Modal Matters – Page 2 – Maverick Philosopher

Background to the (Ontological) Problem of the Merely Possible

One commenter seems not to understand the problem as I set it forth here. So let's take a few steps back. In this entry I explain terminology, make distinctions, and record assumptions.

1) Everything actual is possible, but the converse does not follow and ought not be assumed. Possible items that are possible, but not actual, are called 'merely possible.' Mere possibles are also sometimes referred to as 'unrealized possibles' or 'unrealized possibilities.'

2) Don't confuse the reality of a mere possible with its realization (actualization). A mere possible can be real without being realized just as a proposition can exist without being true. Indeed, if mere possibles are real, then they are precisely not realized; else they would not be mere possibles.

3) Don't confuse the possibility of a mere possible with the possible itself. Mere possibles are presumably many; their possibility (their being-possible) is presumably one and common to them all. Analogy: there are many true propositions, but their truth is presumably one and common to them all.

4) Don't confuse reality with actuality. The reality of mere possibles is obviously not their actuality. Everything actual is real, but the converse does not follow and we ought not assume it.

5) In (1) above I used 'item.' 'Item' is the most noncommittal word in my philosophical lexicon. It is neutral with respect to categorial status, modal status, and ontological status. Are there nonexisting items? My use of 'item' leaves this question open in the way that 'Are there nonexistent existents?' does not. Even though 'item' should remind you of the Latin idem, my use of 'item' is so liberal and latitudinarian that it does not rule out the self-diverse item, which is a bona fide item in some Meinongian systems.

One must be careful in one's terminological choices to neither beg questions nor bury them.

6) My present concern is with real, not epistemic or doxastic, possibility. Roughly, the epistemically/doxastically possible is that which is possible given what I know/believe. The really possible — which divides into the actual and the merely possible — is that which is possible whether or not any knowers/believers exist. The really possible does not depend on our knowledge or ignorance. To go into a bit more detail:

In ordinary English, epistemic uses of 'possible' are rife. I inquire, "Is Jones in his office?" The secretary replies, "It's possible." I am not being informed that Jones' presence in his office is consistent with the laws of logic, or with the laws of nature; there is no question about the logical or nomological possibility of Jones' being in his office. I am being informed that Jones' presence in his office is consistent with what the secretary knows: it is not ruled out by anything she knows. It's possible for all she knows. Of course, if the secretary knows that Jones is in his office, or knows something that (she knows) entails that he is in his office, then Jones' presence in his office will be logically consistent with what she knows; but in that case she will not say that it is possible that he be there. She will say, "He's there." So 'possible' in its epistemic use conveys both consistency with what one knows and ignorance. When I say that such-and-such is epistemically possible, I am saying that it is possible for all I know, but I don't know all about the matter in question. Letting 'S' range over states of affairs and 'P' over persons, we define

D1. S is epistemically possible for P =_df (i) S is logically consistent with what P knows; (ii) S is neither known by P nor known to be entailed by anything P knows.

The reason for clause (ii) is that epistemic uses of 'possible' indicate ignorance. 'It's possible that Jones is in his office,' said by the secretary implies that she does not know whether or not he is in his office. If she knew that he was in his office, and said what she said, then she would not be using 'possible' in the epistemic way it is used in ordinary English.

7) I take it to be a datum that there are real mere possibilities. For example, at the moment there is exactly one cat in my study. But there might have been two or there might have been none. The latter two states of affairs are both merely possible and real. They are merely possible because they are not actual. They are really possible because the possibility of these mere possibles is not parasitic upon anyone's knowledge or ignorance. The possibles are 'out there,' part of the 'furniture of the world.' Again, the possibility or being-possible of a mere possible is not to be confused with the merely possible item itself.

8) My writing table is now two inches from the wall. But it might have been now three inches from the wall, where 'now' picks out the same time in both of its most recent occurrences. The table might have been infinitely other distances from the wall as well. How do I know that? This question pertains to the epistemology of modal knowledge and is off-topic. The present topic is the ontology of the merely possible. This meditation assumes, or rather takes as a datum, the reality of the merely possible. Notoriously, however, one man's datum is another man's theory.

9) If there are real mere possibles (individuals, states of affairs . . .), then reality is not exhausted by the actual; it includes both the actual and the merely possible. If it were so exhausted, all would be necessary, and nothing would be contingent. The modal distinctions would remain on the intensional plane, but would find no purchase in fact. We would have the extensional collapse of the modal distinctions. Can I prove that there is no such collapse? No.

10) 'Possible' has several senses. Chief among them are the logical, the metaphysical, and the nomological or physical. The following Euler –not Venn! — diagram shows how they are related:

This is a large topic by itself. I will just say for present purposes that the ontological problem of the merely possible is concerned with mere possibles the possibility of which is metaphysical, where the metaphysically possible is that which is admissible both by the laws of formal logic and by the laws of metaphysics. Here is a candidate law of metaphysics: everything that exists has properties. This is not a formal-logical truth inasmuch as its negation — Something that exists has no properties — is not a formal-logical contradiction.

11) The examples I have given above involving cats and rooms and tables and walls are merely possible state of affairs involving actualia. For example, my torso is now covered with a shirt, but it might not now have been covered with that shirt or any shirt. Torso and shirt are constituents of an actual and of a merely possible state of affairs, respectively. But there are possibilia that do not involve actualia. Let n = the number of actual cats at time t. Could there not have been n + 1 actual cats at time t? Surely that is possible. Deny it and you are saying that it is necessary that the number of actual cats at t be n. Do you want to say that? In this example, the mere possibility does not involve actualia in the way the mere possibility of my cat's sleeping now involve an actual cat. You might tell me that the actual world is such that it might have now contained one more cat than it in fact now contains, and so the actual world is the actual item involved in the possibility. Maybe, maybe not. How about the possibility that nothing at all exist? I have argued in these pages that there is no such possibility as the possibility of there being nothing at all. But if there is this possibility, then it is not one that is grounded in, or presupposes, any actual item.

12) Now to the problem. As I wrote earlier,

. . . the problem of the merely possible is something like this. Merely possible individuals and states of affairs are not nothing, nor are they fictional. And of course their possibility is not merely epistemic, or parasitic upon our ignorance. Merely possible individuals and states of affairs have some sort of mind-independent reality. But how the devil can we make sense of this mind-independent reality given that the merely possible, by definition, is not actual? Suppose we cast the puzzle in the mold of an aporetic triad:

a. The merely possible is not actual.

b. The merely possible is real (independently of finite minds).

c. Whatever is real is actual.

Clearly, the members of this trio cannot all be true. Any two of them, taken in conjunction, entails the negation of the remaining one. For example, the conjunction of the last two propositions entails the negation of the first.

Steven Nemes comments:

I would think that once you've admitted the reality of the merely possible, contrary to your (c) above, you've answered the question. The merely possible represents an irreducible ontological category and that's that. Why not?

The Nemes solution is to reject (c). Accordingly, mere possibles are an irreducible category of beings. This is a version of possibilism, as opposed to actualism, in the metaphysics of modality. One response to Nemes is that the mere admission of the reality of the merely possible does not suffice to establish possibilism. For the actualist too admits the reality of the merely possible but without admitting that mere possibles constitute an irreducible ontological category. The fact that there is a long-standing and ongoing debate between possibilists and actualists shows that one cannot take the reality of the merely possible to settle the question.

Notes on Nicholas Rescher, “Nonexistents Then and Now”

0. This entry is relevant to my ongoing dialog with Dr. Novak about reference to the nonexistent. I hope he has the time and the stamina to continue the discussion. I have no doubt that he has the 'chops.' I thank him for the stimulation. We philosophize best with friends, as Aristotle says somewhere. But to the Peripatetic is also attributed the thought that amicus Plato sed magis amica veritas.

