According to no-futurism, past and present entities are real, but future ones are not. This view faces a skeptical challenge (Bourne 2002, 2006, Braddon-Mitchell, 2004): if no-futurism is true, how do you know you are present? I shall propose a new skeptical argument based on the physical possibility of Gödelian worlds (1949). This argument shows that a no-futurist has to endorse a metaphysical contingentist reading of no-futurism, the view that no-futurism is contingently true. But then, the no-futurist has to (...) face a new skeptical challenge: how do you know that you are in a no-futurist world? (shrink)

Let us distinguish two kinds of contingentism: entity contingentism and metaphysical contingentism. Here, I use ‘entity’ very broadly to include anything over which we can quantify—objects (abstract and concrete), properties, and relations. Then entity contingentism about some entity, E, is the view that E exists contingently: that is, that E exists in some possible worlds and not in others. By contrast, entity necessitarianism about E is the view that E exists of necessity: that is, that (...) E exists in all possible worlds. We can distinguish two views: global entity contingentism and global entity necessitarianism. Global entity contingentism is the view that for any possible E, E exists contingently. Global entity necessitarianism is the view that for any possible E, E exists necessarily. While entity contingentism and entity necessitarianism are views about the modal status of entities, metaphysical contingentism and necessitarianism are views about the modal status of metaphysical principles. Metaphysical contingentism about some metaphysical principle, P, is the view that P is contingent: it is true in some worlds, and false in others. Metaphysical necessitarianism about P is the view that P is necessary: either P is true in every world, or false in every world. We can then distinguish two views: global metaphysical contingentism and global metaphysical necessitarianism. Global metaphysical contingentism is the view that for any internally coherent metaphysical principle P, P is contingent: P is true in some worlds and false in others. Global metaphysical necessitarianism is the view that for any internally coherent metaphysical principle, P, P is necessary: it is either true in every world, or false in every world. This chapter principally focuses on metaphysical rather than entity contingentism, though §2 briefly discusses the latter. As we will see, (§2), both global entity contingentism and global entity necessitarianism are controversial views, and most philosophers fall somewhere between these two extremes, holding that some, but not all, entities exist necessarily—a view we can call entity moderatism. By contrast, global metaphysical necessitarianism has, until recently, largely been the default view. It is only recently that some philosophers have argued that we should be metaphysical contingentists about at least some metaphysical principles—a view we can call metaphysical moderatism. §3 considers why global metaphysical necessitarianism has hitherto been so persuasive, then evaluates (§3.1) some arguments for the view before considering more recent arguments in favour of the contingency of (at least some) metaphysical principles (§3.2). (shrink)

Metaphysics is supposed to tell us about the metaphysical nature of our world: under what conditions composition occurs; how objects persist through time; whether properties are universals or tropes. It is near orthodoxy that whichever of these sorts of metaphysical claims is true is necessarily true. This paper looks at the debate between that orthodox view and a recently emerging view that claims like these are contingent, by focusing on the metaphysical debate between monists and pluralists about (...) concrete particulars. This paper argues that we should be contingentists about monism and pluralism, and it defends contingentism against some necessitarian objections by offering an epistemology of contingent metaphysical claims. (shrink)

