is true and is true) provide us with the correct analysis of modality and that this (together with some highly plausible assumptions) commits us to the existence of possible worlds other than the actual world. Their main disagreement with possibilists concerns the nature of such possible worlds, which according to softcore actualists are ultimately actual abstract objects (e.g. maximally consistent sets of proposition, maximal states of affairs, etc.). Hardcore actualists, on the other hand, disagree with both possiblists and softcore actualists in taking talk of possible worlds no , the truthmaker for is true. According to the proposal I am currently considering only propositions such as is (represented as being) true and, of course, if one is also an actualist, one will take this to mean that ersatz possible worlds at which p are the truthmakers of is true at all possible worlds and each world is possible only if is true at it. At this point, Cameron would probably deny that the story needs to go that far. All actualists were looking for was a truthmaker for is true. Cameron also provide an answer to the thorny question of what makes a world possible—i.e. a world is possible if and only if a certain set of propositions are true at it. And then, when asked what is special about those propositions, Cameron just shrugs off the question. But, if the whole story is to work and the impression of circularity is to be effectively dispelled, the question cannot be , the propositions is true at them not
1
more seriously than a (very useful) fiction and reject any analysis of modality based on the Leibnizian biconditional. Hardcore actualists think that what makes modal propositions true are irreducibly modal features of the actual world (such as laws of nature, dispositions, or essences). In a very interesting paper that appeared recently in this journal, Ross Cameron (2008) argues that, contrary to what is often assumed, modal truths are no less in need of truthmakers than non-modal truths and then proceeds to defend the view that ersatz possible worlds are the truthmakers for such truths. Whereas I am somewhat sympathetic to Cameron’s actualist inclinations, I am not particularly sympathetic to the specific brand of actualism Cameron opts for. My disagreement with Cameron boils down to the disagreement between what I have called hardcore and softcore actualists. In this paper, I only touch briefly on my reasons for preferring hardcore actualism over its softcore alternative and I shall rather focus on Cameron’s reasons for preferring the softcore actualism over the hardcore actualism (§2) and on the specific brand of softcore actualism Cameron espouses (§3) finding them both wanting. I conclude (§4) with some general remarks about the prospects of using ersatz possible worlds as truthmakers for modal truths. 2. Hardcore Actualism Cameron’s arguments against hardcore actualism are based on the charge that specific brands of hardcore actualism are unable to identify suitable truthmakers for certain (alleged) modal truths. To illustrate the problem and the suggested solution, I will examine one of Cameron’s specific arguments, which is aimed at a version of hardcore
2
actualism that I will call dispositionalism, and outline what I take to be the best response to this strategy, as an instance of a general strategy for hardcore actualists to deal with problematic cases such as the one suggested by Cameron. Dispositionalists roughly maintain that, if some object has a dispositional property or a power1 whose manifestation includes p, then it is possible that p.2 So, for example, this porcelain teacup could break because it is fragile (where fragility is countenanced as a dispositional property of the teacup) and the teacup’s possible breaking is a manifestation of its actual fragility. So, it seems natural for a dispositionalist who is also a truthmaker theorist to believe that
Intuitively, I am a contingent being—I might not have existed. What, for the [dispositionalist], grounds this possibility? Presumably, it is my parents; for just as it was within their power to beget me, it was also within their power not to, and had they
1
Although I think that we should distinguish carefully between ‘dispositional property’, ‘disposition’,
and ‘power’, for the purposes of this paper I will ignore the distinctions between these terms and use them interchangeably. 2
A version of dispositionalism has been recently developed in some detail by Andrea Borghini and Neil
Williams (2008). Personally, I think there still are substantial problems for a satisfactory account of modality along these lines and I am more sympathetic to other brands of hardcore actualism, but elaborating and defending my views on the issue is beyond the scope of this paper.
3
exercised the latter power I would not have existed. And the truthmaker for the truth that my parents might not have existed is, in turn, their parents. But what about the highly intuitive possibility that none of the actual contingently existing substances existed—what is the truthmaker for the truth that this situation is possible? It can’t be any of the actual contingently existing beings, for none of these beings has the capacity to bring it about that it itself never existed. (Cameron 2008, 273)
How should the dispositionalist meet Cameron’s challenge? A first obvious strategy would be to argue that some necessary being(s) have brought about the existence of some contingent beings and that any other contingent being has been brought into existence by either some of the “original” contingent beings or their descendants and that the necessary beings that brought about the existence of the original contingent beings also had the power not to bring about their existence (a power which they actually have but did not actually exercise) and it is their having this power that makes (a) true.3 So, if, for example, the world was created in seven days by an omnipotent God, that God would seem also to have the power to create a world that does not contain any of the actual contingent beings or that of creating not world at all (independently of whether or not such God would or could exercise that power). This reply however might not seem to be very effective, as it would seem to be a bizarre consequence of dispositionalism that it commits one to such a strong metaphysical thesis.
