Contingentism and fragile worlds

Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming)
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Abstract

Propositional contingentism is the thesis that there might have been propositions which might have not have been something. Serious actualism is the thesis that it is impossible for a property to be exemplified without there being something which exemplifies it. Both are popular. Likewise, the dominant view in the metaphysics of modality is that metaphysical possibility and necessity can be understood – in some sense – in terms of possible worlds, i.e. total ways the world could have been. Here, I argue that, given some minimal assumptions, the conjunction of propositional contingentism and serious actualism entails that worlds are modally fragile – every world is ontologically dependent on every proposition. I then show that such a consequence is inconsistent with the claim that propositions true at all possible worlds are necessary.

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Christopher James Masterman
University of St. Andrews

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References found in this work

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Higher-Order Contingentism, Part 1: Closure and Generation.Peter Fritz & Jeremy Goodman - 2016 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 45 (6):645-695.
Time and modality.A. N. Prior - 1957 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 148:114-115.
Actualism and thisness.Robert Merrihew Adams - 1981 - Synthese 49 (1):3-41.
On existentialism.Alvin Plantinga - 1983 - Philosophical Studies 44 (1):1 - 20.

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