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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Metaphysical modality'
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1
Moriarty, Siobhan. "Ontological categories, existence statements, and metaphysical modality." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2017. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/19043/.
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What is the content of the claim that tropes a and b are co-instantiated if there is no such thing as tropes? I begin this thesis by arguing that a sentence expressing such a claim would be deficient in content and would, therefore, not be truth-apt. I use this claim to set up a general presupposition problem for the truth-apt sentences of our language. I argue that all truth-apt sentences presuppose the existence of the kinds of things which are to serve as the semantic values of their terms. Understanding the content of such a presupposition requires understanding the content of a categorial existence claim. However, I argue, it is incredibly difficult to provide a construal of categorial existence claims which does not presuppose the existence of the very things that they would be used to assert the existence of. I argue that to provide a satisfactory construal, we need to appeal to the notion of an ontological category. I contend that the notion of an ontological category with which we can provide a satisfactory construal of existence claims is a broadly Lowean one. I show that, as it stands, Lowe’s construal is not adequate to the task but that it can be modified so that it is. Making use of such a modified construal, I defend a metalinguistic construal of categorial existence claims. In chapters five and six, I argue that if we fully appreciate the notion of an ontological category which has been introduced, the notion of that which I claimed we have to make use in answering the question of ontology and referring to things in the world, we will recognise that such ontological categories ground, or partially ground, de re modal truths, and through them, the truths of metaphysical modality.
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Kimpton-Nye, Samuel. "Common ground for laws and metaphysical modality." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2018. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/common-ground-for-laws-and-metaphysical-modality(29ec9a5e-a444-4059-855d-2fc43234f89f).html.
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Philosophers in general, and metaphysicians in particular, are largely concerned with metaphysical modality, that is, with what is possible and necessary, in the broadest sense, and with what makes propositions about metaphysical modality true. Metaphysicians are also concerned with ontology, that is, with what exists and the nature of what exists. Ontology covers such questions as 'do numbers exist?' and 'do universals exist?' and, if numbers and universals do exist, 'what are they like?' and 'how do they exist?'. The laws of nature, such as the law of universal gravitation, Coulomb's law and the Schrödinger equation, for example, raise interesting philosophical questions at the intersection of metaphysics and the philosophy of science, such as 'what is the relationship between laws of nature and scientific explanation?' and 'in what sense, if any, are we free to break the laws?'. Questions about modality, ontology and laws of nature connect in interesting ways. The kinds of things - propositions, universals, possible worlds, etc. - that one is willing to countenance will impact what one can say about the metaphysics of modality and natural laws. The point is illustrated nicely via consideration of Humean constraints on respectable ontology popularized by David Lewis and the ensuing metaphysics of laws and modality that Lewis defends. What distinguishes lawful from non-lawful regularities, according to Lewis, is the fact that the former, but not the latter, are axioms of the description of all property instances throughout the Humean mosaic, which maximizes the virtues of informativeness and simplicity. This is the crux of Lewis's best system analysis of natural laws (BSA) (see, e.g., Lewis 1983, 1994, 2001; Earman 1984; Loewer 1996). Natural laws are thus accounted for in a manner that the Humean finds metaphysically innocuous because no appeal is made to any mysterious governing forces or necessary connections between distinct existences. The Humean is primarily concerned with defending (the tenability of) an ontology, which then informs and places restrictions on what can be said about laws and modality. However, one's primary concern might just as well be with analysing the laws and, dissatisfied with regularity accounts, such as the BSA, one might be motivated to develop an alternative account of laws with its own distinctive ontological implications. My concern in this thesis is with exploring the interactions between a cluster of specific views about ontology, modality and the laws of nature. The particular ontology I am interested in is unHumean in the sense that it admits necessary connections between properties and the behaviours that they confer because properties have non-trivial essences which ground certain behaviours. The account of laws is metaphysically thin for it conceives of the laws as merely descriptive, à la the BSA. And the metaphysics of modality that I am interested in roots modality firmly in the actual world.