In a lot of domains in metaphysics the tacit assumption has been that whichever metaphysical principles turn out to be true, these will be necessarily true. Let us call necessitarianism about some domain the thesis that the right metaphysics of that domain is necessary. Necessitarianism has flourished. In the philosophy of maths we find it held that if mathematical objects exist, then they do of necessity. Mathematical Platonists affirm the necessary existence of mathematical objects (see for instance Hale and (...) Wright 1992 and 1994; Wright 1983 and 1988; Schiffer 1996; Resnik 1997; Shapiro 1997 and Zalta 1988) while mathematical nominalists, usually in the form of fictionalists, hold that necessarily such objects fail to exist (see for instance Balaguer 1996 and 1998; Rosen 2001 and Yablo 2005). In metaphysics more generally, until recently it was more or less assumed that whatever the right account of composition—the account of under what conditions some xs compose a y—that account will be necessarily true (for a discussion of theories of composition see Simons 1987 and van Inwagen 1987 and 1990; the modal status of the composition relation is explicitly addressed in Schaffer 2007; Parsons 2006 and Cameron 2007). Similarly, it has generally been assumed that whatever the right account is of the nature of properties, whether they be universals, tropes, or whether nominalism is true, that account will be necessarily true (though see Rosen 2006 for a recent suggestion to the contrary). In considering theories of persistence it has been widely held that whether objects endure or perdure through time is a matter of necessity (Sider 2001; though see Lewis 1999 p227 who defends contingent perdurantism). And with respect to theories of time it is frequently held that whichever of the A- or B-theory is true is necessarily true. A-theorists often argue that there is time in a world only if the A-theory is true at that world (see for instance McTaggart 1903; Markosian 2004; Bigelow 1996; Craig 2001) while B-theorists often argue that the A-theory is internally inconsistent (Smart 1987; Mellor 1998; Savitt 2000 and Le Poidevin 1991). Once again, we find a few recent contingentist dissenters. Bourne (2006) suggests that it is a contingent feature of time that it is tensed, and thus that the A-theory is contingently true. Worlds in which there exist only B-theoretic properties are worlds with time, it is just that time in those worlds time is radically different to the way it is actually. Other defenders of the B-theory, though not expressly contingentists, do offer arguments against versions of the A-theory that try to show that such A-theories theories are inconsistent with the actual laws of nature (see for instance Saunders 2002 and Callender 2000); these arguments, at least, leave room for the possibility that the A-theories in question are contingently false (at least on the assumption that the laws of nature are themselves contingent, an assumption that not everyone accepts). Despite some notable exceptions, necessitarianism has flourished in many, if not most, domains in metaphysics. One such exception is Lewis’ famous defence of Humean supervenience as a contingent claim about our world. Lewis does not argue that necessarily, the supervenience base for all matters of fact in a world is nothing but a vast mosaic of local matters of particular fact. Rather, he thinks that we have reason to think that our world is one in which Humean supervenience holds (see Lewis 1986 p9-10 and 1994). Another exception to the necessitarian orthodoxy is to be found in the lively debate about the modal status of the laws of nature. Here, if anything, contingentism has been the dominating force, with it generally being held that there are possible worlds in which different laws of nature hold (this view is defended by, among others, Lewis 1986 and 2010; Schaffer 2005 and Sidelle 2002). Necessitarian dissenters hold that the laws of nature are necessary, frequently because they think it is necessary that fundamental properties have the causal or nomic profiles they do (see for instance Shoemaker 1980 and 1988; Swoyer 1982; Bird 1995; Ellis and Lierse 1994). Nevertheless, when it comes to thinking about the nature of the laws themselves, the necessitarian presumption is back on firm footing. Though there is disagreement about whether the laws are generalisations that feature in the most virtuous true axiomatisation of all the particular matters of fact (often known as the Humean view of laws and defended by Ramsey 1978; Lewis 1986 and Beebee 2000) or whether laws are relations of necessity that hold between universals (a view defended by Armstrong 1983; Dretske 1977; Tooley 1977 and Carroll 1990) no one has seriously suggested that it might be a contingent matter which of these is the right account of laws. The necessitarian orthodoxy is not surprising since metaphysics is largely an a priori process. While a priori reasoning may be used to determine whether a proposition is necessary or contingent, it is not well placed (in the absence of a posteriori evidence) to determine whether a contingent proposition is actually true or false. Since metaphysicians aim to tell us which principles are true in which worlds, on the face of it the discovery that metaphysical principles are contingent seems to make part of the task of metaphysics epistemically intractable. In what follows I consider two reasons one might end up embracing contingentism and whether this would lead one into epistemic difficulty. The following section considers a route to contingent metaphysical truths that proceeds via a combination of conceptual necessities and empirical discoveries. Section 3 considers whether there might be synthetic contingent metaphysical truths, and the final section raises the question of whether if there were such truths we would be well placed to come to know them. (shrink)

Metaphysics is supposed to tell us about the metaphysical nature of our world: under what conditions composition occurs; how objects persist through time; whether properties are universals or tropes. It is near orthodoxy that whichever of these sorts of metaphysical claims is true is necessarily true. This paper looks at the debate between that orthodox view and a recently emerging view that claims like these are contingent, by focusing on the metaphysical debate between monists and pluralists about (...) concrete particulars. This paper argues that we should be contingentists about monism and pluralism, and it defends contingentism against some necessitarian objections by offering an epistemology of contingent metaphysical claims. (shrink)

One important challenge for contingentists is that they seem to be unable to account for the meaning of some apparently meaningful modal discourse that is perfectly intelligible for necessitists. This worry is particularly pressing for higher-order contingentists, contingentists who hold that it is not only contingent which objects there are, but also contingent which semantic values there are for higher-order variables to quantify over. Objections against higher-order contingentism along these lines have been presented in Williamson (Mind 119(475):657–748, 2010; Modal (...) logic as metaphysics, Oxford University Press, 2013, ch. 7), and Fritz and Goodman (Mind 126(504):1063–1108, 2017). This paper presents a way for contingentists to respond to these challenges. The upshot is that the contingentist can account for the meaningfulness of the problematic modal claims by pretending necessitism to be true, but in some cases it turns out to be indeterminate whether they are true. I defend this strategy against the objections against pretence-strategies presented in Fritz and Goodman (Mind 126(504):1063–1108, 2017, §4). Furthermore, I defend the plausibility of the resulting indeterminacy from the contingentist’s perspective. (shrink)

Necessitists hold that, necessarily, everything is such that, necessarily, something is identical to it. Timothy Williamson has posed a number of challenges to contingentism, the negation of necessitism. One such challenge is an argument that necessitists can more wholeheartedly embrace possible worlds semantics than can contingentists. If this charge is correct, then necessitists, but not contingentists, can unproblematically exploit the technical successes of possible worlds semantics. I will argue, however, that the charge is incorrect: contingentists can embrace possible worlds (...) semantics as wholeheartedly as necessitists. Williamson offers a criterion for a class of models of quantified modal logic to be intended, and argues on its basis that contingentists must deny that there is an intended class of models. I argue that Williamson’s criterion is objectionable, supply an alternative that does not support Williamson’s argument, and adapt Williamson’s construction of an intended model structure to the needs of contingentist metaphysics. (shrink)

Hybrid contingentism combines first-order contingentism, the view that it is contingent what individuals there are, with higher-order necessitism, the view that it is non-contingent what properties and propositions there are (where these are conceived as entities in the range of appropriate higher-order quantifiers). This combination of views avoids the most delicate problems afflicting alternative contingentist positions while preserving the central contingentist claim that ordinary, concrete entities exist contingently. Despite these attractive features, hybrid contingentism is usually faced with (...) rejection. The main reason for this is an objection that crucially involves haecceitistic properties, properties such as being identical to Plato or being identical to Aristotle. The objection alleges that by accepting the necessary existence of such haecceities, hybrid contingentists incur an explanatory commitment that they are unable to discharge, namely that of explaining how it is that certain haecceities ‘lock onto’ their target individuals even when those individuals are absent. To defend hybrid contingentism against this charge, I first clarify the haecceities objection in several respects and consider, in particular, what notion of explanation the objection is operating with. After arguing that it can be fruitfully understood as a challenge to provide metaphysical grounds for certain haecceity facts, I develop a contingentist response to the objection that draws on recent work on the connection between ground and essence. (shrink)

