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Single Idea 15075

[filed under theme 9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / a. Intrinsic unification ]

Full Idea

It is natural to suggest that to be a man is to have certain kind of temporal-modal profile. ...but it seems natural that being a man accounts for the profile, ...so one should not appeal to an object's modal features in stating what the object is.

Gist of Idea

Modal features are not part of entities, because they are accounted for by the entity

Source

Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 09)

Book Ref

Fine,Kit: 'Modality and Tense' [OUP 2005], p.348

A Reaction

This strikes me as a correct and very helpful point, as I am tempted to think that the modal dispositions of a thing are intrinsic to its identity. If we accept 'powers', must they be modal in character? Fine backs a sortal approach. That's ideology.

Related Idea

Idea 14481 Wherever an object exists, there are intrinsic properties instantiating every modal profile [Thomasson]

The 16 ideas from 'Necessity and Non-Existence'

15063 Some sentences depend for their truth on worldly circumstances, and others do not [Fine,K]
15065 What it is is fixed prior to existence or the object's worldly features [Fine,K]
15064 Proper necessary truths hold whatever the circumstances; transcendent truths regardless of circumstances [Fine,K]
15067 A-theorists tend to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction [Fine,K]
15066 B-theorists say tensed sentences have an unfilled argument-place for a time [Fine,K]
15069 Possible worlds may be more limited, to how things might actually turn out [Fine,K]
15068 The actual world is a totality of facts, so we also think of possible worlds as totalities [Fine,K]
15070 It is the nature of Socrates to be a man, so necessarily he is a man [Fine,K]
15071 Tensed and tenseless sentences state two sorts of fact, which belong to two different 'realms' of reality [Fine,K]
15073 Self-identity should have two components, its existence, and its neutral identity with itself [Fine,K]
15074 We would understand identity between objects, even if their existence was impossible [Fine,K]
15072 Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither [Fine,K]
15076 Essential features of an object have no relation to how things actually are [Fine,K]
15075 Modal features are not part of entities, because they are accounted for by the entity [Fine,K]
15078 There are levels of existence, as well as reality; objects exist at the lowest level in which they can function [Fine,K]
15077 It is said that in the A-theory, all existents and objects must be tensed, as well as the sentences [Fine,K]