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New problems for modal fictionalism

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Abstract

In this paper, after clarifying certain features of Gideon Rosen’s Modal Fictionalism, I raise two problems for that view and argue that these problems strongly suggest that advocates of a “Deflationist Strategy” ought not to endorse, or adopt Rosen-style Modal Fictionalism.

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Notes

  1. By modal discourse I mean sentences that contain the central modal idioms—expressions like ‘possibly’, ‘necessarily’, and ‘could have’, ‘might’, ‘must’, etc.

  2. See, for example, Stalnaker (1976) and Forrest (1986).

  3. Rosen (ibid.) does not sanction MFR. Rather, he proposes it as a prospective DS and defends it against certain objections to the position. The same is true of the other developers of MFR, Liggins (2008) and Woodward (2008, 2010). Within the field, I am not sure if there are any actual MFRists.

  4. This is not to say that an advocate of DS ought not to endorse any version of modal fictionalism, for there may be other versions of modal fictionalism [indeed, there is at least one, as presented in Yablo (1996)] to which the particular arguments developed here do not apply.

  5. Rosen appears to assume that (0) is meaning equivalent to (1), but whether this actually is his view, or whether he or anyone who favors the possible-worlds analysis of modal discourse endorses some weaker thesis, to the effect that (1) provides a reductive analysis of (0), or that (1) specifies the truth-conditions for (0), or is just logically equivalent to (0), is not crucial to my critique of modal fictionalism as a DS regarding modal discourse.

  6. Of course, there are ways of reading something like (3*) so that it becomes about phlogiston (or combustion), but that is different from claiming that (3*) is about such “things”. One standard way of ensuring that a sentence like (3*) is about what Becher’s theory is about is by providing a de re reading. Please note that in Sect. 4.2, I consider some de re readings of story (or, more accurately, theory) prefix-involving modal sentences.

  7. An operator, O, is non-factive just in case the form of inference, from ‘O(p)’ to ‘p’, is invalid.

  8. This should not be taken to imply that I accept a syntactic understanding of theories, as opposed to a semantic one of the sort that is proposed in van Fraassen (1980). I take no official stand on this issue. Thanks to James Woodbridge, for pointing this out.

  9. Many thanks to an anonymous referee, for pressing me to say more in support of the claim that (3) is not about a brilliant detective (or 221b Baker Street). Thanks, as well, to Jody Azzouni, for helpful discussion on this point.

  10. Like Lewis’s (1978) fictionalist account of overt fiction, what is central to all fictionalist accounts is what I have called semantic redirection, so that, rather than being about a brilliant detective, a sentence like (2) ends up being about something else—in this case, about the Holmes stories. For more on this, see Armour-Garb and Woodbridge (forthcoming).

  11. Cf. Lewis (1978/1983).

  12. For the sake of completeness, I note Rosen’s (1990, p. 333) proposed postulates:

    1. (1)

      Reality consists in a plurality of universes or “worlds”.

    2. (2)

      One of these universes is what we ordinarily call the universe: the largest connected spatiotemporal system of which we are parts.

    3. (3)

      The others are things of roughly the same kind: systems of objects, many of them concrete, connected by a network of external relations like the spatiotemporal distances that connect objects in the universe.

    4. (4)

      Each universe is isolated from the others; that is, particulars in distinct universes are not spatiotemporally related (thus, no particular inhabits two universes).

    5. (5)

      The totality of universes is closed under a principle of recombination. Roughly: for any collection of objects from any number of universes, there is a single universe containing any number of duplicates of each, provided there is a spacetime large enough to hold them.

    6. (6)

      There are no arbitrary limits on the plenitude of the universe. (7) Our universe is not special. That is, there is nothing remarkable about it from the point of view of the system of universes.

  13. According to Rosen (1990, p. 335, fn. 16), a sentence, S, is a non-modal intrinsic truth about our universe if it contains no modal vocabulary and entails neither the existence, nor the non-existence, of anything outside of that universe. Moreover, all quantifiers and names in such sentences are restricted to the inhabitants of this universe.

  14. In previous work (forthcoming), I have distinguished philosophical fictionalism from the philosophy of fiction. The former involves the application of fiction in order to resolve certain philosophical problems, which arise for some putatively problematic discourse [e.g., Yablo’s (2005) proposal for how we might resolve certain (ontological) problems, which arise given how mathematical-talk is standardly construed, viz., as involving a commitment to numbers as objects]. By contrast, the latter aims to answer certain questions about features, or elements, of overt fiction (e.g., regarding the ontological status of fictional characters). The distinction, between philosophical fictionalism and the philosophy of fiction, is meant to parallel that between philosophical logic and the philosophy of logic, as those distinct activities are standardly understood. For a nice discussion of the difference between philosophical logic and the philosophy of logic, see Goble (2001).

  15. According to Woodward (2008, p. 277), “the core of modal fictionalism is a claim regarding which propositions are expressed by modal sentences ….” As he (Ibid.) notes, a modal sentence like (0) will express a true proposition regarding the content of the hypothesis of the plurality of possible worlds. Note that Liggins (2008) claims that, rather than holding that (0) means what (1) means, as modal realists contend, the modal fictionalists will claim that (0) means what (4) means.