3
Note that this thesis distinct from the thesis discussed by Cameron according to which, for every
proposition
4
Another way would be to simply reject truthmaker maximalism and claim that that particular truth does not need a truthmaker, but, like Cameron, I am inclined to believe that, if you are a truthmaker theorist at all, you’d better be a truthmaker maximalist and believe that every true proposition needs a truthmaker if some do. A third way would be to reject truthmaker theory altogether, but that’s not a satisfactory option for meeting Cameron’s challenge for there would seem to be no reason to think that a dispositionalist cannot be a truthmaker theorist and, in any case, doing so would amount to taking her ball and going home. So, how can the dispositionalist respond? I think that taking a second look at the first strategy might help us. Assume, if only for the sake of the argument, that there can be a dispositionalist truthmaker for if and only if the following proposition is true: (b) There is some necessary being(s) whose powers brought about the existence of some of the actual contingent beings but that also has the power not to bring about the existence of any of those beings. Does this mean that the acceptance of dispositionalism in and of itself commits one to the truth of controversial (b)? Of course it does not—what the acceptance of dispositionalism commits them to at most is the conditional thesis: ‘If (a) is true, then (b) is true’. So, the dispositionalist would seem to be in trouble only if there are good reasons to believe that (a) can be true even if (b) is false. More precisely, the dispositionalist should claim, that, unless there are good reasons to believe that (a) is true, there are no good reasons to think that the dispositionalist inability to produce a truthmaker for that proposition is due to anything other than (a)’s being false. So, let’s assume that (b) is false and see if there any good reasons to think that (a) is true. 5
The only direct reason for a truthmaker theorist to believe that a proposition is true is presumably to have good reasons to believe that there is a truthmaker for it. For example, a direct reason for believing that
6
that it is possible, for some or even most actual contingent beings, that they might not have existed4 without it being the case that none of them might have existed. But, if some or even most actual contingent beings could have not existed, why could it not be the case that all actual contingent beings might have not existed? How could the possible non-existence of some contingent beings make the non-existence of other contingent impossible? Call the thesis that the possible non-existence of some contingent beings cannot necessitate the existence of other contingent beings the non-necessitation principle.5 So, the argument we are now considering suggests that the dispositionalist who questions the truth of (a) (or more precisely of (a) and not (b)) violates the nonnecessitation principle. But suppose that (a) is true and (b) false. This entails that either it is possible that (i) there are no contingent beings or that (ii) there are aliens (i.e. contingent beings whose existence is completely unrelated to that of any actual being). It is beyond the scope of this paper to determine whether either (i) or (ii) are genuinely possible. However, many are unsure as to whether (i) is genuinely possible (Cameron himself seems to be agnostic as to the possibility of (i) (Cameron 2006)). In particular, since the possibility of (i) has sometimes been used as a premise in arguments for the existence of God, philosophers seem to assume, if (b) is false (as we are assuming now), then (i) is not genuinely possible But, if (i) is not genuinely possible, then, if (a) is to be true, the non-existence of some
4
As the passage above suggests, Cameron himself does not seem to doubt the dispositionalist might
have a plausible truthmaker for a truth like this. 5
Since writing this, I discovered that this principled was explicitly used in (Baldwin 1996 cited in
Cameron 2006) as part of an argument for the possibility of (i) and is explicitly rejected by Cameron (2006).
