From Four‐ to Five‐Dimensionalism

Philosophers have long noticed the similarity of identity over time and identity across worlds. Despite this similarity, analogous views on these matters are not always taken equally seriously. Four‐dimensionalism is one of the most well‐known accounts of identity over time. There is a clear modal analogue of four‐dimensionalism, on which objects are modally extended and their trans‐world identity is a matter of having distinct modal parts located in different possible worlds. Yet this view, which we might call ‘five‐dimensionalism,’ is rarely discussed or defended, in comparison to its temporal counterpart. I argue that five‐dimensionalism is at least as plausible as four‐dimensionalism and deserves serious consideration as an account of trans‐world identity. The strategy is to show that arguments typically used in defence of four‐dimensionalism can be adapted to defend five‐dimensionalism as well. A powerful consideration in favour of four‐dimensionalism is the fact that it provides an elegant and unified solution to a variety of puzzles concerning material coincidence. I show that such puzzles come in equally troubling modal varieties and that five‐dimensionalism provides an equally unified and elegant solution to them. 1     

Temporal Parts and Timeless Parthood

What is a temporal part? Most accounts explain it in terms of timeless parthood: a thing's having a part without temporal qualification. Some find this hard to understand, and thus find the view that persisting things have temporal parts—four‐dimensionalism—unintelligible. T. Sider offers to help by defining temporal parthood in terms of a thing's having a part at a time. I argue that no such account can capture the notion of a temporal part that figures in orthodox four‐dimensionalism: temporal parts must be timeless parts. This enables us to state four‐dimensionalism more clearly.     

Multipropositionalism and Necessary a Posteriori identity Statements

We provide an account of necessary a posteriori identity statements that relies upon Perry's multipropositionalism. On our account an utterance of, e.g., ‘Hesperus is Phosphorus', semantically makes available several propositions, one of which is necessary (and a priori) and another of which is a posteriori (and contingent). Since our view resembles two‐dimensionalism, one might assume that it is undermined by the sorts of nesting arguments that Soames and others have raised against two‐dimensionalism. We demonstrate, however, that our account is immune to such nesting arguments.     

Object Theory and Modal Meinongianism

In this paper, we compare two theories, modal Meinongianism (MM) and object theory (OT), with respect to several issues that have been discussed recently in the literature. In particular, we raise some objections for MM, undermine some of the objections that its defenders raise for OT, and we point out some virtues of the latter with respect to the former.     

Modal Personhood and Moral Status: A Reply to Kagan's Proposal

Kagan argues that human beings who are neither persons nor even potential persons — if their impairment is independent of genetic constitution — are modal persons: individuals who might have been persons. Moreover, he proposes a view according to which both (actual) personhood and modal personhood are sufficient for counting more, morally, than nonhuman animals. In response to this proposal, I raise one relatively minor concern about Kagan's reasoning — that he judges too quickly that insentient beings can have interests — before engaging the appeal to modal personhood. I challenge the thesis that modal personhood is relevant to one's moral status, first, by way of analogy to a kicker who misses a field goal though he might have made it; second, by casting doubt on implications for two impaired infants (only one of whom might have been a person); and, finally, by examining implications for dogs who would count as modal persons when genetic enhancements are capable of transforming them into persons.     

Fiction: Impossible!

I argue that modal realism is unable to account for fictional discourse. My starting point is an overview of modal realism. I then present a dilemma for modal realism regarding fictional characters. Finally, I provide responses to both horns of the dilemma, one motivating modal dimensionalism, the other motivating a disjunctive analysis of modality.     

NEO‐MEINONGIAN NEO‐RUSSELLIANS

Neo‐Russellianism, which incorporates both Millianism (with regard to proper names) and the thesis of singular Russellian propositions, has widely been defended after the publication of Kripke's Naming and Necessity. The view, however, encounters various problems regarding empty names, names that do not have semantic referents. Nathan Salmon and Scott Soames have defended neo‐Russellianism against such problems in a novel way; to account for various intuitions of competent and rational speakers regarding utterances of sentences containing empty names, Salmon and Soames appeal neither to entities similar to Fregean senses, e.g. propositional guises or modes of presentation, nor to Gricean implicatures. In this paper, however, I argue that their view slips into neo‐Meinongianism; it is committed to nonexistent objects, assigns various properties to them, and allows quantifiers range over such entities. This, I conclude, makes Salmon and Soames' view less appealing, if not implausible.     