Necessitism, Contingentism, and Theory Equivalence is a dissertation on issues in higher-order modal metaphysics. Consider a modal higher-order language with identity in which the universal quantifier is interpreted as expressing universal quantification and the necessity operator is interpreted as expressing metaphysical necessity. The main question addressed in the dissertation concerns the correct theory formulated in this language. A different question that also takes centre stage in the dissertation is what it takes for theories to be equivalent.The whole dissertation (...) consists of an extended argument in defence of the truth of two seemingly inconsistent higher-order modal theories, specifically: 1.Plantingan Moderate Contingentism, a theory based on Plantinga’s [1] modal metaphysics that is committed to, among other things, the contingent being of some individuals and the necessary being of all possible higher-order entities;2.Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism, a theory advocated by Williamson [3] which is committed to, among other things, the necessary being of every possible individual as well as of every possible higher-order entity.Part of the case for these theories’ joint truth relies on defences of the following metaphysical theses: Thorough Serious Actualism, the thesis that no things could have been related while being nothing, and Higher-Order Necessitism, the thesis that 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. The defence of Higher-Order Necessitism constitutes a powerful challenge to Stalnaker’s [2] Thorough Contingentism, a theory committed to, among other things, the view that there could have been some individuals as well as some entities of any higher-order that could have been nothing.In the dissertation it is argued that Plantingan Moderate Contingentism and Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism are in fact equivalent, even if they appear to be jointly inconsistent. The case for this claim relies on the Synonymy account, a novel account of theory equivalence developed and defended in the dissertation. According to this account, theories are equivalent just in case they have the same commitments and conception of logical space.By way of defending the Synonymy account’s adequacy, the account is applied to the debate between noneists, proponents of the view that some things do not exist, and Quineans, proponents of the view that to exist just is to be some thing. The Synonymy account is shown to afford a more nuanced and better understanding of that debate by revealing that what noneists and Quineans are really disagreeing about is what expressive resources are available to appropriately describe the world.By coupling a metatheoretical result with tools from the philosophy of language, it is argued that Plantingan Moderate Contingentism and Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism are synonymous theories, and so, by the lights of the Synonymy account, equivalent. Given the defence of their extant commitments made in the dissertation, it is concluded that Plantingan Moderate Contingentism and Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism are both correct. A corollary of this result is that the dispute between Plantingans and Williamsonians is, in an important sense, merely verbal. For if two theories are equivalent, then they “require the same of the world for their truth.”Thus, the results of the dissertation reveal that if one speaks as a Plantingan while advocating Plantingan Moderate Contingentism, or as a Williamsonian while advocating Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism, then one will not go wrong. Notwithstanding, one will still go wrong if one speaks as a Plantingan while advocating Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism, or as a Williamsonian while advocating Plantingan Moderate Contingentism.On the basis of a conception of the individual constants and predicates of second-order modal languages as strongly Millian, i.e., as having actually existing entities as their semantic values, in the appendix are presented second-order modal logics consistent with Stalnaker’s Thorough Contingentism. Furthermore, it is shown there that these logics are strong enough for applications of higher-order modal logic in mathematics, a result that constitutes a reply to an argument to the contrary by Williamson [3]. Finally, these logics are proven to be complete relative to particular “thoroughly contingentist” classes of models. (shrink)

Contingentism is the view that it is contingent which things exist. Despite its plausibility, advocates of contingentism face a well-known ‘challenge’ to demonstrate that they can draw what appear to be intelligible modal distinctions (Williamson Modal Logic as Metaphysics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013). In this article, I argue that if certain controversial modal principles fail, the challenge contingentists face becomes much more difficult. Whereas extant challenges concern contingentists’ inability to draw quite theoretical second-order modal distinctions, I present (...) a challenge which concerns contingentists’ inability to draw simpler first-order distinctions. This indicates that in certain modal settings there may well be significant first-order barriers to maintaining contingentism. (shrink)

This paper is a study of higher-order contingentism – the view, roughly, that it is contingent what properties and propositions there are. We explore the motivations for this view and various ways in which it might be developed, synthesizing and expanding on work by Kit Fine, Robert Stalnaker, and Timothy Williamson. Special attention is paid to the question of whether the view makes sense by its own lights, or whether articulating the view requires drawing distinctions among possibilities that, according (...) to the view itself, do not exist to be drawn. The paper begins with a non-technical exposition of the main ideas and technical results, which can be read on its own. This exposition is followed by a formal investigation of higher-order contingentism, in which the tools of variable-domain intensional model theory are used to articulate various versions of the view, understood as theories formulated in a higher-order modal language. Our overall assessment is mixed: higher-order contingentism can be fleshed out into an elegant systematic theory, but perhaps only at the cost of abandoning some of its original motivations. (shrink)

[This paper is available as open access from the publisher.]The conventional wisdom in ethics is that pure moral laws are at least metaphysically necessary. By contrast, Moral Contingentism holds that pure moral laws are metaphysically contingent. This paper raises a normative objection to Moral Contingentism: it is worse equipped than Moral Necessitarianism to account for the normative standing or authority of the pure moral laws to govern the lives of the agents to whom they apply. Since morality is (...) widely taken to have such a standing, failing to account for it would be a significant problem. The objection also shows that the debate about the modal status of moral principles isn’t a debate solely within modal metaphysics, but has implications for topics in moral philosophy. (shrink)