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contingent beings (i.e. the actual ones) would seem to have to necessitate the existence of other contingent beings (i.e. the aliens), which violates the very principle the dispositionalists were accused of violating. So, one cannot avoid violating the nonnecessitation principle unless they accept that (i) is genuinely possible and most seem to assume that it can only be possible if (b) is true. Another possible reason to believe that (a) must be true (independently of whether or not (b) is true) could be that, since (a) is a modal truth, if true at all, (a) is necessarily true. So, how could its truth depend on the truth of (b) which, if true, would seem to be only contingently true? First, note that (b) does not need to be contingently true or false. In fact it is likely to be necessarily true or false. Suppose, for example, that (b) is true because an (essentially) omnipotent God has created the world in seven days. In that case, (b) would seem to be necessarily true. Second, even in the unlikely case that (b) is contingently true, then it is also contingently true that it is possible that none of the actual contingent beings might have existed. If (b) is contingently true, it must be because the necessary beings do not have the power not to bring about the existence of any of those being are not be essential to them (the contingent truth of (b) cannot be due to the contingent existence of the beings in question for their existence is necessary). But, in this case, one would expect (a) to be only contingently true. In the counterfactual circumstances in which the necessary beings in question do not have the power not to create any of the actual contingent beings, it simply wouldn’t have been possible for there to be none of the actually contingent beings. What the discussion so far shows is that there seem to be no good reasons to think that (a) is true no matter what. Note that this does not commit the dispositionalist to 8
denying that (a) is true but only to suspending judgement on the truth of (a). From a hardcore actualist perspective, however, that (a) might be false (where the ‘might’ here is epistemic) does not seem so implausible. According to the hardcore actualist, what could be the case depends on what is the case and whether or not it could be the case that none of the actual contingent beings could have existed depends on whether or not something along the lines of (b) is true. But this agnostic chance towards (a) appears much less radical when one realizes that, whereas we seem to be able to make sense of the possible non-existence of, say, Adolf Hitler or even of that of anyone actually alive today, it is not clear if we can make sense of the idea of none of the actual contingent beings nonexisting. Of course, we seem to be able to conceive of there being no contingent beings (I think I do so by visualizing something that could be described as a dark empty space), but whether there could have genuinely been nothing does not seem to be a question that can be settled solely through such an armchair exercise of our imagination. 3. Softcore Actualism I shall now move on to examining Cameron’s positive proposal. According to one of the two Leibnizian biconditionals,
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There is a notorious problem for ersatz possible worlds. The problem is that, in order for ersatz possible worlds to be up to the task, the actualist has to be able to distinguish them from “impossible” worlds. So, for example, if, like Cameron, one follows Robert Adams in taking possible worlds to be certain sets of propositions, one has to be able to specify which sets of propositions are possible worlds, for clearly not all sets of propositions will do. And, as Lewis used to remark, there seems to be no way to do so in a manner that is neither circular nor inadequate (see, e.g., (Lewis 1973: 85)). So, for example, in accordance with Adams’s original suggestion (Adams 1974), one can construe possible worlds as maximally consistent sets of propositions. This proposal would, however, seem to be inadequate, for some such sets could include propositions such as
There is nothing more to a world’s being a possible world […] other than that it represents the actual laws of logic, the actual mathematical truths, the actual natural kind identities, etc, as being true, and that it doesn’t represent as true anything that
6
Of course, as always in philosophy, both charges could be resisted, but I will not explore how to do so
here.
10
contradicts any of these truths. In that case, to account for the fact that some world w is a possible world, we need only account for the fact that the actual truths concerning logic/mathematics/natural kind identity etc are represented as being true by w, and that nothing that is incompatible with any of these truths is represented as being true by w. (Cameron 2008: 277)
But clearly, if accounts like Adam’s are open to the charge of being circular, Cameron’s account would seem to be even less subtly so. According to Cameron, a world is possible if and only if it represents the actual laws of logic, the actual mathematical truths, the actual natural kind identities, etc, as being true. But what makes those truths special? Why it is these actual truths that need to be true at all worlds that aspire to be called ‘possible’ and not, say, all the truths about George W. Bush’s presidency or the evolutionary history of the platypus? The only plausible answer that I can see is that what makes that one set of truths special and not the other is that only the former set contains necessary truths. So, we have gone a full circle.
11
shrugged off so easily. Who or what determines which truths need to be true at a world for it to be a possible world if it is not the necessity of those truths? I do not doubt there is a variety of possible answers to this question. As far as I can see, however, not many of them are plausible and, certainly, no answer is not a plausible answer. Cameron’s less guarded remarks on the topic seem to suggest that his answer would ultimately be—us! (Cameron forthcoming). But if this is the case, then the distinction between possible and impossible worlds could seem to be contingent on our existence and our actual inclinations to pick one set of truths over another and this seems to go against some of the most deep-seated intuitions about modality. Most of us seem to assume that, if
12
(2)
wrong if taken as a claim about what is true at a world in the sense of what the world represent as being true. All possible worlds are such that
to be considered a possible world, the whole debate would rest on a huge mistake, for both sides seem to assume that there is a fact of the matter as to which side is right, while, in fact, there is no fact of the matter (or, at least, there is not one until a consensus is reached and the way to draw the distinction between worlds is agreed upon). Maybe the truths that need to be true at a world for it to be possible do not owe their special status to us. But if they do not owe their special status to us nor to their necessity what do they owe it to? I do not see any plausible answer to this question and, in lack of one, the suspicion is that Cameron’s account is circular lingers on. 4. Actualism and Truthmakers But even if there was an adequate and substantive account of what it is for an ersatz world to be a possible one, I think it would still be strongly counterintuitive to think of ersatz possible worlds as the truthmakers for modal truths. Consider again the teacup on my desk (and let’s use ‘The teacup’ as a name or rigid designator for it). As far as I can see,
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a part) of the state of affairs the teacup’s being made of porcelain7 and the porcelain trope somehow makes up the teacup.8 Even those who (like Jonathan Schaffer (forthcoming)) think that the truthmaker of
7
At least if you believe in Armstrong-style states of affairs (as opposed to Plantiga-style ones, which are
not truthmakers anyway). 8
I leave it to the trope theorist to fill out the details of the story.