  16. Although I have provided some reasons for thinking that the ways in which Liggins and Woodward describe MFR, they seem to be committed to hermeneutic readings of that view, I should make clear that neither theorist explicitly espouses such a hermeneutic view and, in fact, in personal communications, both have made clear that they did not intend the versions of MFR that they aimed to defend to be read in a hermeneutic light. This is a good thing—at least for them—because it seems clear that there is no prospect for a hermeneutic version of MFR, understood as the view that a modal sentence like (e.g.) (0) actually is an elliptical rendering of (4).

    For one thing, since people were assertorically uttering modal sentences long before Lewis’s modal realism was introduced, it seems that a hermeneutic version of MFR would have to maintain that the meanings of modal sentences changed with the introduction of Lewis’s modal realism. This seems wildly implausible, as an empirical claim about the content of modal claims. But if it is not granted by one who endorses a hermeneutic reading of MFR (if such there be), then it would be an utter mystery how a sentence like (0) would be an elliptical rendering of (4).

    For another thing, it sure seems that ordinary people who are not familiar with Lewisian modal realism at least sometimes understand sentences of modal discourse. But if (e.g.) (0) is actually an elliptical rendering of (4), then they do not really understand such discourse. Now, perhaps one who endorses a hermeneutic reading of MFR would contend that, in fact, people do not understand modal discourse, since they are not familiar with Lewisian modal realism, in spite of the fact that they go about assertorically uttering such sentences. But that is a desperate (and, I would say, indefensible) move. These are just some of the problems that a modal fictionalist would face, were she to insist on a hermeneutic reading of MFR. Thanks to an anonymous referee, for suggesting that I elaborate these points.

  17. There is nothing special about (6). The points that I make here are intended to generalize.

  18. Of course, one might accept (6) on the basis of testimony. But that is irrelevant, for present purposes, since the details whereby recombination would yield a flying pig are heretofore unknown.

  19. There is an interesting question about why we accept (5), viz., about what grounds our modal beliefs. Is it based on conceivability or does it arise from something else? For an interesting discussion of these issues, see Evnine (2008).

  20. Thanks to Wayne Davis and Richard Woodward, for helpful discussion on these points.

  21. Sider (2002) makes a related point but, importantly, he puts it to very different use.

  22. I am assuming that, in general, when we assertorically utter a sentence, there is some thing about which we want to say something and that (again: in general) our desire is achieved when what we have assertorically uttered is (at least partially) about that thing. Of course, there need not be just one thing about which we wish to say and, analogously, there need not be just one thing that our sentence is about.

  23. More specifically, when the intensional operator in (3) has widest scope, the sentence is about, and is only about, the Holmes stories.

  24. In fact, since ordinary speakers do not generally even know about a proposed (or supposed) ontology of possible worlds, it is highly likely that that is not something they aim to convey, when they assertorically utter modal sentences. This is not to say that when they assertorically utter modal claims they are not committed to possible worlds. The point is just that the aim of their assertoric utterances need not be to say something about possible worlds.

  25. Of course, there are ways of reading (3) such that it ends up being about brilliant detectives, etc. I consider some of these ways, with a direct application to (0) (and kin), in the next section. The important point, for our purposes, is that, on a face-value reading of (0) as (4), it is only about PW, just as, on a face-value reading of (2) as (3), it is only about the Holmes stories.

  26. Thanks to Gideon Rosen, for suggesting this sort of response to the Aboutness Problem.

  27. One might worry that where the re is a universal, a reading of (0) as (13) will run into problems, given Lewis’s principle that nothing is wholly present as part of 2 different worlds. (Cf. Lewis (1968, p. 114).) Although this worry is legitimate, it bears noting that Lewis’s theory is intended to apply to particulars. As Lewis notes (1983, p. 345, fn. 5), if he were to countenance universals, since they must be capable of repeated occurrence in multiple worlds, he would have to take them to be an exception to the afore noted principle.

  28. Having a spatiotemporal location is different from being a spatiotemporal part of (say) a particular. While those who endorse the Aristotelian conception of universals (e.g., Armstrong) contend that universals are wholly present whenever particulars instantiate them, they do not claim that they are a spatiotemporal part of particulars that have them.

  29. Cf. Lewis (1983, p. 344).

  30. Of course, the access problem only gets going if we deny that we have knowledge of, or about, abstract objects. If we are prepared to grant that we have such knowledge, the access problem dissipates. Thanks to Wayne Davis for pointing that out.

  31. Since Lewis does not accept ante rem universals, there are also questions about whether PW will generate the right sorts of worlds in order for (e.g.) (14) to be true. But since the problem with such universals remains, even if these questions can be answered, we need not take them up here.

  32. Consider, for example, Armour-Garb and Woodbridge (2012), Balaguer (1998), and Field (1980, 1989).

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Jody Azzouni, Robert Howell, David Liggins, Gideon Rosen, Richard Woodward and an anonymous referee for the Journal, for helpful comments and/or suggestions. Especial thanks are due to Wayne Davis and James Woodbridge.

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Armour-Garb, B. New problems for modal fictionalism. Philos Stud 172, 1201–1219 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0344-6

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