The Rescher text under scrutiny is from a chapter in his Scholastic Meditations, Catholic UP, 2005, 126-148.

1. One objection I have is that Rescher tends to conflate the epistemological with the ontological. A careful reading of the following passage shows the conflation at work. I have added comments in brackets in blue. Bolding added, italics in original.

To begin, note that a merely possible world is never given. It is not something we can possibly encounter in experience. The only world that confronts us in the actual course of things is the real world, this actual world of ours — the only world to which we gain entry effortlessly, totally free of charge. [This is practically a tautology. All Rescher is saying is that the only world we can actually experience is the actual world, merely possible worlds being, by definition, not actual.] To move from it, we must always do something, namely, make a hypothesis — assumption, supposition, postulation, or the like. The route of hypotheses affords the only cognitive access to the realm of nonexistent possibility. [Rescher's wording suggests that there is a realm of nonexistent possibility and that we can gain cognitive access to it.] For unlike the real and actual world, possible worlds never come along of themselves and become accessible to us without our actually doing something, namely, making an assumption or supposition or such-like. Any possible world with which we can possibly deal will have to be an object of our contrivance – of our making by means of some supposition or assumption. [In this last sentence Rescher clearly slides from an epistemological claim, one about how we come to know the denizens of the realm of nonexistent possibility, to an ontological claim about what merely possible worlds and their denizens ARE, namely, objects of our contrivance.](131)

Rescher wants to say about the merely possible what he says about the purely fictional, namely, that pure ficta are objects of our contrivance. But this too, it seems to me, is an illicit conflation. The purely fictional is barred from actuality by its very status as purely fictional: Sherlock Holmes cannot be actualized. What cannot be actualized is not possible; it is impossible. Sherlock Holmes is an impossible item. He is impossible because he is incomplete. Only the complete (completely determinate) is actualizable. Sherlock is incomplete because he is the creation of a finite fiction writer: Sherlock has all and only the properties ascribed to him by Conan Doyle. Not even divine power could bring about the actualization of the Sherlock of the Conan Doyle stories. What God could do is bring about the actualization of various individuals with all or some of Sherlock's properties. None of those individuals, however, would be Sherlock. Each of them would differ property-wise from Sherlock.

2. The conflation of the merely possible with the purely fictional is connected with another mistake Rescher makes. Describing the "medieval mainstream," (129) Rescher lumps mere possibilia and pure ficta together as entia rationis. For this mistake, Daniel Novotny takes him to task, explaining that "Suarez and most other Baroque scholastics considered merely possible beings to be real, and hence they were not classified as beings of reason." (Ens Rationis from Suarez to Caramuel, Fordham UP, 2013, p. 27) Entia rationis, beings of reason, are necessarily mind-dependent impossible objects. Mere possibilia are not, therefore, entia rationis.

3. As I understand it, the problem of the merely possible is something like this. Merely possible individuals and states of affairs are not nothing, nor are they fictional. And of course their possibility is not merely epistemic, or parasitic upon our ignorance. Merely possible individuals and states of affairs have some sort of mind-independent reality. But how the devil can we make sense of this mind-independent reality given that the merely possible, by definition, is not actual? Suppose we cast the puzzle in the mold of an aporetic triad:

a. The merely possible is not actual.

b. The merely possible is real (independently of finite minds).

c. Whatever is real is actual.

What are the possible solutions given that the triad is genuinely logically inconsistent and given that the triad is soluble? I count exactly five possible solutions.

S1. Eliminativism. The limbs are individually undeniable but jointly inconsistent, which is to say: there are no mere possibilia. One could be an error theorist about mere possibilia. On this solution we deny the common presupposition of (a) and (b), namely, that there are merely possible individuals and states of affairs.

S2. Conceptualism. Deny (b) while accepting the other two limbs. There are mere possibilia, but what they are are conceptual constructions by finite minds. This is essentially Rescher's view. See his A Theory of Possibility: A Constructivistic and Conceptualistic Theory of Possible Individuals and Possible Worlds (Basil Blackwell, 1975). He could be described as an artifactualist about possibilities: "A possible individual is an intellectual artifact: the product of a projective 'construction' . . . ." (p. 61)

S3. Actualism/Ersatzism. Deny (a) while accepting the other two limbs. One looks for substitute entities — actual entities — to go proxy for the mere possibles. Thus, on one approach, the merely possible state of affairs of there being a unicorn is identified with an actual abstract entity, the property of being a unicorn. For the possibility to be actual is for the the property to be instantiated.

On this version of actualism, the mind-independent reality of the merely possible is identified with the mind-independent reality of certain actual abstract items. In this way one avoids both eliminativism and constructivism.

S4. Extreme Modal Realism. Deny (c) while accepting the other two limbs. David Lewis. There is a plurality of possible worlds conceived of as maximal merelogical sums of concreta. The worlds and their inhabitants are all equally real. But no world is absolutely actual. Each is merely actual at itself. In this world, I am a philosopher. On extreme modal realism, the possibility of my being an electrical engineer instead is understood as various counterparts of me being electrical engineers in various possible worlds.

S5. Theologism. Deny (c) while accepting the other two limbs. We bring God into the picture to secure the reality of the possibles instead of a plurality of equally real worlds. Consider the possibility of there being unicorns. This is a mere possibility since it is not actual. But the possibility is not nothing: it is a definite possibility, a real possibility that does not depend for its reality on finite minds. There aren't any unicorns, but there really could have been some, and the fact of this mere possibility has nothing to do with what we do or think or say. The content of the possibility subsists as an object of the divine intellect, and its actualizability is grounded in God's power. We could perhaps say that possibilia enjoy esse intentionale in or before the divine intellect, but lack esse reale unless the divine will actualizes them.

4. Part of Rescher's support for his constructivism/conceptualism/artifactualism is his attack on the problem of transworld identity. For Rescher, "the issue of transworld identity actually poses no real problems — a resolution is automatically available." Rescher's argument is hard to locate due to his bloated, meandering, verbose style of writing. Rescher rarely says anything in a direct and pithy way if he can pad it out with circumlocutions and high-falutin' phraseology. (I confess to sometimes being guilty of this myself.)

But basically such argument as I can discern seems to involve equivocation on such terms as 'individuation' and 'identity' as between epistemological and ontological senses. He gives essentially the following argument on p. 141. This is my reconstruction and is free of equivocation.

A. All genuine individuals are complete.

B. All merely possible individuals are complete only if completely describable by us.

C. No merely possible individuals are completely describable by us.

Therefore

D. No merely possible individuals are genuine individuals.

But why should we accept (B)? Why can't there be nonexistent individuals that are complete? Rescher just assumes that the properties of such individuals must be supplied by us. But that is to beg the question against those who believe in the reality of the merely possible. He just assumes the truth of artifactualism about the merely possible. Consider the following sentences

d. Bill Clinton is married to Hillary Rodham.

e. Bill Clinton remained single.

f. Bill Clinton married someone distinct from Hillary Rodham.

Only the first sentence is true, but, I want to say, the other two are possibly true: they pick out merely possible states of affairs. There are three possible worlds involved: the actual world and two merely possible worlds. Now does 'Bill Clinton' pick out the same individual in each of these three worlds? I am inclined to say yes, despite the fact that we cannot completely describe the world in which our boy remains single or the world in which he marries someone other than Hillary. But Rescher will have none of this because his conceptualism/constructivism/ artifactualism bars him from holding that actual individuals in merely possible worlds or merely possible individuals have properties other that those we hypothesize them as having. So, given the finitude of our hypothesizing, actual individuals in merely possible worlds, or merely possible individuals, can only be incomplete items, multiply realizable schemata, and thus not genuine individuals. But then the possible is assimilated to the fictional.