9
At the time of (Mumford 1998), Stephen Mumford seemed to believe in something very close to
dispositional tropes (or, at any rate, it is tempting to think he did).
16
about how the world actually is. And a hardcore actualist believes that thinking otherwise amounts to eating the possibilist’s poisoned pawn.10 But, even if hardcore actualists were wrong about this last point (and I doubt they are), there is still something strikingly implausible in thinking otherwise and, in particular, in thinking that truthmakers for
10
The chess metaphor is obviously homage to Mondadori and Morton’s classic defense of hardcore
actualism (Mondadori and Morton 1976).
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how is the existence of a certain set of proposition supposed to necessitate that it is true that the teacup could break (if not in the most trivial sense that this proposition is necessarily true and so everything is a truthmaker for it)? An ersatz modal realist would probably try to resist all this by denying that the set of propositions in question is unrelated to the teacup—after all, the set of propositions represents the teacup as breaking. But, without getting too much into the detail of how the supposed representational relation works, how can the fact that something represents x as being such-and-such makes it genuinely possible for x to be such-and-such? A cartoonist may represent George W. Bush as a chimpanzee but that does not seem to make it possible for George W. Bush to be a chimpanzee (at least if you agree that it is metaphysically impossible for it to be the case). So, what is about the way a set of propositions represents that the teacup as breaking that endows the set with the power of necessitating that
43rd President of the United States by some possible world> does. The former presumably contains only things about the issues of the New York Times in which Al Gore has been written about and the latter only some (ersatz) counterpart for Al Gore.11 As tempting as it might seem, I think that the view that the truthmaker for
11
I would like to thank an anonymous referee for suggesting this possible reply.
12
This obviously does not mean that one cannot write about Madame Bovary, only that, if one can
write about Madame Bovary, then Madame Bovary must somehow exist. Most philosophical accounts of the ontology of fiction would seem to accept this much—the controversy concerns whether the conditional is true because the antecedent is false or because the consequent is true.
19
At this point, one could maintain the same of
the teacup is represented as being broken by some possible world? No, because, if x’s being represented as broken by some possible world could be a truthmaker for
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to get it off the ground. As far as I can see, the work does not have much to do with the old issue of distinguishing possible ersatz worlds from impossible ones but with just how ersatz possible worlds can make modal propositions true in any interesting sense. Personally, however, I tend to be more pessimistic about the prospect of ersatz “possible worlds” as truthmakers for modal truths, for I suspect that no amount of work will be sufficient. But, frankly, I don’t know if I think so because I believe hardcore actualism to be true or if I believe hardcore actualism to be true at least in part because I think so. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Ross Cameron and an anonymous referee for this journal for their very helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper. References Adams, Robert M. (1974). ‘Theories of Actuality’, Noûs, 8: 211–231. Baldwin, Thomas (1996). ‘There Might Be Nothing’, Analysis, 56: 231–238. Borghini, Andrea and Williams, Neil (2008). ‘A Dispositional Theory of Possibility’, Dialectica, 62: 21–41. Cameron, Ross (2006). ‘Much Ado About Nothing: A Study of Metaphysical Nihilism’, Erkenntnis 64: 193–222 Cameron, Ross (2008). ‘Truthmakers and Modality’, Synthese, 164: 261–280. Cameron, Ross (forthcoming). ‘On the Source of Necessity’, in B. Hale, R. Cameron and A. Hoffman (eds.), The Logic, Epistemology, and Metaphysics of Modality, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lewis, David (1973). Counterfactuals, Oxford: Blackwell.
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Mondadori, Fabrizio and Morton, Adam (1976). ‘Modal Realism: The Poisoned Pawn’, Philosophical Review, 85: 3–20 Mumford, Stephen (1998). Dispositions, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schaffer, Jonathan (forthcoming) “The Least Discerning and Most Promiscuous Truthmaker,” The Philosophical Quarterly.
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