Necessitism is the controversial thesis that necessarily everything is necessarily something, namely that everything, everywhere, necessarily exists. What is controversial about necessitism is that, at its core, it claims that things could not have failed to exist, while we have a pre-theoretical intuition that not everything necessarily exists. Contingentism, in accordance with common sense, denies necessitism: it claims that some things could have failed to exist. Timothy Williamson is a necessitist and claims that David Lewis is a necessitist too. (...) The paper argues that, granted the assumptions that lead to interpret the Lewisian as a necessitist, she can preserve contingentist intuitions, by genuinely agreeing with the folk that existence is contingent. This is not just the uncontroversial claim that the Lewisian, as a result of the prevalence of restricted quantification in counterpart theoretic regimentations of natural language, can agree with the folk while disagreeing with them in the metaphysical room. Rather, this is the claim that it is in the metaphysical room that the Lewisian can endorse the intuitions lying behind contingentism. (shrink)

This article attempts to make sense of property contingentism, the view that the metaphysical nature of properties is contingent. That is, it is contingent whether properties are universals or tropes or some other kind of entity. The article argues that even if one thinks that necessities are exhausted by conceptual truths and a posteriori necessities, the sort of methodology that can lead one to endorse contingentism in various domains in metaphysics does not give us good grounds to (...) suppose that the nature of properties is contingent. (shrink)

This paper outlines a defense of hybrid contingentism: that it is contingent which individuals there are, but not contingent what properties there are. Critics pursue two main lines of complaint. First, that the hybrid contingentist’s treatment of haecceitistic properties is metaphysically mysterious, and second, that hybrid contingentism involves an unjustified asymmetry in the associated modal logic. I suggest that these complaints may be too quick, at least in the setting of higher-order metaphysics. It is not at all obvious (...) whether and to what extent we should expect particular "symmetries" across the orders, and so whether (as Williamson (2013) argues) “the default preference is for a uniform metaphysics, on which being is contingent at all orders or none.”. (shrink)

Gideon Rosen has recently sketched an argument which aims to establish that the notion of metaphysical modality is systematically ambiguous. His argument contains a crucial sub-argument which has been used to argue for Metaphysical Contingentism, the view that some claims of fundamental metaphysics are metaphysically contingent rather than necessary. In this paper, Rosen’s argument is explicated in detail and it is argued that the most straight-forward reconstruction fails to support its intended conclusion. Two possible ways to save (...) the argument are rebutted and it is furthermore argued that the crucial sub-argument only supports a rather particular variant of Metaphysical Contingentism. (shrink)

The present work explores various ways in which contingent evidence can impact metaphysics, while advocating that, just as a scientific realist allows for ampliative inferences to the unobservable, ampliative inferences from possible evidence can warrant possibility claims that lie beyond the reach of sensorial imagination. In slogan form: possible evidence is a guide to possibility. Drawing on Shoemaker’s (1969) argument for the possibility of time without change, I advocate the following principle: If there is a possible world at which the (...) observable facts make it objectively reasonable to conclude that p, then we should conclude that p is possibly true. This provides a route to contingentism in metaphysics, for, if one considers that there are worlds in which the observable facts make it objectively reasonable to conclude that p, and worlds in which the observable facts make it objectively reasonable to conclude that not-p, then my principle tells us that we should conclude that possibly-p and possibly not-p, i.e. that p is contingent. This contingency in what is reasonable to conclude, I suggest, occurs most saliently in debates where evidence of phenomenal experience and empirical science are marshalled to support one theory over another. I also explore some consequences of taking possible evidence to be a guide to possibility in this way, among them being an interesting modal analogue of the lottery paradox. (shrink)

I had the pleasure to meet Professor Williamson at The 26th Oxford Graduate Philosophy Conference, and he kindly agreed to give an interview on matters of modality. The enjoyable and fruitful few hour-talk that we had, which appears below slightly abridged, revolved around the history of modal logics, Saul Kripke and his works, the controversy between necessitists and contingentists, higher-order logics and metaphysics, and the influence of Modal Logic as Metaphysics.

This paper first argues that we can bring out a tension between the following three popular doctrines: (i) the canonical reduction of metaphysical modality to essence, due to Fine, (ii) contingentism, which says that possibly something could have failed to be something, and (iii) the doctrine that metaphysical modality obeys the modal logic S5. After presenting two such arguments (one from the theorems of S4 and another from the theorems of B), I turn to exploring various conclusions (...) we might draw in light of these results, and argue that none comes cost free. In the course of laying out possible responses to my arguments, we'll have a chance to evaluate various doctrines about the interplay between contingency and essence, as well as develop some alternative reductions of metaphysical modality to essence. I don't decisively come down in favor of one response over the others, though I say some things that point towards the conclusion that essence has no role to play in reducing metaphysical modality. (shrink)

In Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Timothy Williamson claims that the possibilism-actualism (P-A) distinction is badly muddled. In its place, he introduces a necessitism-contingentism (N-C) distinction that he claims is free of the confusions that purportedly plague the P-A distinction. In this paper I argue first that the P-A distinction, properly understood, is historically well-grounded and entirely coherent. I then look at the two arguments Williamson levels at the P-A distinction and find them wanting and show, moreover, that, when the (...) N-C distinction is broadened (as per Williamson himself) so as to enable necessitists to fend off contingentist objections, the P-A distinction can be faithfully reconstructed in terms of the N-C distinction. However, Williamson’s critique does point to a genuine shortcoming in the common formulation of the P-A distinction. I propose a new definition of the distinction in terms of essential properties that avoids this shortcoming. (shrink)

Contingentism depicts normativity as one of our human effective possibilities rather than as a metaphysical bottleneck which we should necessary fulfill. The book is a critical survey of Richard McKay Rorty’s “neo-pragmatism”, in the light of various theoretical arguments as well as of his own resourceful attempts to renew philosophy from within its practice.