5, How solve the triad? Novak will put God to work and adopt something along the lines of (S5). I am inclined to say that the problem, while genuine, is insoluble, and that the aporetic triad is a genuine aporia.

Does Everything Contingent Have a Ground of its Existence?

What is it to be contingent? There are at least two nonequivalent definitions of 'contingency' at work in philosophical discussions. I will call them the modal definition and the dependency definition.

Modal Contingency. X is modally contingent =_df x exists in some but not all metaphysically (broadly logically) possible worlds.

Since possible worlds jargon is very confusing to many, I will also put the definition like this:

X is modally contingent =_df x is possibly nonexistent if existent and possibly existent if nonexistent.

For example, I am modally contingent because I might not have existed: my nonexistence is metaphysically possible. Unicorns, on the other hand, are also modally contingent items because they are possibly existent despite their actual nonexistence. It take it that this is what Aquinas meant when he said that the contingent is what is possible to be and possible not to be. If x is contingent, then (possibly x is and possibly x is not). Don't confuse this with the contradictory, possibly (x is and x is not).

Note that the contingent and the actual are not coextensive. Unicorns are contingent but not actual, and God and the number 9 are actual but not contingent. If you balk at the idea that unicorns are contingent, then I will ask you: Are they then necessary beings? Or impossible beings? Since they can't be either, then they must be contingent. Everything is either contingent or non-contingent, and everything non-contingent is either necessary or impossible.

Note also that because unicorns are modally contingent but nonexistent, one cannot validly argue from their modal contingency to their having a cause or ground of their existence. They don't exist; so of course they have no cause or ground of their existence.

Existential Dependency. Now for the dependency definition.

X is dependently contingent =_df there is some y such that (i) x is not identical to y; (ii) necessarily, if x exists, then y exists; (iii) y is in some sense the ground or source of x's existence.

We need something like the third clause in the definiens for the following reason. Any two distinct necessary beings will satisfy the first two clauses. Let x be the property of being prime and y the number 9. The two items are distinct and it is necessarily the case that if being prime exists, then 9 exists. But we don't want to say that the the property is contingently dependent upon the number.

The two definitions of 'contingency' are not equivalent. What is modally contingent may or may not be dependently contingent. Bertrand Russell and others have held that the universe exists as a matter of brute fact. (Cf. his famous BBC debate with Fr. Copleston.) Thus it exists and is modally contingent, but does not depend on anything for its existence, and so is not dependently contingent, contingent on something. It is not a contradiction, or at least not an obvious contradiction, to maintain that the universe is modally contingent but not depend on anything distinct from itself. 'Contingent' and 'contingent upon' must not be confused. On the other hand, Aquinas held that there are two sorts of necessary beings, those that have their necessity from another and those that have their necessity in themselves. God, and God alone, has his necessity in himself, whereas Platonica have their necessity from God. That is to say that they derive their esse from God; they depend for their existence on God despite their modal necessity. If, per impossibile, God were not to exist, then the denizens of the Platonic menagerie would not exist either. It follows that Platonica are dependently contingent even though modally necessary.

In sum, modal contingency does not straightaway entail existential dependence, and modal necessity does not straightaway entail existential independence.

So it is not the case that, as some maintain, "the contingent is always contingent on something else." Or at least that is not obviously the case: it needs arguing. One who maintains this absent the arguing ought to be suspected of confusing the two senses of 'contingency' and of making things far too easy on himself.

The following, therefore, is a bad argument as it stands: The universe is contingent; the contingent, by definition, is contingent on something else; ergo the universe is contingent on something else, and this all men call God. It is a bad argument even apart from the 'this all men call God' part because the existence of the universe might well be a brute fact in which case it would be modally contingent but not dependent on anything distinct from it for its existence.

What have I accomplished in this entry? Not much, but this much: I have disambiguated 'contingent' and I have shown that a certain cosmological argument fails. In my book, A Paradigm Theory of Existence, I present an onto-cosmological argument that fares somewhat better. Mirabile dictu, the book is now available in paperback for a reasonable price! The bums at Kluwer never told me!

A Most Remarkable Prophecy

The Question

Suppose there had been a prophet among the ancient Athenians who prophesied the birth among them of a most remarkable man, a man having the properties we associate with Socrates, including the property of being named 'Socrates.' Suppose this prophet, now exceedingly old, is asked after having followed Socrates' career and having witnessed his execution: Was that the man whom you prophesied?

Does this question make sense? Suppose the prophet had answered, "Yes, that very man, the one who just now drank the hemlock, is the very man whose birth I prophesied long ago before he was born!" Does this answer make sense?

An Assumption

To focus the question, let us assume that there is no pre-existence of the souls of creatures. Let us assume that Socrates, body and soul, came into existence at or near the time of his conception. For our problem is not whether we can name something that already exists, but whether we can name something that does not yet exist.

Thesis

I say that neither the question nor the answer make sense. (Of course they both make semantic sense; my claim is that they make no metaphysical or broadly logical sense.) What the prophet prophesied was the coming of some man or other with the properties that Socrates subsequently came to possess. What he could not have prophesied was the very man that subsequently came to possess the properties in question. This is equivalent to saying that there was no individual Socrates before he came into existence. Before he came into existence there was no merely possible Socrates.

What the prophet prophesied was general, not singular: he prophesied that a certain definite description would come to be satisfied by some man or other. Equivalently, what the prophet prophesied was that a certain conjunctive property would come in the fullness of time to be instantiated, a property among whose conjuncts are such properties as being snubnosed, being married to a shrewish woman, being a master dialectician, being accused of being a corrupter of youth, etc. Even if the prophet had been omniscient and had been operating with a complete description, a description such that only one person in the actual world satisfies it if anything satisfies it, the prophecy would still be general.

Why would the complete description, satisfied uniquely if satisfied at all, still be general? Because of the possibility that some other individual, call him 'Schmocrates,' satisfy the description. For such a complete description, uniquely satisfied if satisfied at all, could not capture the very haecceity and ipseity and identity of a concrete individual.

We can call this view I am espousing anti-haecceitist: the non-qualitative thisness of a concrete individual cannot antedate the individual's existence. Opposing this view is that of the haecceitist who holds that temporally prior to the coming into existence of a concrete individual such as Socrates, the non-qualitative thisness of the individual is already part of the furniture of the universe.

My terminology is perhaps not felicitous. I am not denying that concrete individuals possess haecceity. I grant that haecceity is a factor in an individual's ontological 'assay' or analysis. What I am denying is that the haecceity of an individual can exist apart from the individual whose haecceity it is. From this it follows that the haecceity of an individual cannot exist before the individual exists.

But how could the non-qualitative thisness of a concrete individual be thought to antedate the individual whose thisness it is? We might try transforming the non-qualitative thisness of a concrete individual into an abstract object, a property that exists in every possible world, and thus at every time in those worlds having time.

Consider the putative property, identity-with-Socrates. Call it Socrateity. Suppose our Athenian prophet has the power to 'grasp' (conceive, understand) this non-qualitative property long before it is instantiated. Suppose he can grasp it just as well as he can grasp the conjunctive property mentioned above. Then, in prophesying the coming of Socrates, the prophet would be prophesying the coming of Socrates himself. His prophecy would be singular, or, if you prefer, de re: it would involve Socrates himself.

What do I mean by "involve Socrates himself"? Before Socrates comes to be there is no Socrates. But there is, on the haecceitist view I reject, Socrateity. This property 'deputizes' for Socrates at times and in possible worlds at which our man does not exist. It cannot be instantiated without being instantiated by Socrates. And it cannot be instantiated by anything other than Socrates in the actual world or in any possible world. By conceiving of Socrateity before Socrates comes to be, the Athenian prophet is conceiving of Socrates before he comes to be, Socrates himself, not a mere instance of a conjunctive property or a mere satisfier of a description. Our Athenian prophet is mentally grabbing onto the very haecceity or thisness of Socrates which is unique to him and 'incommunicable' (as a Medieval philosopher might say) to any other in the actual world or in any possible world.

