Abstract

The subject of my dissertation is the notion, what could turn out, extracted from Naming and Necessity, in a context in which it is being used to show the contingency of gold's yellowness. ;In general, I seek to establish an actuality-oriented notion of what could turn out that makes a break with an epistemological picture of this notion as well as another making what could turn out for an object depend on what's metaphysically possible for it. ;In particular, I distinguish various what-could-turn-out notions. I then develop an actuality-oriented notion of what could turn out on which what-could-turn-out truths are in subject-predicate form. Afterwards, I provide some of the necessary conditions for an object's possessing a what-could-turn-out predicate. That a what-could-turn-out predicate applies to an object depends on at least two conditions: that the object in question actually possess the simple property P contained within the complex modal one, could turn out P; and that, in principle, we could come to know of the object's actually possessing P. For example, in order for neutrinos to possibly turn out to have infinitesimal mass, it must at least be the case that they actually have infinitesimal mass, and that, in principle, we could come to know of their actually being as such