Category: Modal Matters
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Whether Jesus Exists Necessarily
Lukas Novak comments by e-mail: You list the following propositions in your post, Christology, Reduplicatives, and Their Truth-Makers: 1. The man Jesus = the 2nd Person of the Trinity.2. The 2nd Person of the Trinity exists necessarily.3. The man Jesus does not exist necessarily. and then say that "each of these propositions is one that…
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Conceivability and Epistemic Possibility
My disembodied existence is conceivable (thinkable without apparent logical contradiction by me and beings like me). But does it follow that my disembodied existence is possible? Sydney Shoemaker floats the suggestion that this inference is invalid, resting as he thinks on a confusion of epistemic with metaphysical possibility. (Identity, Cause, and Mind, p. 155, n.…
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Conceivability, Possibility, Self, and Body
A reader sent me the following argument which he considers a good one: 1. It is conceivable that I exist without my present body (or any part of it).2. Therefore, it is possible that I exist without my present body (or any part of it).3. Therefore, I have a property P that my body does…
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A Modal Fallacy to Avoid: Confusing the Necessity of the Consequence with the Necessity of the Consequent
No one anywhere can utter 'I am talking now' without saying something true. Indeed, that is necessarily the case: it doesn't just happen to be the case. Letting T = 'I am talking now,' we can write 1. Necessarily, for any speaker S, if S utters T, then T is true. But it would be…
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Conceivability, Possibility and Per Impossibile Reasoning
Here is an example of per impossibile reasoning from Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 1, art. 2: Even if there were no human intellects, things could be said to be true because of their relation to the divine intellect. But if, by an impossible supposition [per impossibile], intellect did not exist and things did continue…
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The De Dicto Objection to Substance Dualism
The modal arguments for substance dualism in the philosophy of mind require a possibility premise, for example, 'It is possible that a person exist disembodied,' or 'Possibly, a person becomes disembodied.' One question concerns the support for such a premise. Does conceivability entail possibility? Does imaginability entail possibility? And if neither entail possibility, do they…
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Soul, Conceivability, and Possibility: An Aporetic Exercise
I am puzzling over the inferential move from X is conceivable to X is (metaphysically) possible. It would be very nice if this move were valid. But I am having trouble seeing how it could be valid. I exist, and I have a body. But it is conceivable that I exist without a body. 'Conceivable'…
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Possibility, Intelligibility, and Miracles
Dave Gudeman at my old blog commented forcefully and eloquently: I've always had difficulty with arguments like this: It is not easy to understand how God could add causal input to the space-time system. I'm aware that such arguments have a distinguished history, but I don't get it. Just because you don't understand how it works,…
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Some Theses on Possible Worlds
Here are some of my (mostly unoriginal) thoughts on the topic of possible worlds. If I had more time I would organize these ideas better. But look, this is just a weblog, an online notebook! A natural-born scribbler, I bash these things out quickly. And you get what you pay for, muchachos. Double your money…
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Closer to the Grave, Further from Birth
With every passing day we are closer to becoming grave meat and worm fodder. Or dust and ashes. That’s the bad news. The good news is that, with every passing day, one more day has been taken up into the ersatz eternity of the Past & Unalterable. The medievals spoke of a modality they dubbed…
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Multiverses, Possible Worlds, and God
A lawyer from Pennsylvania e-mails: . . . I have a philosophy question. Is it possible that cosmology generally, with its theory of multiverses — all possible universes exist — provides an argument, somewhat like the oldontological argument, for a non impersonal God? To wit: 1) Multiverses — the set of all possible universes — exist.…
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The Two-Fold Sense of ‘The Actual World’
A correspondent poses the following difficulty: . . . compare two possible worlds W1 and W2. What makes them different worlds? Their constituent substances and events – that’s how we identify a world. Let’s say that W1 and W2 are distinct possible worlds, and add that A, the actual world, is in fact W1. [.…
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Modal Sentences and Truncated Counterfactual Conditionals
Let's think about the following modal sentence: 1. My expository skills could be better than they are. (1) is a modal sentence because of the presence in it of the modal word 'could.' Whether or not you agree with me that (1) is true, you must concede that (1) has a definite meaning understandable by…
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Dave Gudeman on Modality and ‘Antifactuals’
Long-time contributor Dave Gudeman coins the term 'antifactual' and then asks: So, what are the truth conditions of an antifactual such as (A) While the tree in my yard boasts 17,243 leaves at time t, it could have boasted 17,244 leaves at time t. Here are some candidates: (1) if the history of the tree…
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A Cantorian Argument Why Possible Worlds Cannot be Maximally Consistent Sets of Propositions
In a recent comment, Peter Lupu bids us construe possible worlds as maximally consistent sets of propositions. If this is right, then the actual world, which is of course one of the possible worlds, is the maximally consistent set of true propositions. But Cantor's Theorem implies that there cannot be a set of all true propositions. Therefore,…