But what do I mean by "a mere instance" or a "mere satisfier"?

Let us say that the conjunctive property of Socrates mentioned above is a qualitative essence of Socrates if it entails every qualitative or pure property of Socrates whether essential, accidental, monadic, or relational. If Socrates has an indiscernible twin, Schmocrates, then both individuals instantiate the same qualitative essence. It follows that, qua instances of this qualitative essence, they are indistinguishable. This implies that, if the prophet thinks of Socrates in terms of his qualitative essence, then his prophetic thought does not reach Socrates himself, but only a mere instance of his qualitative essence.

My claim, then, is that one cannot conceive of an individual that has not yet come into existence. Not even God can do it. For until an individual comes into existence it is not a genuine individual. Before Socrates came into existence, there was no possibility that he, that very man, come into existence. (In general, there are no de re possibilities involving future, not-yet-existent, individuals.) At best there was the possibility that some man or other come into existence possessing the properties that Socrates subsequently came to possess. To conceive of some man or other is to think a general thought: it is not to think a singular thought that somehow reaches an individual in its individuality.

To conceive of a complete description's being satisfied uniquely by some individual or other it not to conceive of a particular individual that satisfies it. If this is right, then one cannot name an individual before it exists.

Existence, Unity, Possibility, and Actuality: Are There Merely Possible Individuals?

Steven Nemes by e-mail:

Here’s a question for you about existence, perhaps one you could discuss on the blog.

In your book, you argue that existence is ontological unity. I think that’s right. But a merely possible this-such is a unity as much as an actual this-such. What then distinguishes merely possible existence from actual existence?

To put it precisely, the existence of a contingent being is the contingent unity of its ontological constituents. Such a being is appropriately referred to as a this-such or as a concrete individual. I assume that existence and actuality are the same: to exist = to be actual. I also assume that existence and Being are the same: to exist = to be. Thus I reject the quasi-Meinongian thesis forwarded by Bertrand Russell in his 1903 Principles of Mathematics (449) according to which there ARE items that do not EXIST.

It follows from these two assumptions that there are no individuals that are merely possible. For if there were merely possible individuals, they would have Being, but not existence.

Objection. "This very table that I just finished building, was, before I built it, a merely possible table. One and the same table went from being merely possible to being actual. No temporal individual becomes actual unless it, that very individual, was previously possible. Now the table is actual; hence it, that very individual, had to have been previously a merely possible table. A merely possible table is a table, but one that does not exist."

Reply. "I deny that a merely possible table is a table. 'Merely possible' here functions as an alienans adjective like 'decoy' in 'decoy duck.' A decoy duck is not a duck, but a hunk of wood made to appear, to a duck, as a duck. A merely possible table is not a table, but the possibility that there come to exist a table that satisfies a certain description.

The possibility of there coming to exist a table of such-and-such a description could be understood as a set of properties, or as perhaps a big conjunctive property. Either way, the possibility would not be a possible individual.

I deny the presupposition of your question, Steven, namely, that "a merely possible this-such is a unity as much as an actual this-such." What you are assuming is that there are merely possible individuals. A merely possible individual is a nonexistent individual, and on the view I take in my existence book, there are no nonexistent individuals.

The next post — scroll up — will help you understand the subtlety of this problematic.

Does Divine Immutability Entail Modal Collapse?

That divine simplicity entails modal collapse is a controversial thesis, but one for which there are strong arguments. Does the same hold for divine immutability? I don't think so. That immutability should entail modal collapse strikes me as based on a simple confusion of the temporal with the modal.

Modal Collapse

In the state of modal collapse, there are no contingent propositions, where a contingent proposition is one that is possibly false if true, and possibly true if false, and where there are no contingent beings, where a contingent being is one that is possibly nonexistent if existent and possibly existent if nonexistent. So in the dreaded state of modal collapse, every proposition is either necessarily true or necessarily false, and every being is either necessary or impossible.

Although one philosopher's datum is often another's (false) theory, I take it to be a datum, a Moorean fact, that, for example, I exist contingently and that many of the propositions about me are contingently either true or false. For example, it is contingently true that I am now blogging, and contingently false that I am now riding my bike, where 'now' picks out the same time.

I take it, then, that we should want to uphold the modal distinctions and that it is an argument against a theory if it should fail to do so.

Divine Immutability

In a strong form, the immutability doctrine states that God does not undergo any sort of intrinsic change. We distinguish intrinsic from relational changes. If Hillary becomes furious at Bill's infidelity, that is an intrinsic change in her. But there needn't be any corresponding intrinsic change in Bill. He will change, but relationally by becoming the object of Hillary's wrath. (And perhaps only relationally if Bill is unaware of Hillary's discovery of his infidelity and the onset of her wrath.) If, however, her rage should vent itself in her conking him on the head with a rolling pin, then intrinsic changes will occur in both parties to this famous marriage.

Similarly, if I start and stop thinking about God, I undergo an intrinsic change, but this intrinsic change in me is a merely relational ('merely Cambridge') change in God, and is insofar forth compatible with God's strong immutability.

Strong immutability, then, is the claim that God is not subject to intrinsic change.

Confusing the Temporal with the Modal

If God is strongly immutable, then any intrinsic property that he has at a given time he has at every time. But if a thing has a property at every time at which it exists, it does not follow that it has that property necessarily. I'm a native Californian. I always was and I always will be. But that is a contingent fact about me: I might have been born in some other state. So the property of being born in California is one I have contingently despite my having it at every moment of my existence. The same goes for intrinsic properties. Suppose the universe always existed and always will exist. That is consistent with the universe's being contingent. What is always the case needn't necessarily be the case.

Now suppose God always wills the existence of our universe. It does not follow that God necessarily wills the existence of our universe. Nor does it follow that what he wills– our universe — necessarily exists. This consideration puts paid to the threat of modal collapse. Tim Pawl in his IEP article puts it like this:

Divine immutability rules out that God go from being one way to being another way. But it does not rule out God knowing, desiring, or acting differently than he does. It is possible that God not create anything. If God hadn’t created anything, he wouldn’t talk to Abraham at a certain time (since no Abraham would exist). But such a scenario doesn’t require that God change, since it doesn’t require that there be a time when God is one way, and a later time when he is different. Rather, it just requires the counterfactual difference that if God had not created, he would not talk to Abraham. Such a truth is neutral to whether or not God changes. In short, difference across possible worlds does not entail difference across times. Since all that strong immutability rules out is difference across times, divine immutability is not inconsistent with counterfactual difference, and hence does not entail a modal collapse. Things could have been otherwise than they are, and, had they been different, God would immutably know things other than he does, all without change . . . .

Three Theses

First, the divine simplicity doctrine entails modal collapse. This was argued earlier.

Second, divine simplicity is not to be confused with divine immutability. The first entails the second, but the second does not entail the first.

Third, divine immutability does not entail modal collapse.

Summa Theologica, Q. 19, Art. 3: Whether Whatever God Wills He Wills Necessarily

This is the question we have been discussing. Let us now see if the answer Thomas gives is satisfactory. The question is not whether, necessarily, whatever God wills, he wills. The answer to that is obvious and in the affirmative. The question is whether whatever God wills, he wills necessarily. If so, then God's willing creatures into existence is a necessary willing despite the creatures being contingent. If not, then God's willing contingent creatures into existence is itself contingent.

Objection 4. Further, being that is not necessary, and being that is possible not to be, are one and the same thing. If, therefore, God does not necessarily will a thing that He wills, it is possible for Him not to will it, and therefore possible for Him to will what He does not will. And so the divine will is contingent upon one or the other of two things, and imperfect, since everything contingent is imperfect and mutable.