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Yang, Chin-mu. "A natural modal system." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.357300.
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Strohminger, Margot. "Knowledge of modality by imagining." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/6351.
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Assertions about metaphysical modality (hereafter modality) play central roles in philosophical theorizing. For example, when philosophers propose hypothetical counterexamples, they often are making a claim to the effect that some state of affairs is possible. Getting the epistemology of modality right is thus important. Debates have been preoccupied with assessing whether imaginability—or conceivability, insofar as it's different—is a guide to possibility, or whether it is rather intuitions of possibility—and modal intuitions more generally—that are evidence for possibility (modal) claims. The dissertation argues that the imagination plays a subtler role than the first view recognizes, and a more central one than the second view does. In particular, it defends an epistemology of metaphysical modality on which someone can acquire modal knowledge in virtue of having performed certain complex imaginative exercises.
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McLeod, Stephen K. "Modality and anti-metaphysics." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.364089.
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Adams, Sarah Nicola. "Theism & the metaphysics of modality." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2015. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/11178/.
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Much cutting-edge research has been produced in the quest to find out which metaphysical account of modality is best. Comparatively little rigorous investigation has been devoted to questioning whether such accounts are compatible with classical theism. This thesis remedies some of this neglect and charts some of this previously under-explored territory existing at the intersection of metaphysics and philosophy of religion. Such an investigation is important since salient among the tenets of classical theism are ones that are characteristically modal. Not only is the classical monotheistic deity supposed to exist and possess the various divine-making properties necessarily; many of these properties themselves seem to include a modal component. An omniscient being is one who could not fail to know some proposition (once it’s true); and an omnipotent being is such that, for an appropriate set of tasks, it could perform them. Classical theism also comprises modal commitments about non-divine individuals: everything distinct from God is supposed to be necessarily dependent upon God; and human beings are supposed to have been granted the freedom to do otherwise. In short, the unique metaphysical properties of a classical monotheistic deity burden the theist with substantial metaphysical and ethical commitments any theory of modality must uphold; this thesis questions which one may do so best. However, the discussion must be limited to a small number of theories. Those examined here explain modality in terms of something ultimately non-modal; either by reducing modality to something else (e.g., a particular ontology of possible worlds), or by denying that modal discourse has the function of describing, in a truth-apt way, some part of mind-independent reality. So this project is a partial investigation into a more specific question: which of these theories which deny that modality is fundamentally real best fits with theism?
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Melia, Joseph. "The nature of modality." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.239492.
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Biggs, Stephen Thomas. "Modality and Mind." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/194531.
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This dissertation consists of two parts. Part I proposes a new approach to modality, abductive modal realism. Part II proposes a new version of physicalism, abductive physicalism. The parts relate in that abductive physicalism presupposes abductive modal realism.Abductive modal realism holds that inference to the best explanation (i.e. abduction) grounds some and any justified belief about mind-independent necessity and possibility. This approach avoids the disadvantages of extant approaches to modality. Specifically, unlike extant approaches, abductive modal realism accepts real, mind-independent necessities and possibilities without employing a modal epistemology that fits these poorly. Abductive physicalism holds that we should adopt abductive modal realism, that abduction favors physicalism, and thus, that we should adopt physicalism. Although standard a posteriori physicalism accepts the latter claims, it sees appeals to abduction as exceptions to an otherwise non-abductive modal epistemology. Abductive physicalism, contrariwise, sees abduction as the arbitrator of modal disputes quite generally. This difference allows abductive physicalism to avoid problems that plague standard a posteriori physicalism.
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Wilson, Alastair. "Modality naturalized : the metaphysics of Everettian quantum mechanics." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.543605.
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Hoffmann, Aviv 1964. "Actualism, singular propositions, and possible worlds : essays in metaphysics of modality." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8154.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2002.Includes bibliographical references.
