The once and always possible

Synthese 203 (28):1-32 (2024)
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Abstract

In Death and Nonexistence, Palle Yourgrau defends what he calls the principle of Prior Possibility: nothing comes to exist unless it was previously possible that it exists. While this seems like a plausible principle, it’s not strong enough; it allows the impossible to come to exist. I argue for a stronger principle: nothing exists unless its existence has always been possible. Further, I argue that we then have reason to accept a surprising result: nothing exists unless its existence is always possible. Or, more generally, that nothing is the case unless it’s always possible that it’s the case.

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Kory Matteoli
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

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References found in this work

Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Critica 17 (49):69-71.
Time and modality.Arthur N. Prior - 1957 - London: Oxford University Press.
Modality and Tense: Philosophical Papers.Kit Fine - 2005 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Diamonds are Forever.Cian Dorr & Jeremy Goodman - 2019 - Noûs 54 (3):632-665.

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