This 'objection' strikes me more as an argument for the thesis that whatever God wills he wills necessarily than as an objection to it. The gist of the argument is as follows. If it is not the case that whatever God wills he necessarily wills, then the divine will is in some cases contingent. But the divine perfection rules this out. Ergo, etc.

Reply to Objection 4. Sometimes a necessary cause has a non-necessary relation to an effect; owing to a deficiency in the effect, and not in the cause. Even so, the sun's power has a non-necessary relation to some contingent events on this earth, owing to a defect not in the solar power, but in the effect that proceeds not necessarily from the cause. In the same way, that God does not necessarily will some of the things that He wills, does not result from defect in the divine will, but from a defect belonging to the nature of the thing willed, namely, that the perfect goodness of God can be without it; and such defect accompanies all created good.

This reply takes us to the heart of the matter. The solar analogy is arguably lame, so let's just ignore it.

The way I have been thinking is along the following lines. No contingent effect can have a necessary cause. The effect that presently interests us is the contingent existence of (concrete) creatures. The cause is not God, but God's willing these creatures into existence ex nihilo. So I'm thinking that the divine willing whereby the concrete universe of creatures was brought into existence out of nothing had to be a contingent willing – – with disastrous consequences for the divine simplicity.

For if God is a necessary being, and, as simple, identical to his willing creatures into existence, then his willing is necessary. But then one might be forgiven for thinking that creatures are also necessary. Bear in mind that the divine will is omnipotent and necessarily efficacious. Or else we run the argument in reverse from the contingency of creatures to the contingency of divine willing. Either way there is trouble for classical theism.

The Thomist way out is to ascribe the contingency of creatures, not to the contingency of the divine will whereby they are brought into existence, but to their own ontological deficiency and imperfection. God, willing his own good, wills creatures as manifestations of his own good. As neither self-subsistent nor purely actual, creatures are mutable and imperfect. Moreover, God has no need of them to be all that he is. The reality of the ens reallissimum and the perfection of the ens perfectissimum are in no way enhanced by the addition of creatures: God + creatures = God. (More on this 'equation' in a later post.)

Are creatures then nothing at all? Has the simple God like Parmenides' Being swallowed the whole of reality? (More on this later.)

I would like to accept the Thomist solution, but I am afraid I cannot. If God exists in every possible world, and God is identical to his willing creatures in every possible world, then creatures exist in every possible world — which contradicts our assumption that creatures are contingent, i.e., existent in some but not all possible worlds. To say that the contingency of creatures resides in their ontological imperfection seems to involve a fudging of two distinct senses of contingency:

X is modally contingent (to give it a name) iff x is possible to be and possible not to be. (This is equivalent to: existent in some but not all possible worlds.)

X is ontologically contingent (to give it a name) iff x is radically imperfect in its mode of being and not ontologically necessary (not self-subsistent, simple, purely actual, eternal etc.)

Now if creatures exist at all — which may be doubted if God + creatures = God — then they must be contingent in both senses, But then our problem is up and running and the Thomist solution avails nothing. Contingency of creatures in the second sense cannot be read back into God, but modal contingency of creatures can be.

Welcome to the aporetics of the Absolute.

Necessary God, Contingent Creatures: Another Round with Novak

In an earlier thread, Lukas Novak writes,

. . . God simply does not need any causal acts to mediate his causal power. He is causally efficient through his very essence, directly, and contingently, imparting being to the created essences immediately. It is only with respect to this causal power which is an aspect of his essence that we call the selfsame essence an "act" (in the sense of activity).

The above is a response to the line I have been taking, which is essentially as follows.

God necessarily exists. What's more, he is simple. God creates our universe U. U, having been created, exists. (And it wouldn't have existed had it not been created by God.) But U exists contingently, which implies (given that God created U) that God might not have created U. Now consider God's creating of U. This creative action is at least notionally distinct both from God and from U. On the face of it, we must distinguish among God, God's creative action, and the effect of this action, namely, U.

We now ask: Is the divine creative action necessary or contingent? I will now argue that it is not necessary. God exists in every possible world. If his creating of U occurred in every possible world, then U would exist in every possible world. But then U would not be contingent (existent in some but not all worlds), but necessary. Therefore, God's creating of U, given that U is contingent, is also contingent: it occurs in all and only those world in which U exists.

So God's creating U is contingent. But God is necessary. It follows that God cannot be identical to his creating U. But this contradicts the doctrine of divine simplicity one of the entailments of which is that God is identical to each of his intrinsic properties. So the following propositions constitute an inconsistent triad, or antilogism.

1) God is simple

2) All created concreta are contingent.

3) No contingent effect has a necessary cause.

Given that the limbs of the triad are collectively inconsistent, one of them must be rejected.

A) Reject simplicity. If God is not simple, then we can say that God is really (and not just notionally) distinct from his creative acts, and that, while God exists in every world, he creates only in some. This solution upholds the contingency of created concreta, and preserves the intuitive notion that a contingent effect cannot have a necessary cause.

B) Retain simplicity but accept the consequence that creatures are necessary beings. That is, retain simplicity and accept modal collapse.

C) Retain simplicity, but reject the notion that no contingent effect has a necessary cause. This, I take it, is Novak's way out. As I quoted him above, ". . . God simply does not need any causal acts to mediate his causal power. He is causally efficient through his very essence, directly, and contingently, imparting being to the created essences immediately."

The difference between me and Novak is that I consider the above triad to be an aporia, a problem for which there is no satisfactory solution. Novak, however, thinks that there is a satisfactory rational solution by way of rejecting (3). He accepts divine simplicity, and he rejects modal collapse. He concludes that there is no difference in God corresponding to the difference between the existence of U and the nonexistence of U. The creation of U is not the realization of a divine potential to create U, and God's refraining from creating anything is not the realization of a divine potential to refrain from creating. And this for the reason that there is nothing potential in God: God is purely actual.

Novak's solution satisfies him, but it doesn't satisfy me. It sounds like magic to me. I find the following unintelligible: "He [God] is causally efficient through his very essence, directly, and contingently, imparting being to the created essences immediately." The words make sense, of course, but I find that they do not express an intelligible proposition.

Here, I think, is where the discussion must end.

The Euthyphro Dilemma, Divine Simplicity, and Modal Collapse

The Question

God commands all and only the morally obligatory. But does he command it because it is obligatory, or is it obligatory because he commands it? The question naturally arises, but issues in a dilemma. A dilemma is a very specific sort of problem in which there are exactly two alternatives, neither of which is acceptable. Thus we speak of the 'horns' of a dilemma, and of being 'impaled' on its horns.

Bear in mind the following tripartite distinction. For any agent that issues a command, there is (i) the commanding, (ii) that which is commanded (the content of the act of commanding), and (iii) the relevant normative property of the content. Contents of commands can be either permissible, impermissible, or obligatory. Note the ambiguity of 'command' as between the act of commanding, and the content commanded. And note that while finite agents sometimes command what is morally impermissible, this is never the case with God. Everything God commands is morally obligatory. The question is whether the divine commanding makes the action obligatory, or whether it is obligatory independently of God's command. In the latter case, God is at most the advocate and enforcer of an obligation but not its legislator.

Horn One

If God commands an action because it is obligatory, then the obligatoriness of the action is not due to God's command, but is logically antecedent to it. God is then subject to an independently existing system of norms that are not in his control. He is then an advocate of the moral order and its enforcer, but not its source, with negative consequences for the divine sovereignty. God is the Absolute, and the Absolute cannot be dependent on anything external to it for its existence, nature, modal status, or anything else, including the justification of its commands. The sovereign God is the absolute lord of all orders, including the moral order.

