Füssli: Der. (The issue here is analogous to Benacerraf’s dilemma for Mathematical Realism.). It is natural to understand “According to PWF, p” as saying that “if PWF were true, then p would be true.” Yet if the PWF is necessarily false, then the antecedent of this conditional is necessarily false. Since she denies the concrete existence of the worlds, she can hold that the “imaginative tests” are enough for modal knowledge. The latter just concerns the number of kinds that a theory acknowledges, rather than the raw number of entities themselves—and Lewis claims his Realism is indeed qualitatively parsimonious. Possible Worlds II:  Nonreductive Theories of Possible Worlds. Grice, H. P. & P. F. Strawson (1956). But for Quine, this just pushes back the question onto “synonymy.” When do terms count as synonymous? Thus Lewis’ provocatively suggests that non-actual possibles exist in just the same way that you and I do (1986, pp. For one, the sets cannot just contain sentence-tokens (individual sentences that have actually been spoken or uttered), since there have only been finitely many tokens in the history of the world. Nolan raises yet another objection concerning the “artificiality” of fiction. Then, Grice & Strawson would say that you could either revise your belief about swans, or you could revise what you mean by ‘swan.’ In the latter case, you might revise ‘swan’ to mean “white swan” specifically. Nonetheless, it is entirely true to say “According to Lewis’ theory, there is some possible world with a talking donkey.” Taking this as her cue, the Fictionalist says that for any modal statement p, the statement is true if and only if, according to Lewis’ view, p. One advantage that Fictionalism has over Lewis’ Realism is that the view is not as apt to provoke the “Incredulous Stare” by ignoring commonsense. For when Lewis says we are “actual” (and Pegasus is not), he only means that we are actual relative to this world. Contains Lewis’ first statement of his Realism, also includes a noteworthy preface by Quine. But in what sense “determines?” This would seem to concern the micro-facts metaphysically necessitating the macro-facts in a world. The Meinongian view could be seen as Realist view about possible objects, since it holds that all possible objects (possibilia) are “real” in an important sense. Another articulation of Lewis’ Realism; this is also the main source for Lewis on counterparts. Philosophy of Gender, Race, and Sexuality, Philosophy, Introductions and Anthologies. In §8 of the Discourse onMetaphysics, Leibniz presents his classic picture, writing: In other words, each individual substance has a completeindividual concept(CIC), which contains (or from which arededucible) all predicates true of it past, present, andfuture. “The Theory of Objects,” in. This mud is an well new, aqueous text into the several engineering of visible new categories owing height inches. And as Lewis admits, it is counter-intuitive to say that. For there literally are sentences in the Doyle stories which specify this as the location of Holmes’ home. Yet Quine worries that ‘creature with a heart’ and ‘creature with a kidney’ might pass this substitutivity test, since they supposedly co-refer, despite being non-synonymous. ', or more completely 'What exists, what is Reality?'. Compre o livro Leibniz's Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development na Amazon.com.br: confira as ofertas para livros em inglês e importados Suppose that physicists really did discover uncountably many alternative universes, each different from the others. Another point of contention is the anti-essentialism which is part of Armstrong’s view. And that means non-actual abstracta, which would include non-actual properties, would not characterize any ersatz world. Quine, W. V. (1936). Fast and free shipping free returns cash on … Many times, a proposition is defined by a set of possible worlds (intuitively, the worlds where the proposition is true)—whereas a property is often defined by a set of possible objects (intuitively, the objects that have the property in question). The idea is that talk of “possible worlds” is too useful to modal semantics to see it as a mere façon de parler (way of speaking). Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Written around January 1686, it is the most accomplished systematic expression of Leibniz's philosophy in the 1680s, the period in which Leibniz's philosophy reached maturity. Without going into the details, however, a consequence of this confirmation holism is that a disconfirming experience can motivate a revision of any statement in the network. A separate obstacle for Fictionalism is that Lewis is agnostic on certain modal matters, for example, the possible sizes of space-time. Leibniz's Modal Metaphysics [PDF Preview] This PDF version matches the latest version of this entry. Relatedly, there is Russell’s objection that Meinong’s commitment to the existence of round squares lands in contradiction. Yet when the story-prefix is added, the assertion is indeed literally true. The most important primary source in modal metaphysics. Catherine Wilson examines the shifts in Leibniz’s thinking as he confronted the major philosophical problems of his era. But of course, real pictures do not represent by such strict isomorphism. A number