Abstract
The standard Kripkean semantic theories for quantified modal logic allow the individuals that exist at other worlds to vary from those that exist at the actual world. This causes a problem for those who deny the existence of non-actual individuals. I focus on two prominent strategies for solving this problem, due respectively to Bernard Linsky and Edward Zalta (who identify the possible individuals with the actual individuals) and Alvin Plantinga (who identifies the possible individuals with the individual essences). I argue, contra various commentators, that both of these solutions are acceptable by the lights of those who deny the existence of mere possibilia.
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Notes
Jager won Plantinga as a convert along the way—see Plantinga (1976, p. 160n8).
The idea of an expression’s semantic value being more or less ‘natural’ comes, of course, from Lewis (1983). Sider’s innovation is to apply the idea not only to predicates (e.g., ‘Blue’, ‘Bleen’) but to quantifiers, connectives, and the like.
Perhaps the Plantingan should respond by insisting that she should be interpreted in Ontologese rather than English. This, however, would commit Plantinga to the rather dubious claim that the domain over which the perfectly natural quantifiers range is the set of individual essences.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Elizabeth Barnes, Ross Cameron, John Divers, Joseph Melia, Tatjana von Solodkoff, Jason Turner and Robbie Williams. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Logic Seminar at the University of Cambridge, and I thank my audience on that occasion, and Tim Button in particular, for helpful discussion. Special thanks to to the Analysis Trust for postdoctoral research funding, which supported me financially during my initial work on this paper.
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Woodward, R. The things that aren’t actually there. Philos Stud 152, 155–166 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9443-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9443-1