Horn Two

If an action is obligatory because God commands it, then the normative quality of the action — its being obligatory — derives from a fact, the fact of God's commanding the action. This is puzzling: how can the mere fact that an agent issues a command make the content of the command objectively binding? Of course, God is not any old agent: he is morally perfect. So you can be sure that he won't command anything that is not categorically obligatory. Still, the move from fact to norm is puzzling. The puzzle is heightened if the agent is free in the 'could have done otherwise' sense. If God is free in this sense, libertarianly free, then he might not have commanded the action, in which case it would not have been obligatory. This is an unacceptable result. If it is impermissible to kill babies for sexual gratification, and obligatory to refrain from such an action, normative properties cannot derive from any being's free will. For that would make morality arbitrary. The normative proposition It is impermissible to kill babies for sexual gratification, if true, is necessarily true. Its truth value cannot then depend on a contingent command even if the one who commands is God.

Constraints on a Solution

We are assuming that God exists, that morality is objective and not up to the whim of any being, and that God is sovereign over the moral order, and indeed, absolute lord of all orders. So we cannot solve the dilemma by denying that God exists, or by grasping one or the other of the horns, or by limiting divine sovereignty. We must find a way between the horns. If we succeed, we will have shown that the dilemma is a false alternative.

The problem has two sides. First, how do we get from a fact to a norm? To be precise, how do get from the facticity of a commanding to the normativity of the content commanded? Second, how do we ensure that the norm is absolute? We would have a solution if it could be shown that the fact just is the norm, and the fact could not have been different.

William Mann's Solution via Divine Simplicity

Mann's solution is built on the notion that, with respect to necessary truths and absolute values, God is not free to will otherwise than he wills. In this way the second horn, and arbitrarity, is avoided. But how can God be sovereign over the moral order if he cannot will otherwise than he wills? If I understand the solution, it is that sovereignty is maintained and the first horn is avoided if the constraint on divine freedom is internal to God as it would be if “absolute values are the expression of that [God's] rational autonomy.” (William E. Mann, God, Modality, and Morality, Oxford UP, 2015,168) Thus God is not free as possessing the liberty of indifference with respect to necessary truths and absolute values, but he is nonetheless free as the rationally autonomous creative source of necessary truths and absolute values. God then is the source of necessary truths and absolute values, not their admirer or advocate. God is not subject to the moral order; he is the source of it. Indeed, he is identical to it. Does Mann's solution require the doctrine of divine simplicity? It would seem so. This doctrine implies that knowing and willing are identical in God. If so, then the truth value and modal status of necessary truths, including necessary moral truths, cannot be otherwise in which case God cannot will them to be otherwise.

On the doctrine of divine simplicity, then, the Euthyphro Dilemma turns out to be false dilemma: the simplicity doctrine allows for a third possibility, a way between the horns.* God is Goodness itself, not a good being among others. As such, he just is the content of morality. The moral order is not external to him nor antecedent to him logically or ontologically: he is not subject to it. Sovereignty is preserved. Arbitrarity is avoided because God cannot will any moral contents other than the ones he wills.

Problem Solved?

If God is absolutely sovereign, as he must be to be God, then he is sovereign over every order including the MODAL order. It is cogently arguable, however, that the simplicity doctrine entails the collapse of modal distinctions and thus the collapse of the modal order.

It looks as if we can solve the Euthyphro problem, but only by generating a different problem. The Euthyphro problem is solved by saying that (i) the obligatory is obligatory because God commands it, but (ii) the contents of the divine commands could not have been otherwise. They could not have been otherwise because these contents are contained within the unchangeable divine nature. Hence God is neither subject to an external moral order, nor the arbitrary creator of it. God is the moral order. In God, the facticity of the commanding and the normativity of the contents commanded are one.

But if God, because he is absolutely sovereign, cannot be subject to a logically prior MORAL order, then he also cannot be subject to a logically prior MODAL order. As absolutely sovereign, God must be sovereign over all orders. It cannot be that the possible and the necessary subsist in sublime independence of God. It cannot be that creation is the selective actualization of some proper subset of self-subsisting mere possibles, or the actualization of one among an infinity of possible worlds. Creation is not actualization. For then God would not be creating out of nothing, but out of possibles the Being of which would be independent of God's Being.

God, then, cannot be subject to a modal order independent of him. So one might think to import into God the modal distinctions, for example, the distinction between the merely possible and the actual. This importation would parallel the importation into the divine nature of the various contents of divine commands. Perhaps it is like this. God entertains mere possibles which, as merely possible, subsist only as accusatives of his thinking, but actualizes some of them, super-adding existence to them. The mere possibles that need an act of divine actualization in order to exist would then contingently exist, which is of course the result we want. Unfortunately, the contingency of actual creatures (Socrates, for example, as opposed to his merely possible brother Schmocrates) entails the possibility of no creatures and of other creatures who remain merely possible. But then we have in God a distinction between his actual and his merely possible creative decisions. This conflicts with DDS and its commitment to God's being purely actual (actus purus).

Conclusion

The doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) allows for a solution of the Euthyphro dilemma with the following advantages: it upholds the existence of God, the objectivity of morality, the non-arbitrarity of the divine will, and God's sovereignty over the moral order. But God, to be God, must be the absolute lord of all orders, including the modal order. The simplicity doctrine, however, needed to solve the Euthyphro dilemma entails the collapse of the modal order in which case it is not there to for God to be sovereign over. The objectivity of the modal distinctions needs to be upheld just as much as the objectivity of morality. But this is impossible if DDS is true. So while God must be simple to be God, he cannot be simple if if he is the creator of our universe, a universe whose contingency is the point of departure for the ascent to the divine absolute.

Welcome to the aporetics of the Absolute!

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* A dilemma is said to be false if there is a third possibility, and thus a way between the horns. The contemporary Thomist, Edward Feser, maintains that the Euthyphro dilemma is false:

Divine simplicity also entails, of course, that God’s will just is God’s goodness which just is His immutable and necessary existence. That means that what is objectively good and what God wills for us as morally obligatory are really the same thing considered under different descriptions, and that neither could have been other than they are. There can be no question then, either of God’s having arbitrarily commanded something different for us (torturing babies for fun, or whatever) or of there being a standard of goodness apart from Him. Again, the Euthyphro dilemma is a false one; the third option that it fails to consider is that what is morally obligatory is what God commands in accordance with a non-arbitrary and unchanging standard of goodness that is not independent of Him.

Divine Simplicity, Modal Collapse, and the Difference Principle

The question before us is whether the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) can be upheld without the collapse of modal distinctions.

In "Simply Impossible: A Case Against Divine Simplicity" (Journal of Reformed Theology 7, 2013, 181-203), R. T. Mullins asks (footnote omitted):

Could God have refrained from creating the universe? If God is free then it seems that the answer is obviously ‘yes.’ He could have existed alone. Yet, God did create the universe. If there is a possible world in which God exists alone, God is not simple. He eternally has unactualized potential for He cannot undo His act of creation. He could cease to sustain the universe in existence, but that would not undo His act of creating. One could avoid this problem by allowing for a modal collapse. One could say that everything is absolutely necessary. Necessarily, there is only one possible world—this world. Necessarily, God must exist with creation. There is no other possibility. God must create the universe that we inhabit, and everything must occur exactly as it in fact does. There is no such thing as contingency when one allows a modal collapse. (195-196)

The foregoing suggests to me one version of the problem. There is a tension between divine simplicity and divine freedom.

1) If God is simple, then he is purely actual (actus purus) and thus devoid of unexercised powers and unrealized potentialities. He is, from all eternity, all that he can be. This is true in every possible world because God exists in every possible world, and is pure act in every possible world. As a necessary being, God exists in every possible world, and as a simple being, he is devoid of act-potency composition in every world in which he exists.

2) As it is, God freely created our universe from nothing; but he might have created a different universe, or no universe at all. This implies that any universe God creates contingently exists.