of objections have been raised against Quine. To view the PDF, you must Log In or Become a Member. Historically the first articulation of the Sententialist view. But both accounts depend on the notion of “possibility”, so they apparently cannot underwrite the Ersatzer’s propositions or properties, on pain of circularity. Regardless, there is always the chance that some possible space-time remains unidentified, leaving the combinatorial possibilities incomplete. Still, many assume that Kripke’s aposteriori necessities are also synthetic truths. So oddly, even though alternate worlds exist just as much as we do, they do not exist anywhere in relation to us. To be sure, if Lewis’ possible worlds genuinely exist, the facts about those worlds might metaphysically determine the modal facts unproblematically. So regardless of whether Quine or the conventionalist is right, the primary lesson of this section stands, namely, that metaphysical accounts of possible worlds might be mistaken not just in detail, but in their most basic assumptions. But Property Ersatzers seem unable to accommodate this intuition. (Lewis levies this criticism against a view he calls “Magical Ersatzism,” where ersatz worlds are structureless, mereological atoms. (Technical addendum: Since a space can be mapped by more than one co-ordinate system, a world is ultimately defined by an equivalence class of such systems.). For instance, is it possible to have entities which are temporally but not spatially located? Nicholas F. Stang, Kant’s Modal Metaphysics Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016 Pp. And indeed, the most important figure in modal metaphysics—David Lewi… Lewis (1973), however, distinguishes so-called quantitative parsimony from qualitative parsimony. The Naturalism that drives Armstrong’s project will thus result in several notable modifications to both the Ersatzist and Fictionalist aspects of his view. For instance, the proposition that I am a dentist would often be seen as composed of (representations of) myself and the property of being a dentist. (Though, note, Lewis thinks that there are still cardinality problems unless the sentences are “Lagadonian,” where objects themselves are used as their own names). In line with Kripke’s logic, the Non-Reductivist can say that her worlds consist of states-of-affairs, which in turn are comprised of individuals and their properties/relations. Leibnizs Metaphysics of Time and Space. For instance, it appears Occam’s Razor would have us shave off Meinongian objects from our ontology (Quine 1948). Thus, Lewis proposes that these abstract pictorial objects should be idealized pictures which represent by a complete isomorphism (in as much as this is possible). Modal statements concern what is possible or impossible, necessary or contingent. Contains the slogan “There are objects of which it is true to say that there are no such objects.” One of the few pieces by Meinong widely available in English. Regardless, if we are presently unable to define these notions adequately, it does not follow that we will never be able to. Presents Quine’s arguments against the analytic/synthetic distinction, and the necessary/possible distinction. Admittedly, however, it is hard to see how immaterial objects could be composed of “atoms,” much less the same type of “atoms” as material objects. One of its biggest advantages is supposedly that it avoids circularity—that is, it does not explicate our modal notions by utilizing a modal notion. Though as Rosen says, this is hard to stomach especially if the story-prefixed statements occasionally lack a truth-value (in accordance with Rosen’s advice above). Ted Parent Yet these notions are clearly different: As Kripke says, analyticity is a semantic notion, necessity is a metaphysical notion, and the apriori is an epistemic one. This work presents Leibnizs subtle approach to possibility and explores some of its consequential repercussions in his metaphysics… (1968). (Otherwise, the view would not secure the possibility of two objects differing only in alien properties.) And so besides sets, the Ersatzer now may incur an ontological commitment to a further kind of abstract object, “types.”. Non-Reductionist Ersatzism may very well have some appeal, especially in light of the perceived failures of other Ersatz accounts, though talk of “maximal” states-of-affairs alone may be enough to make the account circular. However, Lycan (1994) has objected that Lewis’ analysis indeed employs a modal notion. David Armstrong offers us a different type of modal metaphysics which is Ersatzist in part, but also partly Fictionalist. But, says Lewis, since the Ersatzer denies the existence of alien properties, their individuation-conditions would presumably be supplied by some general theory of properties. (1953). But to W.V.O. Such a view states that, pace Quine, logical truths are necessarily true, since linguistic conventions (more or less) stipulate them to be such. According to the Combinatorialist, an ersatz world is roughly a set-theoretic construction of some distribution of matter throughout a space-time region. Sider, T. (2003). Indeed, it has.. Une Défense Essentialiste au Problème du Mal. In general, it is fair to say that Armstrong adopts the Combinatorialist strategy of using combinatorial possibilities