| 16376 | The possible can only be general, and the force of actuality is needed to produce a particular [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The possible is necessarily general…..It is only actuality, the force of existence, which bursts the fluidity of the general and produces a discrete unit. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892]), quoted by François Recanati - Mental Files 13.1 | |
| A reaction: [Papers 4 1967:147] This was quoted by Prior, and is often cited. Recanati is interested in the notion of a singular thought being tied to actuality, by generating a mental file. |
| 11003 | The best version of reductionist actualism around is Armstrong's combinatorial account [Armstrong, by Read] |
| Full Idea: Armstrong's combinatorial theory of possibility is perhaps the most sophisticated and best worked out reductionist version of actualism to date. | |
| From: report of David M. Armstrong (The Nature of Possibility [1986]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.4 |
| 16472 | Plantinga's actualism is nominal, because he fills actuality with possibilia [Stalnaker on Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: Plantinga's critics worry that the metaphysics is actualist in name only, since it is achieved only by populating the actual world with entities whose nature is explained in terms of merely possible things that would exemplify them if anything did. | |
| From: comment on Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 4.4 | |
| A reaction: Plantinga seems a long way from the usual motivation for actualism, which is probably sceptical empiricism, and building a system on what is smack in front of you. Possibilities have to be true, though. That's why you need dispositions in actuality. |
| 18383 | Plantinga says there is just this world, with possibilities expressed in propositions [Plantinga, by Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Plantinga rejects other possible worlds, but adds to our world an uncountable multitude of sets of propositions, each set a way that the world might have been, but is in fact not. (Roughly, for each Lewis world, Plantinga has such a set). | |
| From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by David M. Armstrong - Truth and Truthmakers 07.2 | |
| A reaction: To me it seems as ontologically extravagant to postulate unexpressed propositions as to postulate concrete possible worlds. I think the best line is that there is just the actual world, with the possibilities implied in its dispositions. |
| 16433 | Given actualism, how can there be possible individuals, other than the actual ones? [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: My main focus is on how, on an actualist interpretation of possible worlds as ways a world might be, one is to account for the possibility that there be individuals other than those that actually exist. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], Pref) | |
| A reaction: The obvious thought would be that they are constructions from components of actual individuals, such as the chimaera, or fictional characters. We need some psychology here, which is not Stalnaker's style. |
| 11869 | Possible worlds rest on the objects about which we have suppositions [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Worlds are the shadows of our suppositions and they take on their identity from these. Suppositions take on their identity from (inter alia) the objects they relate to. If they sever themselves from these objects, then they collapse. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.11) | |
| A reaction: Sounds good. My picture is of possibilities which are suggested by objecfs in the actual world, with extreme possibilities being at fifth-remove from actuality. Any worlds that go beyond natural possibility are just there for fun. |
| 18415 | The actual world is just the world you are in [Lewis, by Cappelen/Dever] |
| Full Idea: Lewis equates knowing which world is actual with knowing which world one is in. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Attitudes De Dicto and De Se [1979]) by Cappelen,H/Dever,Josh - The Inessential Indexical 05.1 | |
| A reaction: [This view is not, of course, Actualism, but an alternative treatment of actuality, within a multitude of possibilities]. |
| 16441 | Lewis rejects actualism because he identifies properties with sets [Lewis, by Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: It is the identification of properties with sets that rules out, for Lewis, an actualist account of possible worlds. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 1.1 | |
| A reaction: I suppose the sets which are the properties have to include all the possible red things as well as the actual one. This escapes the renate/cordate problem. |
| 16282 | Ersatzers say we have one world, and abstract representations of how it might have been [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The ersatzers say that instead of an incredible plurality of concrete worlds, we can have one world only, and countless abstract entities representing ways that this world might have been. | |
| From: David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: Put me down as an ersatzer. They seem to be the same as Actualists. Are worlds other possible worlds, or ways 'this world might have been'? Not the same. Does actuality constrain what is possible? (Barcan formula?) |
| 15791 | What are the ontological grounds for grouping possibilia into worlds? [Lycan on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Lewis must seek some ontological ground for the grouping of possibilia into disjoint worlds. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Possible Worlds [1973]) by William Lycan - The Trouble with Possible Worlds 07 | |
| A reaction: I do love people like Lycan who ask the simple commonsense questions about these highly sophisticated systems that students of philosophy are required to study. If a proposition is a 'set of worlds', understanding a proposition is beyond me. |
| 15790 | Lewis can't know possible worlds without first knowing what is possible or impossible [Lycan on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Lewis's knowledge of what possible worlds there are and of other general truths about worlds is posterior, not prior, to his knowledge of what things are possible and what things are impossible. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Possible Worlds [1973]) by William Lycan - The Trouble with Possible Worlds 07 | |
| A reaction: This elementary objection seems to me to destroy any attempt to explain modality in terms of possible worlds. It is a semantics for modal statements, but that doesn't make it an ontology. To assess possibilities, study actuality. |
| 10996 | Actualism is reductionist (to parts of actuality), or moderate realist (accepting real abstractions) [Read] |
| Full Idea: There are two main forms of actualism: reductionism, which seeks to construct possible worlds out of some more mundane material; and moderate realism, in which the actual concrete world is contrasted with abstract, but none the less real, possible worlds. | |
| From: Stephen Read (Thinking About Logic [1995], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: I am a reductionist, as I do not take abstractions to be 'real' (precisely because they have been 'abstracted' from the things that are real). I think I will call myself a 'scientific modalist' - we build worlds from possibilities, discovered by science. |
| 16188 | Serious Actualism says there are no facts at all about something which doesn't exist [Simchen] |
| Full Idea: Serious Actualism is the view that in possible circumstances in which something does not exist there are no facts about it of any kind, including its very non-existence | |
| From: Ori Simchen (The Barcan Formula and Metaphysics [2013], §1 n4) | |
| A reaction: He suggests that the Converse Barcan Formula implies this view. It sounds comparable to the view of Presentism about time, that no future or past truthmakers exist right now. If a new square table were to exist, it would have four corners. |