The dyad seems logically inconsistent. If (1) is true, then there is no possible world in which God has unexercised powers. But if (2) is true, there is at least one possible world in which God has unexercised powers. Had God created no universe, then his power to create would have gone unexercised. Had God created a different universe than the one he did create, then his power to create our universe would have gone unexercised. So if God is both simple and (libertarianly) free, then we get a logical contradiction.

In nuce, the problem is to explain how it can be true both that God is simple and that the universe which God created ex nihilo is contingent. Clearly, the classical theist wants to uphold both. What is unclear, however, is whether he can uphold both.

There are two main ways to solve an aporetic polyad. One is to show that the inconsistency alleged is at best apparent, but not real. The other way is by rejection of one of the limbs.

Many if not most theists, and almost all Protestants, will simply (pun intended) deny the divine simplicity. I myself think there are good reasons for embracing the latter. But how then avoid modal collapse?

Modal Collapse

We have modal collapse just when the following proposition is true: For any x, x is possible iff x is actual iff x is necessary. This implies that nothing is merely possible; nothing is contingent; nothing is impossible. If nothing is merely possible, then there are no merely possible worlds, which implies that there is exactly one possible world, the actual world, which cannot fail to be actual, and is therefore necessary. Modal collapse ushers in what I cill call modal Spinozism.

(The collapse is on the extensional, not the intensional or notional plane: the modal words retain their distinctive senses.)

Suppose divine simplicity entails modal collapse (modal Spinozism). So what? What is so bad about the latter? Well, it comports none too well with God's sovereignty. If God is absolutely sovereign, then he cannot be under a metaphysical necessity to create. Connected with this is the fact that if God must create, then his aseity would be compromised. He cannot be wholly from himself, a se, if his existence necessarily requires a realm of creatures. Finally, creaturely (libertarian) freedom would go by the boards if reality is one big block of Spinozistic necessity.

Steven Nemes' Solution

If God created our universe U, and U is contingent, then it is quite natural to suppose that God's creative act is as contingent as what it brings into existence, namely, U. But this is impossible on DDS. For on DDS, God is identical to his creative causing. This being so, U — the creatively caused — exists with the same metaphysical necessity as does God. The reasoning that leads to this unacceptable conclusion, however, rests on an assumption:

DP. A difference in effect presupposes a difference in the cause. (Nemes, 109)

For example, the difference between U existing and no universe existing entails a difference in God between his actualized power to create U and his unactualized, but actualizable, power to refrain from creating anything.

Nemes proposes that we reject (DP), at least with respect to divine causality. (110) Accordingly, the contingency of U's existence does not reflect any contingency in God, even though U is wholly dependent on God for its existence at every moment at which it exists. So if we reject the Difference Principle, then we can maintain both that the created universe is contingent and that there are no unrealized potentialities in God. But if we don't reject (DP), then "the argument from modal collapse [against the divine simpicity] is successful." (111)

Is the Nemes Solution Satisfactory?

I say it isn't. It strikes me as problematic as the problem it is proposed to solve.

Consider an analogy. In a dark room I turn on a flashlight that causes a circular white spot to appear on a wall. When I turn off the light the spot disappears. Clearly, the beam of light from the flashlight is the cause and the spot on the wall is the effect. We also note that the beam is not only the originating cause of the spot, but a continuing cause of the spot: the spot depends on the beam at every moment at which the spot exists. In this respect beam-spot is analogous to divine creating- universe existing. Finally, we note that, just as the spot depends for its existence on the existence of the beam, and not vice versa, the contingency of the spot depends on the contingency of the beam. If the spot is contingent, then so must be its cause. Suppose that at time t, the light is on and the spot appears. To say that the spot is contingent is to say that, at t, t might not have existed. But had the spot not existed at t, then the light would not have been on at t. Surely it would be absurd to say both that the light is on at t and the spot does not exist at t

Similarly, it seems absurd to say both that the creative causing of U is occurring in every possible world and that U does not exist in every possible world. Bear in mind that divine causing is necessarily efficacious: it cannot fail to bring about its effect. The divine Fiat lux! cannot be followed by darkness (or no light).

But of course arguments from analogy prove nothing (assuming the rigorous standards of proof that I favor), and so Nemes would be within his rights were he simply to reject my analogy. He might insist that just as God is sui generis, the creative relation between God and creatures is sui generis and cannot be modeled in any way. He might insist that divine causality is unique. In this one case, a causal 'process' that occurs in every possible world — because said process is identical to God who exists in every world — has an effect that exists in only some possible worlds.

We are now in the following dialectical situation. Nemes would have us accept DDS and reject DP. But I see no reason to think that this is any better than accepting DP and rejecting DDS. Either way, the exigencies of the discursive intellect are flouted.

An Aporia?

It seems that the proponent of divine simplicity faces a nasty problem. At the moment, I see no satisfactory solution.

The aporetician in me is open to the thought that what we have here is a genuine aporia, a conceptual impasse, a puzzle that we cannot solve. God must be simple to be God; the created universe is really contingent. We cannot, however, see how both limbs of the dyad can be true and so we must see them as contradictory, even though they are presumably not contradictory in reality.

It could be like this: the limbs are both true, but our cognitive limitations make it impossible for us to understand how they could both be true. Mysterianism may be the way to go. This shouldn't trouble a theologian too much. After all, Trinity, Incarnation, etc. are mysteries in the end, are they not? Of course, I am not suggesting the doctrine of divine simplicity can be found in the Bible.

An Exchange with Lukas Novak

In an earlier thread, I wrote:

At best, a cosmological argument takes us from the contingent universe U to a divine creative act that explains the existence of U. Now this creative act is itself contingent: God might not have created anything. If God is simple, then he is identical to the creative act. Since the act is contingent, God is contingent, and therefore not God by the Anselmian criterion. On the other hand, if God is necessary, then the creative act and U are necessary, which is unacceptable. The following cannot all be true:

1) God is simple.
2) God is noncontingent.
3) God's creative act is contingent.

Dr. Novak responded:

God's creative act need not be contingent. It only needs to contingently bring about its effect.

God's efficiency is distinct from created efficiency. A created cause is itself changed by causing (by eliciting de novo the productive act as its accidental form), God is not changed by causing (being for eternity identical to any of its timeless creative acts). God would be the same in all respects had He not caused the world into existence. This is the requirement of His perfection.

Novak's first two sentences makes no sense. If the effect is contingent, then the creative act which is its cause must also be contingent. There is a three-fold distinction on the notional plane among God (the agent of the creative act or action), the creative act itself, and the effect of the creative act. God is a necessary being. Now if God is identical in reality to the creative act whereby he creates U, as per DDS, then the creative act must also be necessary, in which case the created universe cannot be contingent.

One source of confusion here is that 'act' can be used in two ways. To say that God is pure act (actus purus) is not to say that God is pure action; it is merely to say that he is devoid of all potency. Note also that God is not the cause of the existence of U; the cause is God's creative action.

I can agree with the rest of what Novak says, except for the penultimate sentence, but only if he draws the conclusion that follows from it, namely, that the created universe exists of metaphysical necessity.

REFERENCE: Steven Nemes, "Divine Simplicity Does Not Entail Modal Collapse" in Carlos Frederico, et al. eds., Rose and Reasons: Philosophical Essays, Bucharest: Eikon, 2020, 101-119.

Intrinsic Intentionality and Merely Possible Thoughts

I claimed earlier that there are no intrinsically intentional items that lack consciousness. The claim was made in the context of an attempted refutation of the notion that abstract entities, Fregean senses being one subspecies thereof, could be intrinsically intentional or object-directed. One argument I gave was that (i) No abstract entity is conscious; (ii) Only conscious entities are intrinsically intentional; ergo, (iii) No abstract entity is intrinsically intentional.