Recognition,Freedom, and the Self in Fichte's Foundations of Natural Right

In this paper I present an interpretation of J. G. Fichte's transcendental argument for the necessity of mutual recognition (Anerkennung) in Foundations of Natural Right. Fichte's argument purports to show that, as a condition of the possibility of self‐consciousness, we must take ourselves to stand in relations of mutual recognition with other agents like ourselves. After reconstructing the steps of Fichte's argument, I present what I call the ‘modal dilemma’, which highlights a serious ambiguity in Fichte's deduction. According to the modal dilemma, the conclusion to Fichte's transcendental argument—that as a condition of the possibility of our self‐consciousness, we must recognize and be recognized by others—expresses either metaphysical or normative necessity. However, no normative conclusion follows from Fichte's premises, and the metaphysical claim that does follow from his argument appears to be implausibly strong. Thus the argument looks like a failure on either interpretation of the conclusion's modality. In the penultimate section of the paper, I propose a new interpretation of the argument that avoids the modal dilemma and provides a normative grounding of Fichte's concept of right.     

What Chance‐Credence Norms Should Not Be

A chance‐credence norm states how an agent's credences in propositions concerning objective chances ought to relate to her credences in other propositions. The most famous such norm is the Principal Principle (PP), due to David Lewis. However, Lewis noticed that PP is too strong when combined with many accounts of chance that attempt to reduce chance facts to non‐modal facts. Those who defend such accounts of chance have offered two alternative chance‐credence norms: the first is Hall's and Thau's New Principle (NP); the second is Ismael's General Recipe (IP). Thus, the question arises: Should we adopt NP or IP or both? In this paper, I argue that IP has unacceptable consequences when coupled with reductionism, so we must accept NP alone.     

How to Be a Substantivalist Without Getting Shifty About It*

According to substantivalism, spacetime points and regions are real entities whose existence is not dependent on matter. In this paper, I motivate and defend a version of substantivalism which takes the totality of spacetime as fundamental, and show how this position avoids certain problem cases, in particular the objection from static Leibniz shifts, and better conforms to how we think about space in physics. I argue that, even though the static Leibniz shifts do not show ordinary substantivalism is committed to in‐principle undetectable physical structure (pace Dasgupta (2015a)), they do indicate something problematic about the modal profile of space‐time and its constituents. While the problem is modal, the solution cannot be solely a matter of revising the substantivalist's modal claims. Rather, I argue, the substantivalist must revise her background ontology of space‐time. I show how this can be done by developing substantivalist theory that rejects this picture in favor of an alternative ontology of space‐time in the spirit of priority monism.     

The modal view of essence

According to the modal view, essence admits of reductive analysis in exclusively modal terms. Fine (1994) argues that modal view delivers an inadequate analysis of essence. This paper defends the modal view from Fine's challenge. This defense proceeds by examining the disagreement between Finean primitivists and Quinean eliminativists about essence. In order to model this disagreement, a distinction between essence and a separable concept, nature, is required. This distinction is then used to show that Fine's challenge is misdirected and therefore unsuccessful.     

Kagan on Speciesism and Modal Personism

Shelly Kagan argues in his ‘What's Wrong with Speciesism?’ for four provocative claims: 1. speciesism is not necessarily a mere prejudice; 2. most people are not speciesists; 3. ‘modal personism’ more closely reflects what most people believe, and 4. modal personism might be true. In this article, I object to Kagan's account of what constitutes a ‘mere prejudice’, and I object to the sort of argument he uses to show that most people are not speciesist. I then attempt to motivate, and defend what I take to be the best version of modal personism; answer several problems for the view; and raise other problems that I think are harder to answer.     

The Metaphysical Equivalence Of Three And Four Dimensionalism

I argue that two competing accounts of persistence, three and four dimensionalism, are in fact metaphysically equivalent. I begin by clearly defining three and four dimensionalism, and then I show that the two theories are intertranslatable and equally simple. Through consideration of a number of different cases where intuitions about persistence are contradictory, I then go on to show that both theories describe these cases in the same manner. Further consideration of some empirical issues arising from the theory of special relativity lead me to conclude that the two theories are equally explanatory, and thus finally that they are metaphysically equivalent.     

Consciousness and Criterion: On Block's Case for Unconscious Seeing

Block ( 2012 ) highlights two experimental studies of neglect patients which, he contends, provide ‘dramatic evidence’ for unconscious seeing. In Block's hands this is the highly non‐trivial thesis that seeing of the same fundamental kind as ordinary conscious seeing can occur outside of phenomenal consciousness. Block's case for it provides an excellent opportunity to consider a large body of research on clinical syndromes widely held to evidence unconscious perception. I begin by considering in detail the two studies of neglect to which Block appeals. I show why their interpretation as evidence of unconscious seeing faces a series of local difficulties. I then explain how, even bracketing these issues, a long‐standing but overlooked problem concerning our criterion for consciousness problematizes the appeal to both studies. I explain why this problem is especially pressing for Block given his view that phenomenal consciousness overflows access consciousness. I further show that it is epidemic—not only affecting all report‐based studies of unconscious seeing in neglect, but also analogous studies of the condition most often alleged to show unconscious seeing, namely blindsight.     