My dissertation consists of three essays in the Metaphysics of Modality: In "A Puzzle about Truth and Singular Propositions," I consider two theses that seem to be true and then an argument for the conclusion that they form an inconsistent pair. One thesis is that a proposition that is singular with respect to a given object implies that the object exists. This is so because the proposition predicates something of the object. The other thesis is that some propositions are true with respect to possible worlds in which they do not exist. An example is the negation of the proposition that Socrates is wise. This proposition is true with respect to possible worlds in which Socrates does not exist, but it does not exist in those worlds. In "Actualism, Ontological Dependence, and Possible Worlds," I consider Actualism, the doctrine that every possible object is an actual object. Plantinga has argued that the actualist is committed to the existence of unexemplified essences if he analyzes statements of modality by quantifying over possible worlds and over members of their domains. I argue that the actualist is committed to the existence of unexemplified essences even if he paraphrases statements of modality by quantifying only over possible worlds and actual objects. In "Possibilism and the Nature of Actuality," I consider Possibilism, the doctrine that there are possible objects that are not actual objects.
(cont.) Possibilism seems to be a coherent ontological doctrine. It is not Meinong's doctrine that there are objects of which it is true to say that there are no such objects. If one fails to distinguish between these two doctrines, then one's attempt to refute Possibilism might amount to an attack on a blatant contradiction. I illustrate this claim by arguing that the distinction between Possibilism and Meinong's doctrine has eluded Plantinga. I then consider the view that Possibilism is a consequence of Lewis's doctrine that 'actual' is an indexical term. I also argue that the sense in which Lewis said that 'actual' is indexical is an esoteric sense of the word, not a sense it ordinarily has.
by Aviv Hoffmann.
Ph.D.
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Comeau, Ryan J. "The World Is Not Enough: An Enquiry into Realism about Modality." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1374608481.
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Brown, Scott Andrew. "Essays on Modality and Instantiation." The Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1483479401220297.
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Geelen, Jeremy N. "Quine versus Kripke on the Metaphysics of Modality: An Examination and Defence of Quine's Position." Thèse, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/20002.
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The aim of this thesis is to examine the theoretical commitments informing W.V. Quine’s rejection of alethic modality and to advance a Quinean response to Saul Kripke’s arguments in support of modal metaphysics. The novelty of this thesis consists in it being the first detailed explanation of how Quine’s arguments against modality are situated within his system and informed by his epistemological and ontological views and the first adequate study of the epistemological and metaphysical criticisms Quine would advance against Kripke’s defence of modality.
The Quinean response to Kripke presented here is guided by four tenets that Quine takes to be central to the current scientific worldview and which he consequently adopts as the guiding methodological constraints of his own project: empiricism, regimentation, physicalism and simplicity. I explain how Quine’s referential opacity and mathematician-cyclist arguments against modality hang together with the rest of his philosophical project; and I show that while these arguments may seem unpersuasive and easily refuted by Kripke when taken in isolation, they are quite powerful when understood within the context of Quine’s entire system and seen in light of his guiding methodological constraints.
By the end of this thesis, it will be clear why Quine remains unconvinced by Kripke’s arguments in support of modal metaphysics and how his response to Kripke is grounded in his deepest methodological constraints. He ultimately rejects Kripke’s arguments because they conflict with the tenets he takes to be the deepest commitments of the scientific worldview. Quine’s arguments against modality must be understood within the context of his philosophical system as a whole and are best seen not as arguments to be met by Kripke on Kripke’s terms but as illustrations of why, from the standpoint of Quine’s project and the standards it adheres to (the standards of science, as Quine understands it), modality is a flawed and unnecessary addition to reconstructed scientific theory. While there may well be reasons for rejecting Quine’s views about modality – and even reasons that would compel Quine, on his own terms, to reject his views – I argue that Kripke does not provide them.