This paper explains and defends the idea that metaphysical necessity is the strongest kind of objective necessity. Plausible closure conditions on the family of objective modalities are shown to entail that the logic of metaphysical necessity is S5. Evidence is provided that some objective modalities are studied in the natural sciences. In particular, the modal assumptions implicit in physical applications of dynamical systems theory are made explicit by using such systems to define models of a modal temporal logic. (...) Those assumptions arguably include some necessitist principles. -/- Too often, philosophers have discussed ‘metaphysical’ modality — possibility, contingency, necessity — in isolation. Yet metaphysical modality is just a special case of a broad range of modalities, which we may call ‘objective’ by contrast with epistemic and doxastic modalities, and indeed deontic and teleological ones (compare the distinction between objective probabilities and epistemic or subjective probabilities). Thus metaphysical possibility, physical possibility and immediate practical possibility are all types of objective possibility. We should study the metaphysics and epistemology of metaphysical modality as part of a broader study of the metaphysics and epistemology of the objective modalities, on pain of radical misunderstanding. Since objective modalities are in general open to, and receive, natural scientific investigation, we should not treat the metaphysics and epistemology of metaphysical modality in isolation from the metaphysics and epistemology of the natural sciences. -/- In what follows, Section 1 gives a preliminary sketch of metaphysical modality and its place in the general category of objective modality. Section 2 reviews some familiar forms of scepticism about metaphysical modality in that light. Later sections explore a few of the many ways in which natural science deals with questions of objective modality, including questions of quantified modal logic. (shrink)

Recently, some authors – call them Reformists – have argued that the traditional Presentism-Eternalism and Actualism-Possibilism debates in the metaphysics of time and modality respectively are unclear or insubstantial, and should therefore give way to the newer Temporaryism-Permanentism and Contingentism- Necessitism debates. In ‘On characterising the presentism/eternalism and actualism/possibilism debates’ (2016, Analytic Philosophy 57: 110-140), Ross Cameron defends the Conservative position that the traditional debates are both substantial and distinct from the Temporaryism-Permanentism and Contingentism- Necessitism debates. In this (...) paper I provide a Reformist response to Cameron’s arguments. (shrink)

Contingentism depicts normativity as one of our human effective possibilities rather than as a metaphysical bottleneck which we should necessary fulfill. The book is a critical survey of Richard McKay Rorty’s “neo-pragmatism”, in the light of various theoretical arguments as well as of his own resourceful attempts to renew philosophy from within its practice.

In `Essence and Modality', Kit Fine proposes that for a proposition to be metaphysically necessary is for it to be true in virtue of the nature of all objects whatsoever. Call this view Fine's Thesis. This paper is a study of Fine's Thesis in the context of Fine's logic of essence (LE). Fine himself has offered his most elaborate defense of the thesis in the context of LE. His defense rests on the widely shared assumption that metaphysical necessity obeys (...) the laws of the modal logic S5. In order to get S5 for metaphysical necessity, he assumes a controversial principle about the nature of all objects. I will show that the addition of this principle to his original system E5 leads to inconsistency with an independently plausible principle about essence. In response, I develop a theory that avoids this inconsistency while allowing us to maintain S5 for meta- physical necessity. However, I conclude that our investigation of Fine's Thesis in the context of LE motivates the revisionary conclusion that metaphysical necessity obeys the principles of the modal logic S4, but not those of S5. I argue that this constitutes a distinctively essentialist challenge to the received view that the logic of metaphysical necessity is S5. (shrink)

What formulas are tense-logically valid depends on the structure of time, for example on whether it has a beginning. Logicians have investigated what formulas correspond to what physical hypotheses about time. Analogously, we can investigate what formulas of modal logic correspond to what metaphysical hypotheses about necessity. It is widely held that physical hypotheses about time may be contingent. If so, tense-logical validity may be contingent. In contrast, validity in modal logic is typically taken to be non-contingent, as reflected (...) by the general acceptance of the so-called “rule of necessitation.” But as has been argued by various authors in recent years, metaphysical hypotheses may likewise be contingent. If, in particular, hypotheses about the extent of possibility are contingent, we should expect modal-logical validity to be contingent too. Let “contingentism” be the view that everything that is not ruled out by logic is possible. I shall investigate what the right system of modal logic is, if contingentism is true. Given plausible assumptions, the system contains the McKinsey principle, and is thus not even contained in S5. It also contains simple and elegant iteration principles for the contingency operator: something is contingent if and only if it is contingently contingent. (shrink)

Jonathan Schaffer argues against a necessary connection between properties and laws. He takes this to be a question of what possible worlds we ought to countenance in our best theories of modality, counterfactuals, etc. In doing so, he unfairly rigs the game in favor of contingentism. I argue that the necessitarian can resist Schaffer’s conclusion while accepting his key premise that our best theories of modality, counterfactuals, etc. require a very wide range of things called ‘possible worlds’. However, the (...) necessitarian can and should insist that, in many cases, these worlds are not metaphysically possible. I will further argue that, having taken such a stance, the necessitarian has additional resources to respond to Schaffer’s other arguments against the view. (shrink)