Term Kinds and the Formality of Aristotelian Modal Logic

Recent formalizations of Aristotle's modal syllogistic have made use of an interpretative assumption with precedent in traditional commentary: That Aristotle implicitly relies on a distinction between two classes of terms. I argue that the way Rini (2011. Aristotle's Modal Proofs: Prior Analytics A8–22 in Predicate Logic, Dordrecht: Springer) employs this distinction undermines her attempt to show that Aristotle gives valid proofs of his modal syllogisms. Rini does not establish that Aristotle gives valid proofs of the arguments which she takes to best represent Aristotle's modal syllogisms, nor that Aristotle's modal syllogisms are instances of any other system of schemata that could be used to define an alternative notion of validity. On the other hand, I argue, Robert Kilwardby's ca. 1240 commentary on the Prior Analytics makes use of a term-kind distinction so as to provide truth conditions for Aristotle's necessity propositions which render Aristotle's conversion rules and first figure modal syllogisms formally valid. I reconstruct a suppositio semantics for syllogistic necessity propositions based on Kilwardby's text, and yield a consequence relation which validates key results in the assertoric, pure necessity and mixed necessity-assertoric syllogistics.     

Berkeley on Inconceivability and Impossibility

Contrary to a popular reading of his modal epistemology, Berkeley does not hold that inconceivability entails impossibility, and he cannot therefore argue the impossibility of mind‐independent matter by appealing to facts about what we cannot conceive. Berkeley is explicit about this constraint on his metaphysical argumentation, and, I argue, does respect it in practice. Popular mythology about the ‘master argument’ notwithstanding, the only passages in which he might plausibly seem to employ the principle that inconceivability entails impossibility are those that argue for the inseparability of primary from secondary qualities. However, an alternative reading of these texts is available that is both consistent with Berkeley's express modal epistemology and credible in its own right.     

Grounding: Necessary or Contingent?

Recent interest in the nature of grounding is due in part to the idea that purely modal notions are too coarse‐grained to capture what we have in mind when we say that one thing is grounded in another. Grounding not being purely modal in character, however, is compatible with it having modal consequences. Is grounding a necessary relation? In this article I argue that the answer is ‘yes’ in the sense that propositions corresponding to full grounds modally entail propositions corresponding to what they ground. The argument proceeds upon two substantive principles: the first is that there is a broadly epistemic constraint on grounding, while the second links this constraint with Fine's Aristotelian notion of essence. Many think grounding is necessary in something like the sense specified above, but just why it's necessary is an issue that hasn't been carefully addressed. If my argument is successful, we now know why grounding is necessary.     

Induction,Normality and Reasoning with Arbitrary Objects

This paper concerns the apparent fact — discussed by Sinan Dogramaci (2010) and Brian Weatherson (2012) — that inductive reasoning often interacts in disastrous ways with patterns of reasoning that seem perfectly fine in the deductive case. In contrast to Dogramaci's and Weatherson's own suggestions, I argue that these cases show that we cannot reason inductively about arbitrary objects. Moreover, as I argue, this prohibition is neatly explained by a certain hypothesis about the rational basis of inductive reasoning — namely, the hypothesis that inductive reasoning is fundamentally reasoning about what normally happens (in a non‐statistical sense).     

Situating Experience: Agency,Perception, and the Given

William Alston has been a long‐time critic of the arguments of Wilfrid Sellars, and he has recently revisited the arguments made by Sellars in “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind.” Alston's work attempts to show how Sellarsian views fail to account for our understanding of perception by making a two‐part attack on Sellars's account: part one of the attack takes up the Sellarsian approach to ‘looks’‐talk, and part two concerns Sellars's thoroughgoing conceptualism with regard to perception. In this article, I argue that there is much in Alston's view that does violence to our understanding of theoretical and practical reason by removing concepts (and thereby constraint by norms) from perception, and I show that Alston's two‐pronged attack fails due to its inadequate reading of “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” and its problematic underlying epistemology.     

Expressive power, mood, and actuality

In Wehmeier (J Philos Log 33:607–630, 2004) we are presented with the subjunctive modal language, a way of dealing with the expressive inadequacy of modal logic by marking atomic predicates as being either in the subjunctive or indicative mood. Wehmeier claims that this language is expressively equivalent to the standard actuality language, and that despite this the marked-unmarked dichotomies are not the same in the two languages. In this paper we will attend to Wehmeier’s argument that this is the case, and show that this conclusion rests on what might be considered an uncharitable stipulation concerning what it is for a formula in the actuality language to be true in a model.