David Gudeman demurs, targeting premise (ii):

I may have a counter-example for you, a class of items that 1. Are intrinsically intentional, 2. Are not conscious. The class of things I have in mind is possible thoughts. For example, right now I am thinking about thoughts, but if I had bought that cherry pie earlier today, I would probably be thinking about the cherry pie. My thought of the cherry pie is possible but not actual, so it is not conscious, but it is about the cherry pie, and therefore intrinsically intentional. Also, if there were no actual objects in the universe there would still be possible minds with possible thoughts–intentional objects that exist in a universe without minds.

I take Dave to be arguing as follows:

1) Every thought (thinking) is intrinsically object-directed.

Therefore

2) Every merely possible thought (thinking) is intrinsically object-directed.

3) Some merely possible thoughts (thinkings) are not conscious.

Therefore

4) Some intrinsically object-directed items are not conscious.

A delightfully seductive argument!

I question the inference from (1) to (2) on the ground that there are no merely possible thoughts. (1) is true, but (2) is false if there are no merely possible thoughts.

It is of course possible that I think about cherry pie. But it doesn't follow that there is a possible thought about cherry pie which somehow subsists on its own. Possibilities are grounded in actual items. I actually exist and have various powers. Among them are powers to think about this or that. So, from 'Possibly, I am thinking about x' it does not follow that there is a possible thought about x.

I believe I have said enough to show that Dave's argument, as I have reconstructed it, is not rationally compelling.

Contingency and Composition

Joe, who describes himself as "a high school student with a passion for philosophy of religion and metaphysics," asked me a long series of difficult questions. Here is one of them:

After reading [Edward] Feser's Five Proofs, I have had difficulties with the concept of sustaining causes. First, Feser argues that composites require a sustaining cause in order to "hold them together" or keep them conjoined. But this seems to presuppose that all composite things (be it physical composites or metaphysical composites) are contingent.

But why suppose that, necessarily, all composites are contingent? What is incoherent about this:

X is a necessary being (i.e. X cannot fail to exist). X has metaphysical parts A, B, and C. Each of A, B, and C are also necessarily instantiated in reality, and the relations between A, B, and C are all necessarily instantiated in reality.

Why ought we to rule out this epistemic possibility? This seems to be a necessary being which is composite. It would be a counter-example to the assumption that composition entails contingency (where contingency means can fail to exist).

If we take composition broadly enough, composition does not entail contingency. Consider the set, {1, 3, 5}. Assume that numbers are necessary beings. Then of course the set will also be a necessary being. Furthermore, the relations that hold between the members of this set hold necessarily. For example, necessarily, 3 < 5, and necessarily, 3 > 1. So if we think of sets as composite entities, then it is not the case that all composites are contingent.

But what Feser is concerned with are material particulars, or material substances, to use the Aristotelian-scholastic jargon, e..g., a horse, a statue, a man. And of course these cannot be taken to be sets of their metaphysical parts. If I understand Feser, what he is asking is: what makes a contingent being such as Socrates contingent? The question is not whether he is contingent, but what makes him contingent. What is the ground of his contingency? The answer is that Socrates is contingent because he is composite. Composition or rather compositeness is the ground of contingency. His contingency is explained by his compositeness, in particular, his being a composite of essence and existence. So at the root of contingency is the real distinction (distinctio realis) of essence and existence in finite substances.

The claim is not that every composite entity is contingent, but that every contingent substance is contingent in virtue of its being composite.

Now if a contingent substance is contingent in virtue of its being composed of essence and existence, then a necessary being, or rather, a necessary being that has its necessity from itself and not from another, is necessary in virtue of its being simple, i.e., absolutely non-partite. This is how Thomists feel driven to the admittedly strange and seemingly incoherent doctrine of divine simplicity.

If there is to be an ultimate explanation of the existence of contingent beings, this explanation must invoke an entity that is not itself contingent. The ultimate entity must exist of metaphysical necessity and have its necessity from itself. Thomism as I understand it plausibly maintains that the ground of the divine necessity is the divine simplicity. God is necessary because in God essence and existence are one and the same.

Possible Worlds Again: Thomist versus ‘Analyst’

Fr. Matthew Kirby by e-mail:

By the way, in thinking about my comments on the [your] SEP entry I realised that I had used the term "possible worlds" in an idiosyncratic way, one non-standard within the analytical school, applying a Thomist twist to it. Unlike standard usage, I do not include a hypothetical transcendent First Cause as an element within any "possible world", but instead define possible worlds in that context as potential concrete totalities that may result from God's choice with respect to creation. Thus God Himself is not an element of any possible world (though His supernatural actions ad extra can be) on this construal, as possible worlds are each a sum of finitised, dependent, created being/s considered across their development.

What Fr. Kirby says certainly make sense. Talk of God existing in every possible world comes naturally to analytical theists who are concerned to affirm the divine necessity. Such talk, however, is bound to sound strange to those of a traditional bent who quite naturally think of God as the transcendent creator of the world, a creator who could have created some other world or no world at all, and its therefore 'outside of' every possible world.

Herewith, some comments in clarification.

Let's start with the obvious point that 'world' supports a multitude of meanings. (I once cataloged a dozen or so distinct uses of the term.) If we use 'world' to refer to the totality of what exists, then, if God exists, he is in the world: he is a member of that all-inclusive totality of entities. If, on the other hand, we use 'world' to refer to the totality of creatures, where a creature is anything at all that is created by God, then God is not in the world. God, after all, does not create himself: he is the uncreated creator of everything distinct from himself. So God does not count as a creature.

So far, then, two senses of 'world.' World as totality of entities and world as totality of creatures. God is in the first totality, but not in the second. But a Thomistic theist such as Fr. Kirby might balk at my placing God in the totality of entities. If God exists or is, however, then God is an entity. (I define an entity as anything that is or exists.) To put it in Latin, even if God is esse, he is nevertheless ens, something that is. God is at once both Being (esse) and ens (being). Note my careful distinction between the majuscule and miniscule 'B/b.' In fact, if God is ipsum esse subsistens, self-subsistent Being, then he can't be other than every being; he must be both Being and being. God is Being in its prime instance, which is to say: God is both esse and ens, Being and being. More on this later, since Fr. Kirby seems to disagree.

Unless one is treading the via negativa with Dionysius the Areopagite and Co., one must admit that God is.

I hasten to add that, while God is both esse and ens, and therefore is, he is not an ens among entia, a being among beings. So I grant that God fits somewhat uneasily within the totality of entities. For while he is an entity, he is the one being that is also identical to Being. (How is this possible? Well, that is the problem or perhaps mystery of divine simplicity.) Still, God is.

I have distinguished two senses of 'world.' World as totality of entities and world as totality of creatures. But there is a third sense: world as a maximal state of affairs. "The world is all that is the case. The world is the totality of facts, not of things." (These are the first two propositions of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.) This is pretty close to the main (not the only) analytic understanding of 'world' in talk of possible worlds.

Here, then, is one 'analytic' approach. The actual world is the total way things are. A merely possible world is a total way things could have been or could be. The actual world is the total way things are, but not the things that are that way. Thus the actual world is not the same as the universe, whether physical or physical plus any nonphysical items there are. Why not?

The plausible line to take is abstractist. Worlds are maximal (Fregean) propositions and thus abstract entities or maximal (abstract) states of affairs, as on A. Plantinga's scheme in The Nature of Necessity. They are not maximal mereological sums of concreta, pace that mad dog extreme modal realist, David Lewis, may his atheist bones rest in peace. If worlds are propositions, then actuality is truth. That is one interesting consequence. Another is that worlds are abstract objects which implies that the actual world must not be confused either with the physical universe (the space-time-matter system) or with that plus whatever nonphysical concreta (minds) that there might be. And if worlds are abstract objects then they are necessary beings. So every possible world exists in every possible world.