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Lundgren, Björn. "Undermining Derk Pereboom’s Hard Incompatibilist Position Against Agent-causation : A Metatheoretical Work on the Topic of Metaphysics and Metaethics." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Institutionen för kultur och kommunikation, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-88587.
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The author has attempted a dubbleedged purpose, as indicated by the title. The author firstly deals with Pereboom; begining with his so-called ‘wild coincidence’-argument, by which Pereboom claims agent-causation to be unlikely. The author argues that this argument lacks both scope and strenght. The author then deals with the question of compatiblity between physics and agent-causation as related to Pereboom’s basic problematization; whether agent-causation would or would not diverge from what is expected (from any other event) given our best physical theories. This results in a strong criticism against Pereboom’s whole position, and a positive argument for agent-causation. After the first purpose is achieved, the author turns to the purpose indicated by the subtitle. The author presents a general criticism against the field of metaethics concerning the question of free will. The author also makes suggestions for a possible solution.Författaren har, som titeln indikerar, tagit på sig ett tveeggat problem. Först hanterar författaren Pereboom; och börjar med hans så kallade ‘wild coincidence’-argument, med vilket Pereboom hävdar att agentkausalitet är osannlik. Författaren menar att detta argument saknar både omfång och styrka. Författaren hanterar sedan frågan om kompatibilitet mellan fysik och agentkausalitet, så som den är relaterad till Perebooms grundläggande problematisering; huruvida agentkausalitet skulle eller inte skulle avvika från vad som vi förväntar oss (givet någon annan händelse) från våra bästa fysiska teorier. Detta resulterar i en stark kritik mot Perebooms hela position, och ett positivt argument för agentkausalitet. Efter att det första syftet är avklarat, så vänder sig författaren till undertitelns syfte. Författaren presenterar en generell kritik mot fältet metaetik avseende frågan om fri vilja. Författaren föreslår även en möjlig lösning på problemet.
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Cray, Wesley David. "Modal Inconstancy: How Our Interests Influence How Things Could Be." The Ohio State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1345472342.
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Jacinto, Bruno. "Necessitism, contingentism and theory equivalence." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/8814.
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Two main questions are addressed in this dissertation, namely: 1. What is the correct higher-order modal theory; 2. What does it take for theories to be equivalent. The whole dissertation consists of an extended argument in defence of the joint truth of two higher-order modal theories, namely, Plantingan Moderate Contingentism, a higher-order necessitist theory advocated by Plantinga (1974) and committed to the contingent being of some individuals, and Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism, a higher-order necessitist theory advocated by Williamson (2013) and committed to the necessary being of every possible individual. The case for the truth of these two theories relies on defences of the following metaphysical theses: i) Thorough Serious Actualism, according to which no things could have been related and yet be nothing, ii) Higher-Order Necessitism, according to which necessarily, every higher-order entity is necessarily something. It is shown that Thorough Serious Actualism and Higher-Order Necessitism are both implicit commitments of very weak logical theories. Prima facie, Plantingan Moderate Contingentism and Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism are jointly inconsistent. The argument for their joint truth thus relies also on showing i) their equivalence, and ii) that the dispute between Plantingans and Williamsonians is merely verbal. The case for i) and ii) relies on the Synonymy Account, an account of theory equivalence developed and defended in the dissertation. According to the account, theories are equivalent just in case they have the same structure of entailments and commitments, and the occupiers of the places in that structure are the same propositions. An immediate consequence of the Synonymy Account is that proponents of synonymous theories are engaged in merely verbal disputes. The Synonymy Account is also applied to the debate between noneists and Quineans, revealing that what is in question in that debate is what are the expressive resources available to describe the world.
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Schmutz, Jacob. "La querelle des possibles: recherches philosophiques et textuelles sur la métaphysique jésuite espagnole, 1540-1767." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/211298.
