Contingentism and fragile worlds

Christopher Masterman*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Propositional contingentism is the thesis that there might have been propositions which might have not have been something. Serious actualism is the thesis that it is impossible for a property to be exemplified without there being something which exemplifies it. Both are popular. Likewise, the dominant view in the metaphysics of modality is that metaphysical possibility and necessity can be understood – in some sense – in terms of possible worlds, i.e. total ways the world could have been. Here, I argue that, given some minimal assumptions, the conjunction of propositional contingentism and serious actualism entails that worlds are modally fragile – every world is ontologically dependent on every proposition. I then show that such a consequence is inconsistent with the claim that propositions true at all possible worlds are necessary.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages32
JournalInquiry - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy
VolumeLatest Articles
Early online date7 Aug 2024
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 7 Aug 2024

Keywords

  • Propositional contingentism
  • Possible worlds
  • Modality
  • Serious actualism
  • High-order metaphysics

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