Abstract
Modal rationalism includes the thesis that ideal primary positive conceivability entails primary possibility. Modal monism is the thesis that the space of logically possible worlds is coextensive with the space of metaphysically possible worlds. In this paper I explore the relation between the two theses. My aim is to show that the former thesis implies the latter thesis, and that problems with the latter make the former implausible as a complete picture of the epistemology of modality. My argument explores the relation between logical modality and metaphysical modality.
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Notes
Strictly speaking the thesis is called weak modal rationalism or (CP+). It is important that the reader keep this mind, as the distinction will become central in later sections.
Notice that Chalmers is attempting to do justice to an intuition that Kripke straightforwardly rejects as confused when discussing de re cases. Kripke claims that ‘if it couldn’t have been the case that P, then it could not have turned out that P’. The only sense, in which the lecturn could have been made of ice, Kripke says, is that one could have been in a qualitatively indiscernible situation with respect to a lecturn made of ice. However, the table would be a different table. There is no sense in which, with respect to the actual lecturn made of wood that it could have turned out to have been made of ice.
Chalmers (2002) p. 189.
Chalmers (2002) Sect. 12.
I thank David Chalmers for bringing this point to my attention.
Chalmers (1999) pp. 473–496.
I characterize logical modality as having minimally an S4 structure and maximally an S5 structure in order to allow for the fact that logical modality may best be characterized by some axiom of intermediate strength.
See Cameron (2005) for an excellent recent discussion of Kripke’s original argument, Salmon’s attempt at repairing it, and criticism of both.
See Kripke (1980), pp. 114–115.
For interesting work that answers this question in a way that I will not consider see Greg Restall and J.C. Beal’s defense of Logical Pluralism.
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Acknowledgments
This paper would have not have been epistemically possible had it not been made metaphysically possible through actual discussion with Kevin Falvey, Nathan Salmon, Anthony Brueckner, C. Anthony Anderson, David Chalmers, Fritz Allhoff, Jesse Steinberg, Dylan Dodd, and Richard Glatz. In addition, I would like to thank Thomas Grundmann and the participants of the 2006 Summer School in Philosophy at the University of Cologne for engaging discussion and commentary on this paper. I would like to thank two anonymous referees for outstanding comments that greatly improved this paper.
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Vaidya, A. Modal Rationalism and Modal Monism. Erkenn 68, 191–212 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-007-9093-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-007-9093-7