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Cette thèse présente les réponses données à la question du fondement du possible et de l’impossible dans la scolastique jésuite espagnole de l’époque moderne :en vertu de quels critères jugeons-nous que telle chose ou tel événement sont possibles, alors que tels autres nous paraissent impossibles ou contradictoires ?La double nature de ce travail, philosophique et historique, s’incarne dès lors en deux volumes à la fois distincts et complémentaires. Le premier volume est consacré à l’analyse philosophique des différentes réponses apportées au problème du possible, entre les premiers pas académiques de la Compagnie de Jésus espagnole jusqu’à son expulsion définitive du royaume en 1767. Après quelques préliminaires généraux sur le développement institutionnel et doctrinal de la scolastique moderne, on y présente successivement les solutions des écoles dominicaine et franciscaine espagnoles du XVIe siècle avant de passer aux différents grands modèles jésuites :les synthèses de Gabriel Vázquez et Francisco Suárez ;l’émergence d’un courant ultra-essentialiste ;la critique inspirée par le nominalisme de Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza ;le développement d’une ontologie conditionnaliste par Juan de Lugo et ses nombreux élèves ;la critique néo-augustinienne de toutes les traditions antérieures par Antonio Pérez et ses nombreux élèves ;le développement d’une ontologie des états de choses par Sebastián Izquierdo ;et enfin le développement d’une série d’autres solutions marginales à la fin du XVIIe siècle. Le travail se clôture sur l’expulsion d’Espagne de la Compagnie de Jésus en 1767 et par quelques réflexions sur la « migration » de ces problématiques vers l’Europe Centrale. Le second volume est quant à lui purement historique et textuel. Il propose l’édition de différents textes, tirés d’ouvrages imprimés anciens ou bien de manuscrits inédits, rédigés par vingt des principaux auteurs engagés dans la querelle des possibles, à savoir, dans l’ordre chronologique :F. Albertini, P. Hurtado de Mendoza, J. de Lugo, R. de Arriaga, Th. Compton Carleton, A. Pérez, F. de Oviedo, M. de Elizalde, T. González de Santalla, T. Muniesa, S. Mauro, S. Izquierdo, G. de Ribadeneira, I.F. Peinado, J. de Sousa, A. Sémery, J. de Campoverde, E. Láriz, Á. Cienfuegos et J. Rufo. Chaque édition de texte est précédée d’une biographie intellectuelle retraçant les principales étapes de la carrière de l’auteur, avec des indications sur ses maîtres, collègues et disciples, ainsi que sur le contexte institutionnel de son enseignement. L’ensemble est précédé d’une étude sur les rapports entre les cours imprimés et manuscrits dans la tradition scolastique moderne.
Un troisième et court volume se compose d’un bref « who’s who » scolastique ainsi que d’une bibliographie générale, reprenant toutes les sources primaires et secondaires utilisées.
Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation philosophie
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished
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Decaix, Véronique. "Le mode d'être des objets intentionnels : une étude du rôle constituant de l'intellect chez Thierry de Freiberg." Thesis, Tours, 2013. http://www.theses.fr/2013TOUR2028/document.