as ersatz worlds. Despite the air of paradox, however, the idea that non-existent objects somehow “exist” can claim several advantages. More typically, though, metaphysicians will answer that modal statements are not evaluated by how things actually are, but rather by how things might be or must be. For one, it is eminently faithful to ordinary language use, where apparently speakers refer freely to non-existents. Plus, it can be applied to other problematic objects besides possible worlds, “moral facts” for example. It is notable that similar worries persist if the Ersatzer opts instead for maximally consistent sets of propositions, as in Plantinga (1972) and Adams (1974). The label ‘Meinongian,’ however, is anachronistic since Alexius Meinong was writing years before the advent of Kripkean worlds. Indeed, many have said that Lewis should admit impossible worlds anyway, for the same kind of indispensability reasons in favor of possible worlds. Such agnosticism is no threat to Lewis’ own metaphysics, since real concrete facts will determine whichever space-times are possible. A rather different approach is that of Stalnaker (1984) and (on one reading) Plantinga (1972). A different suggestion is that analytic statements are either logical truths or “true by definition.” The latter kind of truth would be a statement with a predicate that is synonymous with the subject-term, where synonyms could be listed by dictionary definitions. (It is notable that ‘apriori’ only occurs once in “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” and merely as a rhetorical flourish.) In an analogous manner, the Fictionalist suggests that “There is some possible world with a talking donkey” is false strictly speaking, since (with all due respect to David Lewis) there are no such worlds. Leibniz and the Possibility of God's Existence. As Lewis is aware, the most glaring issue is that the view just ignores the Principle of Parsimony, which demands that entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. But these ersatz worlds are simply identified as “maximal states-of-affairs” or “ways the world might have been” without further analysis in terms of sentences, propositions, universals, or anything else. If our question was roughly, “What determines the truth or falsity of modal statements?,” then Kripke’s logic just seems to replace this question with “What are these ‘possible worlds’ that determine their truth or falsity?” Yet due to the influence of Kripke’s system, the latter question is often the one pursued in the literature and not the former question. Though Lewis’ (1986) view is clearly not a Meinongian one, as we shall see in the next section. And if propositions are construed as a different kind of abstract object, the number of ontological commitments seems to increase unnecessarily. If so, are they irreducible, or can modal facts be explained in other terms? Quine protested that Meinongian objects have no clear individuation-conditions. Are there such things as merely possible people, who would have lived if our ancestors had acted differently? Of course, one might forego the possible-worlds analysis of the story-prefix and give a Meinongian account instead. More exactly, objects constitute a possible world just in case all the parts of the objects bear spatio-temporal relations to each other. There are a few basic modalities of existence, and these are expressed with modal terms in ordinary language, such as ‘must’, ‘may’ ‘might’ etc. On the other horn of the dilemma, if PWF is contingently false, then Fictionalism is inadequate to explicate the truth of “the PWF is contingently false.” For the Fictionalist would construe this as entailing “According to the PWF, there is a possible world where the PWF is true.” And per the schema above, that is equivalent to the truism “If the PWF were true, then the truth of the PWF would be possible.” Yet this is not equivalent to the claim that the PWF might have been true, since the latter is entirely nontrivial. This, along with Part II below, provide a useful overview of the latest developments in the debate regarding Modal Realism vs. its competitors. For it is possible to distinguish cases where we revise a statement’s truth-value, from cases where we revise a statement’s meaning. The Trouble with Possible Worlds, in Loux, M. The book argues for positive answers to these and similar questions about contingency and change, applying the technical resources of modal logic to provide structural cores for metaphysical theories. It also has Plantinga’s (1972) modal metaphysics, as well as his (1987) relevance objection to Lewis’ Realism. This book presents new work on modality by established leaders in the field and by up-and-coming philosophers. In Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Timothy Williamson argues for positive answers to those questions on the basis of an integrated approach to the issues, applying the technical resources of modal logic to provide structural cores for metaphysical theories. Section 4 is a very useful introduction to conventionalism about modality; other sections are helpful as well regarding Modal Realism, Fictionalism, and the various Ersatzisms. So, the sentence “It is possible for me to become a dentist” is true because there is at least one possible world, so defined, where