Category: Modal Matters
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Necessary Being: A Note on a Post by James Barham
In the context of a reply to a "nasty attack on [Alvin] Plantinga by Jerry Coyne that cannot go unanswered," James Barham explains why he is an atheist: The other reason I balk [at accepting a theism like that of Plantinga's] is that I can’t help suspecting there is a category mistake involved in talking…
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Material Composition and Modal Discernibility
(For David Brightly, whom I hope either to convince or argue to a standoff.) Suppose God creates ex nihilo a bunch of Tinker Toy pieces at time t suitable for assembly into various (toy) artifacts such as a house and a fort. A unique classical mereological sum — call it 'TTS' — comes into existence…
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Absolute Truth and Necessary Truth
Absolute truth and necessary truth are not the same. Let our example be the proposition p expressed by 'Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 44 B.C.' Given that p is true, it is true in all actual circumstances. That is, its truth-value does not vary from time to time, place to place, person to person, or…
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Duns Scotus, Contingency, and ‘Modal’ Torture
Our Czech friend Vlastimil left the following curious comment on my entry, How Does One Know that There are Contingent Beings? Did you know that Duns Scotus, inspired by Avicenna, wrote that it is uprovable yet evident that some being is contingent, and that those who deny it should be tortured until they concede that they may be non-tortured?…
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How Does One Know that There Are Contingent Beings?
When I was writing my book on existence I was troubled by the question as to how one knows that there are contingent beings. For I took it as given that there are, just as I took it as given that things exist. But one philosopher's datum is another's theory, and I was hoping to begin…
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The Rabbit of Real Existence and the Empty Hat of Mere Logic
Consider again this curious piece of reasoning: 1. For any x, x = x. Ergo:2. a = a. Ergo:3. (Ex)(x = a). Ergo:4. a exists. This reasoning is curious because it seems to show that one can deduce the real existence of an individual a from a purely formal principle of logic, the Law of…
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Does Any Noncontingent Proposition Entail a Contingent Proposition?
This post continues the discussion in the comment thread of an earlier post. Propositions divide into the contingent and the noncontingent. The noncontingent divide into the necessary and the impossible. A proposition is contingent iff it is true in some, but not all, broadly logical possible worlds, 'worlds' for short. A proposition is necessary iff it…
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God, Probability, and Noncontingent Propositions
Matt Hart comments: . . . most of what we conceive is possible. So if we say that 1) In 80% of the cases, if 'Conceivably, p' then 'Possibly, p'2) Conceivably, God existsErgo,3) Pr(Possibly, God exists) = 80%4) If 'Possibly, God exists' then 'necessarily, God exists'Ergo,5) Pr(Necessarily, God exists) = 80%, we seem to get by.…
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De Dicto/De Re
In the course of thinking about the de dicto/de re distinction, I pulled the Oxford Companion to Philosophy from the shelf and read the eponymous entry. After being told that the distinction "seems to have first surfaced explicitly in Abelard," I was then informed that the distinction occurs: . . . in two main forms:…
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Multiple Universes and Possible Worlds
Tibor Machan makes some obvious but important points about multiple universes. One is that there cannot be two or more universes if by 'universe' is meant everything that exists in spacetime. I would add that this is a very simple conceptual truth, one that we know to be true a priori. It lays down a contraint that…
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More on Modes of Being with Two Applications
Clarity will be served if we distinguish the following four questions: Q1. What is meant by 'mode of being'? Q2. Is the corresponding idea intelligible? Q3. Are there (two or more) modes of being? Q4. What are the modes of being? So far in this series of posts I have been concerned only with the first two questions.…
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A Modal Ontological Argument and an Argument from Evil Compared
After leaving the polling place this morning, I headed out on a sunrise hike over the local hills whereupon the muse of philosophy bestowed upon me some good thoughts. Suppose we compare a modal ontological argument with an argument from evil in respect of the question of evidential support for the key premise in each. This post…
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God, Possibility, and Evidential Support for Non-Contingent Propositions
Mike Valle gave a presentation yesterday before the ASU philosophy club on the skeptical theist response to the evidential argument from evil. A good discussion ensued among Guleserian, Nemes, Lupu, Reppert, Valle, Vallicella, et al. Peter Lupu made a comment that stuck in my mind and that I thought about some more this morning. For…
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Can a Bundle Theory Accommodate Change?
0. Peter L. has been peppering me with objections to bundle theories. This post considers the objection from change. 1. Distinguish existential change (coming into being and passing out of being) from alterational change, or alteration. Let us think about ordinary meso-particulars such as avocados and coffee cups. If an avocado is unripe on Monday but…
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Metaphysics at Cindy’s: The Ontological Stucture of Contingent Conreta
Over Sunday breakfast at Cindy's, a hardscrabble Mesa, Arizona eatery not unwelcoming to metaphysicians and motorcyclists alike, Peter Lupu fired a double-barreled objection at my solution to Deck's Paradox. The target, however, was not hit. My solution requires that (a) concrete particulars can be coherently 'assayed' (to use a favorite word of Gustav Bergmann), or given an…