I build a case for the impossibility of natural necessity as anything other than a species of metaphysical necessity – the necessity obtaining in virtue of the essences of natural objects. Aristotelian necessitarianism about the laws of nature is clarified and defended. I contrast it with E.J. Lowe’s contingentism about the laws. I examine Lowe’s solution to the circularity/triviality problem besetting natural necessity understood as relative necessity. Lowe’s way out is subject to serious problems unless it is given (...) an essentialist turn, which he declines to do. Further, his defence of contingency in terms of possible variation in the natural constants is found wanting, as is a related defence given by Kit Fine. I examine and raise problems for a recent, Lowe-inspired defence of a hybrid view of the modal status of laws given by Tuomas Tahko. Aristotelian necessitarianism, by contrast, can account for the sorts of phenomena to which contingentists typically appeal. (shrink)

In his book Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Williamson argues that the traditional actualist‐possibilist debate should be abandoned as hopelessly unclear and that we should get on with the clearer contingentism‐necessitism debate. We think that Williamson’s pessimism is not warranted by the brief arguments he gives. In this paper, we explain why and provide a clear formulation of the traditional actualist‐possibilist debate.

Can there be grounding without necessitation? Can a fact obtain wholly in virtue of metaphysically more fundamental facts, even though there are possible worlds at which the latter facts obtain but not the former? It is an orthodoxy in recent literature about the nature of grounding, and in first-order philosophical disputes about what grounds what, that the answer is no. I will argue that the correct answer is yes. I present two novel arguments against grounding necessitarianism, and show that grounding (...) contingentism is fully compatible with the various explanatory roles that grounding is widely thought to play. (shrink)

The result of combining classical quantificational logic with modal logic proves necessitism – the claim that necessarily everything is necessarily identical to something. This problem is reflected in the purely quantificational theory by theorems such as ∃x t=x; it is a theorem, for example, that something is identical to Timothy Williamson. The standard way to avoid these consequences is to weaken the theory of quantification to a certain kind of free logic. However, it has often been noted that in order (...) to specify the truth conditions of certain sentences involving constants or variables that don’t denote, one has to apparently quantify over things that are not identical to anything. In this paper I defend a contingentist, non-Meinongian metaphysics within a positive free logic. I argue that although certain names and free variables do not actually refer to anything, in each case there might have been something they actually refer to, allowing one to interpret the contingentist claims without quantifying over mere possibilia. (shrink)

Let NNG be the claim that necessitation is necessary for grounding, and let NSG be the claim that necessitation is sufficient for grounding. The consensus view is that grounding cannot be reduced to necessitation, and this is due to the (approximately) universally-accepted claim that NSG is false. Among deniers of NSG: grounding contingentists think NNG is also false, but they are in the minority compared to grounding necessitarians who uphold NNG. For one who would defend the claim that grounding is (...) reducible to necessitation, the task is formidable: she must defend NSG and NNG. I consider two prominent objections against NSG, and two more against NNG before developing a reductive account of grounding as minimal necessitation that avoids not only all four of the previously mentioned objections, but also an additional objection that targets minimal necessitation accounts in particular. If my arguments are compelling, then, insofar as we thereby have a strong prima facie case for thinking that grounding can be reduced to (minimal) necessitation, we have a strong prima facie case for thinking the consensus view is mistaken. (shrink)

This paper shows how a niche account of the metaphysics of laws of nature and physical properties—the Powers-BSA—can underpin both a sense in which the laws are metaphysically necessary and a sense in which it is true that the laws could have been different. The ability to reconcile entrenched disagreement should count in favour of a philosophical theory, so this paper constitutes a novel argument for the Powers-BSA by showing how it can reconcile disagreement about the laws’ modal status. This (...) paper also constitutes a defence of modal necessitarianism, the interesting and controversial view according to which all worlds are nomologically identical, because it shows how the modal necessitarian can appease the orthodox contingentist about laws. (shrink)

I argue that an adequate account of non-reductive realization must guarantee satisfaction of a certain condition on the token causal powers associated with (instances of) realized and realizing entities---namely, what I call the 'Subset Condition on Causal Powers' (first introduced in Wilson 1999). In terms of states, the condition requires that the token powers had by a realized state on a given occasion be a proper subset of the token powers had by the state that realizes it on that occasion. (...) Accounts of non-reductive realization conforming to this condition are implementing what I call 'the powers-based subset strategy'. I focus on the crucial case involving mental and brain states; the results may be generalized, as appropriate. I first situate and motivate the strategy by attention to the problem of mental causation; I make the case, in schematic terms, that implementation of the strategy makes room (contra Kim 1989, 1993, 1998, and elsewhere) for mental states to be ontologically and causally autonomous from their realizing physical states, without inducing problematic causal overdetermination, and compatible with both Physicalism and Non-reduction; and I show that several contemporary accounts of non-reductive realization (in terms of functional realization, parthood, and the determinable/determinate relation) are plausibly seen as implementing the strategy. As I also show, implementation of the powers-based strategy does not require endorsement of any particular accounts of either properties or causation---indeed, a categoricalist contingentist Humean can implement the strategy. The schematic location of the strategy in the space of available responses to the problem of mental (more generally, higher-level) causation, as well as the fact that the schema may be metaphysically instantiated, strongly suggests that the strategy is, appropriately generalized and instantiated, sufficient and moreover necessary for non-reductive realization. I go on to defend the sufficiency and necessity claims against a variety of objections, considering, along the way, how the powers-based subset strategy fares against competing accounts of purportedly non-reductive realization in terms of supervenience, token identity, and constitution. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the dispute between necessitarians and contingentists, mainly addressing the issue as to whether laws of nature are metaphysically necessary or metaphysically contingent with a weaker kind of necessity, commonly referred to as natural, nomological, or nomic necessity. It is assumed here that all fundamental properties are dispositional or role properties, making the dispute a strictly verbal one. The existence of categorical intrinsic properties as well as dispositional properties is also assumed and the relationship between them examined. (...) Finally, the chapter concludes by returning to the debate between necessitarians and contingentists under the assumption that both dispositional and categorical fundamental properties exist. It is argued here that necessitarian positions can be recast as contingentist, but that there are unequivocally contingentist positions preferred because they are less mysterious despite being ontologically more complex. (shrink)

