Combining Philosophers

Ideas for David M. Rosenthal, Ian Rumfitt and Gideon Rosen

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3 ideas

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility
If two possibilities can't share a determiner, they are incompatible [Rumfitt]
     Full Idea: Two possibilities are incompatible when no possibility determines both.
     From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 7.1)
     A reaction: This strikes me as just the right sort of language for building up a decent metaphysical picture of the world, which needs to incorporate possibilities as well as actualities.
Since possibilities are properties of the world, calling 'red' the determination of a determinable seems right [Rumfitt]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers describe the colour scarlet as a determination of the determinable red; since the ways the world might be are naturally taken to be properties of the world, it helps to bear this analogy in mind.
     From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 6.4)
     A reaction: This fits nicely with the disposition accounts of modality which I favour. Hence being 'coloured' is a real property of objects, even in the absence of the name of its specific colour.
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 3. Combinatorial possibility
Combinatorial theories of possibility assume the principles of combination don't change across worlds [Rosen]
     Full Idea: Combinatorial theories of possibility take it for granted ....that possible worlds in general share a syntax, as it were, differing only in the constituents from which they are generated, or in the particular manner of their arrangements.
     From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 08)
     A reaction: For instance, it might assume that every world has 'objects', to which 'properties' and 'relations' can be attached, or to which 'functions' can apply.