Year: 2006
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis concerns the source of modal truth. I aim to answer the question: what is \nit in virtue of which there are truths concerning what must have been the case as a \nmatter of necessity, or could have been the case but isn't. \n \nI begin by looking at a dilemma put forward by Simon Blackburn which attempts to \nshow that any realist answer to this question must fail, and I conclude that either horn \nof his dilemma can be resisted. I then move on to clarify the nature of the \npropositions whose truth I am aiming to find the source of. \n \nI distinguish necessity de re from necessity de dicto, and argue for a counterpart \ntheoretic treatment of necessity de re. As a result, I argue that there is no special \nproblem concerning the source of de re modal facts. The problem is simply to \naccount for what it is in virtue of which there are qualitative ways the world could \nhave been, and qualitative ways it couldn't have been. \n \nI look at two ways to answer this question: by appealing to truthmakers in the actual \nworld, or by appealing to non-actual ontology. I develop a theory of truthmakers, but \nargue that it is unlikely that there are truthmakers for modal truths among the \nontology of the actual. I look at the main possibilist ontology, David Lewis' modal \nrealism, but argue that warrant for that ontology is unobtainable, and that we \nshouldn't admit non-actual possibilia into our ontology. \n \nI end by sketching a quasi-conventionalist approach to modality which denies that \nthere are modal facts, but nevertheless allows that we can speak truly when we use \nmodal language.
Author: Ross P. Cameron
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2626344792