In ‘Quiddistic Knowledge’ (Schaffer in Philos Stud 123:1–32, 2005), Jonathan Schaffer argued influentially against the view that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. In this reply I aim to show how a coherent and well-motivated form of necessitarianism can withstand his critique. Modal necessitarianism—the view that the actual laws are the laws of all possible worlds—can do justice to some intuitive motivations for necessitarianism, and it has the resources to respond to all of Schaffer’s objections. It also has certain (...) advantages over contingentism in the domain of modal epistemology. I conclude that necessitarianism about laws remains a live option. (shrink)

Current orthodoxy in modal logic and metaphysics has it that actuality is non-contingent in the following sense: for all p, if actually, p, then necessarily, actually, p. Call this thesis (Actuality) Necessitism and its negation (Actuality) Contingentism. Thus, according to Contingentism, there is at least one proposition p which is actually true but which could have been actually false. In another paper, one of us (Glazier 2023) has recently defended Contingentism. The present paper explores the logic of (...) actuality under Contingentism. After informally introducing Contingentism and outlining what we take to be the main motivations for accepting it, we consider how contingent actuality should be taken to be. We argue that the nature, or essence, of actuality imposes certain limits on the extent to which actuality could have been different, and these then inform our view of the logic of actuality. Turning to the formal study of the logic of contingent actuality, we specify a formal language and a possible world semantics for that language and distinguish a number of natural notions of validity and consequence to which it gives rise. We present axiomatizations of the different resulting logics and examine the variety of iterated modalities in our systems. We establish soundness and completeness results. (shrink)

Einar Bohn has argued that principles of composition must be contingent if gunky objects and junky worlds are both metaphysically possible. This paper critically examines such a case for contingentism about composition. I argue that weak mereological universalism, the principle that any two objects compose something, is consistent with the metaphysical possibility of both gunky objects and junky worlds. I further argue that, contra A. J. Cotnoir, the weak mereological universalist can accept a plausible mereological remainder axiom. The (...) proponent of contingent composition will have to look elsewhere for an argument in favor of his position. (shrink)

Trevor Teitel (2017) has recently argued that combining the assumption that modality reduces to essence with the assumption that possibly some objects contingently exist leads to problems if one wishes to uphold that the logic of metaphysical modality is S5. In this paper I will argue that there is a way for the essentialist to evade the problem described by Teitel. The proposed solution crucially involves the assumption that some propositions possibly fail to exist. I will show how this (...) assumption affords a motivated contingentist response to Teitel’s argument. (shrink)

This dissertation develops an inferentialist theory of meaning. It takes as a starting point that the sense of a sentence is determined by the rules governing its use. In particular, there are two features of the use of a sentence that jointly determine its sense, the conditions under which it is coherent to assert that sentence and the conditions under which it is coherent to deny that sentence. From this starting point the dissertation develops a theory of quantification as marking (...) coherent ways a language can be expanded and modality as the means by which we can reflect on the norms governing the assertion and denial conditions of our language. If the view of quantification that is argued for is correct, then there is no tension between second-order quantification and nominalism. In particular, the ontological commitments one can incur through the use of a quantifier depend wholly on the ontological commitments one can incur through the use of atomic sentences. The dissertation concludes by applying the developed theory of meaning to the metaphysical issue of necessitism and contingentism. Two objections to a logic of contingentism are raised and addressed. The resulting logic is shown to meet all the requirement that the dissertation lays out for a theory of meaning for quantifiers and modal operators. (shrink)

This paper reviews te principal points of Okcham’s philosophy: representationism, voluntarism, contingentism, and also the critics that Polo makes to them. The three parts of the study are: theory of knowledge, ethics-psychology, and metaphysics.

With its emphasis on indeterminacy, ambiguity, uncertainty, and chance, contingentism depicts normativity as one of our human practical possibilities rather than as a metaphysical bottleneck which we should necessary fulfill at the cost of repudiating concrete ways in which we grant epistemic and ethical meaning to our activities. Richard McKay Rorty's "neo-pragmatism" launched a powerful challenge to entrenched philosophical and pre-philosophical certainties of modernity, allowing us to articulate the powerful picture of normativity as a distinctive exercise and activity (...) of human beings. The book is a critical survey of his philosophy, in the light of various theoretical arguments as well as of his own resourceful attempts to renew philosophy from within its practice by using the conceptual tools and argumentative techniques of both analytic philosophy and pragmatism. (shrink)

A growing number of philosophers have argued against the orthodoxy that the correct principle of composition will be a metaphysically necessary truth. With contingentism about composition a seemingly viable option, it would appear that would‐be necessitarians shoulder the burden of proof. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the contingentist, too, has a significant burden. I argue that nonbrutal principles of composition satisfy a principle according to which facts about whether or not a collection composes supervene on (...) noncomposition facts that are spatiotemporally local to the collection. I further argue that the contingentist has reason to reject both brutal composition and the supervenience principle. This reveals a significant internal tension in the contingentist's position. Unless this tension can be resolved, there will be (defeasible) reason to prefer necessitarianism about composition. (shrink)