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Cette thèse traite de la doctrine catégorielle, de l’ontologie et de la théorie de la connaissance de Dietrich de Freiberg dans le De origine rerum praedicamentalium. L’enjeu principal est d’étudier la fonction constitutive que l’intellect opère sur catégories et sur l’étant en tant que tel. La première partie replace le traité dans le contexte historique des débats à l’université de Paris à la fin du XIIIe siècle touchant au statut des catégories et à la manière d’ordonner les genres réels de l’étant. Elle confronte la dérivation essentielle des prédicaments chez Dietrich aux modèles de systématisation élaborées par ses prédécesseurs, tels qu’Albert le Grand, Thomas d’Aquin, Henri de Gand. La deuxième partie s’attache aux objets constitués par l’intellect : l’Un comme principe du nombre et de la division, la relation et le temps. La dernière partie enquête la modalité sur laquelle l’intellect opère cette activité sur l’étant et montre en définitive que le sujet de la métaphysique, l’être quiditatif des étants, se situe à la croisée de la logique et du réelThis thesis deals with Dietrich of Freiberg’s doctrine of categories, ontology and theory of knowledge, as present in the treatise De origine rerum praedicamentalium. The primary aim is to examine the constitutive function the intellect exercises on the categories and being as being. The first part of this thesis replaces the treatise in the historical background of the late 13th century debates from the University of Paris regarding the nature of categories and the manner of organizing the real genera of being. It compares Dietrich’s deduction of the categories with the systematization of some of his predecessors such as Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent. The second part of the thesis deals with the objects caused by the intellect: the One as principle of number and division, relation and time. The last part investigates the manner in which the intellect exercises its constitutive power on being and demonstrates in the final analysis that the subject of metaphysics, the quiditative being of things, is placed at the intersection of logic and reality
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Denby, David A. "Metaphysical theories of modality: Properties, relations and possibilities." 1997. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9809326.
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Many theories assimilate the idioms of modality to those of quantification; they hold that so-and-so is possible iff there is a "world" at which it is true that so-and-so. "Modal realism" identifies worlds with certain concrete particulars, and truth at a world with what is true of it. Rival "ersatz" theories identify worlds with certain abstract entities and identify what is true at them with what they represent. David Lewis argues that pre-theoretic modal intuitions are best explained by modal realism. I try to make a case for ersatzism. First, I argue that modal realism is flawed on the grounds that it entails the impossibility of certain intuitively possible spatiotemporal structures; it fails to explain fully even those intuitions with which it is compatible; and it renders the origin of modal knowledge mysterious. Next, I argue that objections to ersatzism are not conclusive. Lewis objects that even a generic version of ersatzism requires an unnameable and maybe unintelligible primitive relation. I suggest that the problems with naming are perfectly general; they have nothing to do with metaphysical theories of modality in particular. And I suggest a solution taken from Lewis himself. I also argue that any purported unintelligibility is due to illegitimately assimilating the relation to spatiotemporal relations. Finally, I consider some difficulties with a version of ersatzism that aims to reduce modality to impure set-theory. One concerns the accommodation of intuitions about properties that are not, but might have been, instantiated. Another concerns accommodation of intuitions about relations of exclusion and entailment among properties. I suggest that these difficulties are due to faulty assumptions about the nature of properties rather than any fundamental flaws in this ersatz approach. So I propose an account of properties that when incorporated into ersatzism circumvents these difficulties and allows it to claim the advantages of modal realism without its drawbacks. Unlike traditional accounts, this takes the essence of a property to consist in its role in imposing a certain classificational structure on the particulars that instantiate it, rather than in any unique and irreducible "quiddity".
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Berenstain, Nora Levine. "Metaphysical dependence : the role of mathematical structure in physical modality." 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/19832.
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I develop a novel metaphysical theory of the modal structure of the physical world, which has important consequences for debates regarding laws of nature, scientific explanation, the nature of physical properties, and the applicability of mathematics to science. The theory holds that modal properties of the physical world metaphysically depend on properties of mathematical structures. I show that the relation of metaphysical dependence is naturalistically acceptable by offering examples of non-causal scientific explanation that tacitly make use of such a notion. My view offers a non-Humean understanding of nomological necessity, a unification of the epistemology of modality with the epistemology of mathematics, and an explanation of the success of mathematics in predicting and explaining empirical phenomena.text
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Driggers, Robert. "M-Combinatorialism and the Semantics of SQML." Thesis, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2011-05-9484.
