How can possibilists account for actuality as an absolute feature of some possible entities and not others? As we saw, we cannot treat actual existence as another accident or accident-like entity, since such entities would have to be included in all possible worlds, whether actual or not. Instead, the factor that explains something’s actuality willContinue reading “Five Theories of Predication”
Category Archives: Modality
Two Problems with Actualism
Given the problems with Possibilism, it might seem that we should abandon possibilism and embrace actualism. Actualism certainly captures the right kind of inequality. Actual things are real, and there simply are no non-actual things. Absolutely everything is actual! At the same time, there could have been things that do not exist. Perhaps there couldContinue reading “Two Problems with Actualism”
Divine Simplicity: Possibilism
In article 4 of Summa Theologiae I, Question 3, Thomas reaches the crux of the matter: his claim that God’s essence is identical to His act of existence. This article provides Thomas with the crucial bridge from the Five Ways to the standard list of divine attributes (infinity, perfection, and so on), as well asContinue reading “Divine Simplicity: Possibilism”
Mental Causation: Rational Animals
Let’s turn our attention now to the most interesting case: that of the rational animal (the human being). Human beings have the capacity not only to sense and to imagine but to understand. Understanding in this sense involves the capacity to grasp something universal, a concept that can be used to formulate general propositions andContinue reading “Mental Causation: Rational Animals”
A Three-Valued B Theory for Aristotelians?
Let’s turn our attention now to the B Theory, in particular, to what I’ve called the Mixed B Theory. We can suppose that all actual substances and accidents, past, present, and future, are combined eternally with acts of existence, distinguishing them from merely possible substances and accidents. Is such a model compatible with Aristotelianism? SeeContinue reading “A Three-Valued B Theory for Aristotelians?”
Time and Modality: Mapping the Territory
Are actuality and presentness perfectly analogous? David Lewis would say Yes, since both are the by-products of the linguistic phenomenon of indexicality. Non-actual and non-present things and events are as much part of the reality as the actual present. We’ll just call this view ‘Lewisian’. There’s two kinds of A Theorists who could agree withContinue reading “Time and Modality: Mapping the Territory”
The Analytic Thomist 