Abstract
In my book, Worlds and Individuals, Possible and Otherwise, I use the novel idea of modal tense to respond to a number of arguments against modal realism. Peter van Inwagen’s million-carat-diamond objection is one of them. It targets the version of modal realism by David Lewis and exploits the fact that Lewis accepts absolutely unrestricted quantification. The crux of my response is to use modal tense to neutralize absolutely unrestricted quantification. Seahwa Kim says that even when equipped with modal tense, I am unsuccessful, given my view of reality and the proper use of modal tense in speaking of reality. I counter her attempt at resurrecting van Inwagen’s objection and clarify how we should use modal tense and how we should talk about reality.
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Notes
Issues related to counterpart theory are not important.
Lewis articulates unrestricted quantification as follows:
When [the ersatz modal realist] says that there are no other worlds, and no other-worldly possible individuals, he says it with his quantifiers wide open. He means to quantify over everything, without any restriction whatever, ignoring nothing. (And these quantifiers too are meant to be entirely unrestricted. I doubt that any perfect disambiguation is possible: all our idioms of quantification alike are flexible, subject to tacit restriction. But I think that, wilful misunderstanding aside, my meaning should be clear.) (Lewis 1986, page 137, his emphasis.)
This is not circular, for ‘actual things’ does not mean ‘things existing a at the actual world’. On this particular point and on the thesis that existence is a relation, see my ‘A Deflationary Theory of Existence’ manuscript.
The phrase ‘no domain’ here is also a quantifier phrase and what I say about ‘anything whatever’ also applies to it. As Lewis says of his meaning in the parenthetical remark cited in footnote 2 above, I think that, wilful misunderstanding aside, my meaning should be clear.
I do not imply that Kim will be surprised by this remark of mine.
But not necessarily larger.
References
Lewis, D. (1986). On the plurality of worlds. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
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Yagisawa, T. Unrestricted Quantification and Reality: Reply to Kim. Acta Anal 27, 77–79 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-011-0129-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-011-0129-x