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The Simplest Quantified Modal Logic (SQML) is controversial because it seems to conflict with some of our most basic intuitions about what is possible and what is necessary. Two controversial principles, the Barcan Schema (BS) and Necessary Existence NE, are valid in SQML models. Informally expressed, BS requires that, if it is
possible that something is F, then there is something that is possibly F. This result seems to conflict with the intuition that there is some property F such that F could have been exemplified, though is not possibly exemplified by any existing thing. NE conflicts with the intuition that there could have been more/different existents than there actually are and the intuition that those things that actually exist could have failed to exist. The primary goal of this thesis is to provide a semantics for SQML that justifies the validity of BS and NE with these intuitions in mind. This is the focus of the fifth section of the thesis. In the first four sections of the thesis, I discuss prior attempts to meet my primary goal, all of which I consider unsuccessful.
According to my view, which I call M-combinatorialism, the world is comprised of simples, mereological sums of those simples and universals that the former objects exemplify. I argue that we can justify the validity of BS by appealing to these facts about simples and sums: (1) simples are arranged such that the sums of these simples
exemplify certain properties, (2) the actual arrangement of any given number of simples is a contingent matter and (3) had the simples that are actually arranged to form the
complex objects in the actual world been arranged differently, the sums of these simples could have exemplified radically different properties.
Insofar as Combinatorialists construct all possible individuals only out of actual individuals, they are committed to the necessary existence of those actual individuals, which allows the M-Combinatorialist to justify the validity of NE. So, the M-Combinatorialist
is able to provide an adequate semantics for SQML. In the final section, I defend my view against objections.
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Baia, Alex. "Is, was, will, might." Thesis, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/ETD-UT-2012-05-5354.
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My guiding question is this: how does what is metaphysically differ from what was, will be, or might have been? The first half of the dissertation concerns ontology: are the apparent disputes over the existence of merely past, merely future, and merely possible entities genuine and nontrivial disputes? After demarcating the various positions one might take in these disputes, I argue that the disputes are, in fact, genuine. I then offer—in the second half of the dissertation—a limited defense of presentism, the view that only present things exist. In particular, I defend presentism against one of the most significant classes of objections to it—the class of objections claiming that it cannot account for a variety of past-oriented truths. In giving this defense, I draw on insights from the dispute between modal actualists—those who hold that everything is actual— and their rivals.text
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Cowling, Sam. "Identity and the limits of possibility." 2011. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3482603.
Full textAbstract:
Possibilities divide into two kinds. Non-qualitative possibilities are distinguished by their connection to specific individuals. For example, the possibility that Napoleon is a novelist is non-qualitative, since it is a possibility for a specific individual, Napoleon. In contrast, the possibility that someone—anyone at all—is a novelist is a qualitative possibility, since it does not depend upon any specific individual. Haecceitism is a thesis about the relation between qualitative and non-qualitative possibilities. In one guise, it holds that some maximal possibilities—total ways the world could be—differ non-qualitatively without differing qualitatively. It would, for example, be only a haecceitistic difference that distinguishes actuality from a maximal possibility where Napoleon and Nefertiti swap all of their qualitative properties and relations. According to this alternative possibility, things are the very same qualitatively, but which individuals occupy which qualitative roles differs: Nefertiti would be a stout conqueror, while Napoleon would be a beautiful consort. This dissertation is an examination of the nature of haecceitism, the arguments in its favor, and the consequences that follow from it. In Chapter One, I distinguish various conceptions of haecceitism and related theses concerning maximal possibilities, possible worlds, the identity of indiscernibles, and non-qualitative properties. In Chapter Two, I develop and defend conceivability arguments for haecceitism in the face of various anti-haecceitist challenges. In Chapter Three, I consider the relation between haecceitism and the Humean approach to plenitude, which aims to characterize the space of possible worlds in terms of combinatorial principles. In Chapter Four, I examine the distinction between qualitative properties like redness and non-qualitative properties like being Napoleon and argue in favor of fundamental non- qualitative properties. In Chapter Five, I present a novel version of non-qualitative counterpart theory, which employs bare particulars to reconcile modal realism and haecceitism. In Chapter Six, I clarify and defend quidditism, the property-theoretic analogue of haecceitism. I conclude in Chapter Seven by defending the modal view of essence.