{"id":2706,"date":"2021-02-21T09:42:25","date_gmt":"2021-02-21T09:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/02\/21\/per-impossibile-counterfactual-conditionals-more-questions-for-dr-novak\/"},"modified":"2021-02-21T09:42:25","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T09:42:25","slug":"per-impossibile-counterfactual-conditionals-more-questions-for-dr-novak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/02\/21\/per-impossibile-counterfactual-conditionals-more-questions-for-dr-novak\/","title":{"rendered":"Per Impossibile <\/i> Counterfactual Conditionals"},"content":{"rendered":"

God is a necessary being. That means: given that God exists, it is metaphysically impossible that he not exist. My opening sentence does not imply that God exists. It merely reports on God's modal status. Let us assume both that God exists and that all truth depends on God. <\/span><\/p>\n

How might this relation of dependence be formulated?  I find the following formulation perfectly intelligible:  if, per impossibile, God did not exist, truth would not exist either.<\/em>   In fact, Aquinas says essentially this somewhere in De Veritate<\/strong>.  (It is near the beginning but I can't find the passage.)<\/span><\/p>\n

The italicized sentence is an example of a per impossibile<\/em> counterfactual. Here is a second:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

If, per impossibile<\/em>, there were no minds, there would be no mere possibilia.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What say you, Dr. Novak?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

God is a necessary being. That means: given that God exists, it is metaphysically impossible that he not exist. My opening sentence does not imply that God exists. It merely reports on God's modal status. Let us assume both that God exists and that all truth depends on God. How might this relation of dependence … Continue reading “Per Impossibile <\/i> Counterfactual Conditionals”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[421,235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-counterfactuals","category-modal-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}