Alethic modalities, temporal modalities, and representation.Jiri Benovsky - 2015 - Kriterion - Journal of Philosophy 29 (1):19-36.
    In this article, I am interested in four versions of what is often referred to as "the Humphrey objection". This objection was initially raised by Kripke against Lewis's modal counterpart theory, so this is where I will start the discussion. As we will see, there is a perfectly good answer to the objection. I will then examine other places where a similar objection can be raised: it can arise in the case of temporal counterpart theory (in fact, it can (...)
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  47. Indexicalidad Y Realismo Modal.Eduardo Alejandro Barrio - 1999 - Cuadernos de Filosofía 45:49-67.
    In this paper, I attempt to throw some light on modal realism. Since it is David Lewis who has put forward the best arguments for thar position, I focus on his work. In the first, I point out that his approach does not provide an adequate account for the intuitive lack of symmetry between the actual and the possible. To begin with, I try to show that the strategy of appealing to both the spatio-temporal network and causality is (...)
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  48.  37
    Counterfactuals, Models, and Scientific Realism.Fabio Sterpetti - 2024 - In Emiliano Ippoliti, Lorenzo Magnani & Selene Arfini, Model-Based Reasoning, Abductive Cognition, Creativity. Cham: Springer. pp. 89-116.
    Counterfactuals abound in science, especially when one deals with models. Some models, namely highly idealized models, have assumptions that are metaphysically impossible. This means that in science one has often to deal with counterpossibles. According to the standard semantics for counterfactuals, all counterpossibles are vacuously true. But scientific practice shows that counterpossibles are not always regarded as vacuously true by scientists. To do justice of the use of counterpossibles in science, some authors think that we should adopt a semantics that (...)
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  49. Modal Structure and Sellars' Metaphysical Methodology.Catherine Legg & Aiden Meyer - 2024 - In Krisztián Pete & László Kocsis, Wilfrid Sellars’ Images and the Philosophy in Between: Nature and Norms in a Stereoscopic View. London: Bloomsbury.
    Wilfrid Sellars’ distinctive scientific realism has lately been gaining ground, but a crucial issue is how it can or should theorize modality. We argue that many interesting questions in this area transcend the usual ‘first-order’ concerns: “Is there an objectivist modal ontology?” and “What modal entities should we posit”? Rather, Sellars invites us to take a fresh look at the relationship between logic and metaphysics through an investigation of ‘second-order’ philosophical categories. This investigation contrasts with both the (...)
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  50. Williamsonian modal epistemology, possibility-based.Barbara Vetter - 2016 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (4-5):766-795.
    Williamsonian modal epistemology is characterized by two commitments: realism about modality, and anti-exceptionalism about our modal knowledge. Williamson’s own counterfactual-based modal epistemology is the best known implementation of WME, but not the only option that is available. I sketch and defend an alternative implementation which takes our knowledge of metaphysical modality to arise, not from knowledge of counterfactuals, but from our knowledge of ordinary possibility statements of the form ‘x can F’. I defend this view against (...)
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