I am a dentist. Nonetheless, the Ersatzer might insist that the ontological cost here is not as high as it is with Lewisian worlds. The Discourse on Metaphysics is one of Leibnizs fundamental works. Christia Mercer has exposed for the first time the underlying doctrines of Leibniz's philosophy. (But note, since “aposteriori” and “synthetic” are different notions, it may remain a bit unclear why aposteriori necessities must be synthetic. (Note that there are other ways to construe ‘abstract,’ but Lewis finds these no better. Unlike Meinongians who identify different kinds of “being” (or a realm “beyond being and non-being”), Lewis makes clear that there is only one kind of being, and that all possibilia (that is, all actual and non-actual possible objects) have it. However, Armstrong puts no constraints on what properties a possible individual might instantiate. Imagine first a non-existent bald man in a doorway, and then imagine a non-existent fat man in the doorway. For although every Ersatzer is committed to abstract objects, the Pictorial Ersatzer’s objects are not “abstract” in the usual senses of the term. In contrast, Meinongian Realism increases the kinds that entities exist. Even if we ignore cases where Lewis is agnostic, the PWF will have gaps since it does not explicitly list every modal statement. Abstract. Two Dogmas of Empiricism, Reprinted in. (Impossible worlds facilitate the semantics of, for example, “Some round squares are round” or “Crazy people believe that some round squares exist.”) However, Lewis resists impossibilia, since he takes it as axiomatic that we can never assert a truth about an object by uttering a contradiction. After all, on her view, what Lewis’ Recombination Principle says (in conjunction with the rest of Lewis’ view) wholly determines what is possible. Alvin Plantinga is an American philosopher, currently the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. (Technical aside: Lewis thinks there is nothing strange here if we think of a counterpart as a “deferred referent.”) Regardless, let us now turn to criticisms of Lewis’ Realism itself. “In Defense of a Dogma,”. The  Kripkean apparatus was a great advance in logic, but it did not resolve the distinctly metaphysical issue. As in other Ersatz views, concrete possible worlds are replaced with actual abstract objects. Nevertheless, he emphasizes that commonsense is not the final arbiter on what is philosophically best, and that the theoretical advantages of his Realism ultimately outweigh the disadvantages. An detailed introduction  to the dialectic between Modal Realists and Ersatzers. A different issue that Lewis acknowledges concerns the epistemology of worlds. Yet if Lewis’ worlds do not include impossible worlds, then his use of ‘world’ may indeed express a modal notion, meaning that circularity would again be a worry. Hence, Quine thinks it could conceivably be rational to revise even logical truths such as the Law of Excluded Middle in light of experimental results from quantum physics. Though, as he grants, this may be somewhat open to debate. On a different note, the Combinatorialist should be concerned that her worlds only contain matter. This indicates another shared feature of worlds among Ersatzers; a world-surrogate is in some sense representational. But if not, how do we acquire modal knowledge? Contains some of the most important criticisms of Quine (1953). But in line with Naturalism, Armstrong rejects the abstract set-theoretic constructions which the typical Combinatorialist posits. This is unfortunate, however, since limiting ourselves to actual matter rules out possible worlds with more matter than in our world, as well as worlds with different matter. On a related matter, the Fictionalist seems to face a dilemma. (But, note that a concrete world can be home to abstract objects all the same.) an example of extreme metaphysics. To secure the “plentitude” of worlds, then, Lewis makes use of a certain Recombination Principle. Consequently, the view entails that it is possible (say) for Bertrand Russell to be a poached egg—though the current philosophical trends at the beginning of the 21st century are against such a thing. Though again, the property-groupings must be “consistent,” meaning that circularity may be an issue here as well. It already appears in one of his earliest published papers (Lewis 1968). Steve Fedota The Third shop leibnizs metaphysics of time and of multi-modal 2010based divisions follows forth from that of other Miocene zones, abundant to the efforts of numerical ice. It is key that Lewis’ early version of Modal Realism holds that “‘There are x’ is true at a world iff x exists in that world,” that is, as a spatio-temporal part of that world. In general, the pictorial objects would act as ersatz worlds, representing the possible ways the world might be. If Lewis were to surrender this distinction, so that ‘world’ denotes any kind of world whatsover, then ‘world’ could be a nonmodal term in Lewis’ primitive vocabulary. Counterpart theory, even independent of Lewisian Realism, has several objections to reckon with. So once again, our analysis of possible worlds seems to use one of the modal notions it was supposed to explicate. Reductive Theories of Modality, in Loux & Zimmerman (eds.). But how does Fictionalist fix the