Abstract
Robert Stalnaker is an actualist who holds that merely possible worlds are uninstantiated properties that might have been instantiated. Stalnaker also holds that there are no metaphysically impossible worlds: uninstantiated properties that couldn't have been instantiated. These views motivate Stalnaker's "two dimensional" account of the necessary a posteriori on which there is no single proposition that is both necessary and a posteriori. For a (metaphysically) necessary proposition is true in all (metaphysically) possible worlds. If there were necessary a posteriori propositions, that would mean that there were propositions true in all possible worlds but which could only be known to be true by acquiring empirical evidence. Consider such a purported proposition P. The role of empirical evidence for establishing P's truth would have to be to rule out worlds in which P is false. If there were no such worlds to be ruled out, we would not require evidence for P. But by hypothesis, P is necessary and so true in all metaphysically possible worlds. And on Stalnaker's view, the metaphysically possible worlds are all the worlds there are. So there can be no proposition that is true in all possible worlds, but that we require evidence to know. In this way, the motivation for Stalnaker's two dimensional account of the necessary a posteriori rests on his denying that there are metaphysically impossible Worlds. I argue that given his view of what possible worlds are, Stalnaker has no principled reason for denying that there are metaphysically impossible worlds. If I am right, this undercuts Stalnaker's motivation for his two dimensional account of the necessary a posteriori.
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Notes
See WWMB pp. 6–7, 8, 32 and 55. Henceforth all page and chapter references are to this work unless otherwise indicated.
Perhaps along with Stalnaker (1986).
p. 8, 102 and Chapter 3.
See Adams (1974).
Of course, Lewis (1986) himself gives a different reason for thinking that on his conception of worlds, there are no (logically) impossible ones. See p. 7 foot note 3.
p. 16, 192
This line of reasoning is spelled out in more detail in Soames (2003) pp. 374–375. I have benefited greatly from discussions of these issues with Soames.
p. 8.
p. 38. Similar themes are voiced in Stalnaker (1986).
p. 171.
See pp. 168–169.
pp. 7, 27–28, 54.
p. 7
The sense in which the world might have had one of these other properties is something that merits serious discussion. Unfortunately, I do not have the time or space to discuss this issue here. See Stalnaker’s discussion of related matters on pp. 27–29.
Soames (2005) also endorses the view that there are metaphysically impossible but epistemically possible world states understood as properties. See pp. 82–83 and 199–209.
See King (1998) for discussion of this view of properties and relations.
And of course these modes of combination can be iterated. Consider the property of being an uncle. Roughly, we might think the uncle property is to be understood as (suppressing being human for simplicity): x is an uncle iff x is male and some: y (x is a sibling of y & some: z(y is a parent of z). Here there are various modes of combination that combine the components in forming the uncle property. First, the parent of relation combines with the property of properties some. Some combines with an n-place relation on one of its argument places to yield an n-1 place relation. In the above case, some combines with the parent of relation on its second argument place to yield a (one place) property that holds of x iff x is a parent of something. Similar remarks apply to some combining with the two place relation of x’s being y’s sibling where y is a parent.
Soames (2005) endorses this explanation of the necessary a posteriori. See pp. 82–83.
p. 8, 102 and Chapter 3.
p. 32, my emphasis.
Stalnaker (1984) p. 166.
There are other related questions I have about how Stalnaker thinks of properties as well. First, I wonder whether on Stalnaker’s view properties of objects can be brought into existence by activities of rational agents. Second, I would want to know whether on Stalnaker’s view there are two kinds of properties, those whose existence depends on rational activities and those whose existence doesn’t; and I would like to be told how these differ metaphysically and why they are nonetheless all properties.
p. 63
e.g. he calls him an ally (p. 8).
p. 57. See also p. 60, 61, 62, and 66.
Remarks on p. 102 perhaps suggest this.
References
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Lewis, D. (1986). On the plurality of worlds. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
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Soames, S. (2005). Reference and description: The case against two-dimensionalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Soames, S. (2003). Philosophical analysis in the twentieth century volume 2: The age of meaning. Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Michael Glanzberg and Sarah McGrath for helpful discussions. A special thanks to my colleague Scott Soames for extremely helpful written comments on an earlier draft.
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King, J.C. What in the world are the ways things might have been?. Philos Stud 133, 443–453 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-006-9063-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-006-9063-y