Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Nature of Necessity', 'fragments/reports' and 'Letters to Descartes'

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5 ideas

10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / d. Possible worlds actualism

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.

10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / b. Rigid designation

11891	Possibilities for an individual can only refer to that individual, in some possible world [Plantinga, by Mackie,P]
	Full Idea: Plantinga says for an individual to exist with certain properties in some possible world is simply for it to be true that, had that possible world obtained, that individual would have existed with those properties.
	From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 5.1
	A reaction: This is intended to dissolve the problem of transworld identity, and is certainly a flat rejection of counterparts. I take the point to be that the individual is the key element in defining the possible world, so can't possibly be different.

17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique

23222	A soul with physical extension is more likely than an immaterial soul that moves bodies [Elizabeth]
	Full Idea: I would find it easier to concede matter and extension to the soul than to concede that an immaterial thing could move and be moved by a body.
	From: Elizabeth, Princess of Bohemia (Letters to Descartes [1643], p.42), quoted by Matthew Cobb - The Idea of the Brain 2
	A reaction: Very nicely expressed! I'm trying to imagine a ghost which finds itself stuck with a physical body which it has to drag around like a reluctant dog. She is stating the classic interaction problem which plagues all mind-body dualism.

27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 1. Biology

651	Eurytus showed that numbers underlie things by making pictures of creatures out of pebbles [Eurytus, by Aristotle]
	Full Idea: Eurytus assigned numbers to things by taking some pebbles and using them to create likeness of the shapes of living things, such as a man or a horse.
	From: report of Eurytus (fragments/reports [c.400 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1092b
	A reaction: Pythagorean. Digitising reality.

28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / a. Ontological Proof

20704	A possible world contains a being of maximal greatness - which is existence in all worlds [Plantinga, by Davies,B]
	Full Idea: Plantinga reformulates Malcolm's argument thus: 1) There is a possible world in which there exists a being with maximal greatness, 2) A being has maximal greatness in a world only if it exists in every world.
	From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974], p.213) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 4 'b Descartes'
	A reaction: This is only Plantinga's starting point, which says nothing about the nature of God, but only that this 'great' being exists in all worlds. I would like to know why it is a 'being' rather than a 'thing'. Malcolm says if it is possible it is necessary.