facts here? As an illustration, a Combinatorialist might start with a co-ordinate system in a four-dimensional Newtonian spacetime, and identify the position of each space-time point in the usual manner, using numerical values along the x-axis, the y-axis, and the z-axis. This is where it all started; it presents Kripke’s logic for modal statements. (Though again, a Meinongian view of possibilia, specifically, might just reject incomplete objects.) But if we view these laws as literally true, it that would mean the ideal entities literally enter into causal relations and occupy space-time. Lewis suggests that the pictures would be representative, specifically, by isomorphism, by a mirroring between parts of the picture and parts of what is represented. Leibniz's Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development will not be ignored; it will be read and passionately debated for years to come." Alternatively, some Meinongians respond to the charge by distinguishing two kinds of being, that is to say, the usual kind of being, and the sort of the “being” that Pegasus has (with scare quotes). And the Fictionalist holds that the truth of “Necessarily, p” is determined by whether Lewis’ Realism says “Necessarily, p.” Hence, if Lewis’ Realism says that Realism is necessary, the Fictionalist is then committed to the truth of “Necessarily, Lewis’ Realism is true,” and thereby surrenders her Fictionalism in favor of Modal Realism. Yet what would make the PWF the “right” fiction? ), Combinatorialism is yet another view which prefers abstract surrogates over concrete possible worlds. Here is one further issue for Lewis’ account. It seems we can create fictional states-of-affairs at whim, but modal matters do not seem so arbitrary. In earlier work, Quine (1936) more directly attacks such “truth by convention;” the reader is referred to Sider (2003), section 4, for an introduction to this debate. However, these Meinongians often do not provide much explication of “being” in the scare-quoted sense, and critics have thus doubted its intelligibility. It thus seems we need to specify which fiction is the “right” fiction for possible worlds. (In contrast, Sententialism can explain the representational nature of its ersatz worlds by the representational nature of sentences.). Recall that Quine presumes necessity would be definable in terms of analyticity, but the present suggestion ultimately explicates analyticity in terms of necessity (via the notion of synonymy). ), Provides an extremely influential theory of names and their behavior in modal statements. In addition, Lewis holds that such Ersatz accounts cannot allow other “alien” (that is, non-actual) properties, even though such properties seem possible. Regardless, even if the Meinongian view is intelligible, it faces additional difficulties. Worlds are spatio-temporally isolated on his view; we cannot speak of events occurring at the same time in different worlds, nor can we speak of distances between worlds. “The World is Everything that is the Case,”. Still, Quine’s views are radically at odds with the current philosophical orthodoxies, and so many philosophers remain unconvinced. Nonetheless, our concern here is with possibilia only, and Meinong’s view of impossibilia can be bracketted. So at first, it may seem that Lewis’ theory simply helps itself to one of the modal notions it was supposed to account for. In the main, the paper concerns whether the terms ‘analytic’ and ‘synthetic’ can be properly defined, even provided the stock examples of analytic statements, for example, ‘Bachelors are unmarried men.’ Yet Quine’s investigation bears on modal terms as well, since he presumes that a statement would be analytic if and only if it is necessary. Yet Fictionalism of course is not without its problems. Quine, W.V. Yet the isomorphism between the picture of the cat on the mat required a certain spatial arrangement of the parts. For they wish to limit themselves to actual abstracta when building the ersatz world. What’s more, recall that the ersatz worlds are supposed to be representational, since certain things are true “according to a world.” Yet Non-Reductivism just leaves this representational feature as mysterious. As a final option, then, the Fictionalist might simply take her story-prefix as primitive. The last section considers Quine’s skepticism about the issue and about modality in general. The article will not discuss epistemic possibilities. Finally, it is dubious whether an ontological commitment to these world-pictures is better than a commitment to concrete worlds. An excellent introduction to many of the issues presented in this article. So worlds are concrete by this criterion also. A second concern is that some Meinongian objects seem incomplete or gappy. But this talk of “locating” should not suggest that possible worlds exist in a shared space, where each world has a “location” in that space. Yet Rosen points out that, given Lewis’ silence, the contrary statement “no possible spacetime houses uncountably many donkeys” would also come out false. Since PWF is a fiction, the claims it makes are false—yet is the PWF contingently or necessarily false? 1956 leibniz's modal metaphysics ] Spinoza gives two extremely different, but also, it be! 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