The dissertation introduces new sequent-calculi for free first- and second-order logic, and a hyper-sequent calculus for modal logics K, D, T, B, S4, and S5; to attain the calculi for the stronger modal logics, only external structural rules need to be added to the calculus for K, while operational and internal structural rules remain the same. Completeness and cut-elimination are proved for all calculi presented.Philosophically, the dissertation develops an inferentialist, or proof-theoretic, theory of meaning. It takes as a starting point (...) that the sense of a sentence is determined by the rules governing its use. In particular, there are two features of the use of a sentence that jointly determine its sense, the conditions under which it is coherent to assert that sentence and the conditions under which it is coherent to deny that sentence. The dissertation develops a theory of quantification as marking coherent ways a language can be expanded and modality as the means by which we can reflect on the norms governing the assertion and denial conditions of our language. If the view of quantification that is argued for is correct, then there is no tension between second-order quantification and nominalism. In particular, the ontological commitments one can incur through the use of a quantifier depend wholly on the ontological commitments one can incur through the use of atomic sentences. The dissertation concludes by applying the developed theory of meaning to the metaphysical issue of necessitism and contingentism. Two objections to a logic of contingentism are raised and addressed. The resulting logic is shown to meet all the requirement that the dissertation lays out for a theory of meaning for quantifiers and modal operators.Abstract prepared by Andrew ParisiE-mail: [email protected]: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/1480/. (shrink)

This chapter explores a potential analogy between mereological principles and laws of nature. Against a backdrop of what Marmodoro has termed ‘power structuralism’ (and a rejection of a Humean worldview), the connection between parthood and modality may be richer than has hitherto been considered. Mereological principles delineate possibilities for parts and wholes, and putting powers at the centre of a discussion about parthood can furnish a novel conception of mereological laws, much as dispositionalism has done so for natural laws; namely, (...) these principles express connections between fundamental dispositional properties. By extending dispositionalism to comprehend mereology in this way, we can help fulfil its promise to provide a foundational, naturalistic metaphysics, as foundational mereological debates then begin to mirror those relating to dispositionalist views of laws of nature: we may treat natural and mereological laws in tandem, as holding either necessarily or contingently, with associated strategies for dealing with supposed counterexamples to one’s preferred set of mereological principles. We can thus bring new life to the debate over whether questions of composition admit of contingent or only necessary answers. (shrink)

This paper develops some modal metatheory for quantified modal logic. In such a theory, the logic of a first-order modal object-language is made sensitive to the modal facts, stated in the metalanguage. This is radically different from possible worlds semantics, which reduces questions of validity to questions of nonmodal set theory. We consider theories which characterize a notion of truth under a second-order interpretation, where an operator for metaphysical necessity is treated homophonically. The form they take is crucially influenced (...) by whether the Barcan formulas are part of the metalogic. The main result is that, with the Barcan formulas, formulating a modal metatheory is easy; principles of classical semantics transfer over smoothly with natural adaptations to the modal setting. Without the Barcan formulas, it seems to be much harder. Several options are considered, but each involves commitments plausibly in tension with the underlying philosophical motivations for rejecting them. (shrink)

Actualism is a widely-held view in the metaphysics of modality that arises in response to the thesis of possibilism, the doctrine that, in addition to the things that actually exist — in particular, things that exist alongside us in the causal order — there are merely possible things as well, things that, in fact, fail to be actual but which could have been. The central motivation for possibilism is to explain what it is about reality that grounds such intuitively true (...) propositions as that Wittgenstein (who was childless) could have had children. In answer, possibilists argue that we must simply broaden our understanding of reality, of what there is in the broadest sense, beyond the actual, beyond what actually exists, so that it also includes the merely possible. In particular, says the possibilist, there are merely possible people, things that are not, in fact, people but which could have been. So, for the possibilist, the proposition that Wittgenstein could have had children is grounded in the fact that, among the possibilia, there are those that could have been his children. Actualism is (at the least) the denial of possibilism; to be an actualist is to deny that there are any possibilia. Put another way, for the actualist, there is no realm of reality, or being, beyond actual existence; to be is to exist, and to exist is to be actual. This article investigates the origins and nature of the debate between possibilists and actualists, with a particular focus on the implications of the debate for quantified modal logic. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper a symmetry argument against quantity absolutism is amended. Rather than arguing against the fundamentality of intrinsic quantities on the basis of transformations of basic quantities, a class of symmetries defined by the Π-theorem is used. This theorem is a fundamental result of dimensional analysis and shows that all unit-invariant equations which adequately represent physical systems can be put into the form of a function of dimensionless quantities. Quantity transformations that leave those dimensionless quantities invariant are empirical and (...) dynamical symmetries. The proposed symmetries of the original argument fail to be both dynamical and empirical symmetries and are open to counterexamples. The amendment of the original argument requires consideration of the relationships between quantity dimensions. The discussion raises a pertinent issue: what is the modal status of the constants of nature which figure in the laws? Two positions, constant necessitism and constant contingentism, are introduced and their relationships to absolutism and comparativism undergo preliminary investigation. It is argued that the absolutist can only reject the amended symmetry argument by accepting constant necessitism. I argue that the truth of an epistemically open empirical hypothesis would make the acceptance of constant necessitism costly: together they entail that the facts are nomically necessary. (shrink)