Modality and Existence

Steven Nemes, who may prove to be my nemesis, e-mails:

I'm enjoying your book so far. I'm starting the constructive half of it now, and am going to reread the chapter "The Ground of the Contingent Existent" after a quick skim over it recently. I don't want to sound arrogant or anything, but upon hearing some of the theories of existence you cover in the book, the thought in my head is "Man, this obviously can't be right. How could anyone think this?" But the philosophers in question are much smarter than me, so maybe my surprise at their theories is improper.

I have a question now regarding possible worlds, what is true-in-W, etc.

You make the point in your book that it is the fact that my existence is contingent that makes it true in some worlds that I exist and false in others. And it is the necessary existence of the Paradigm that would make it true in every possible world that he exists, rather than vice versa. This all seems very correct to me, but I am wondering about its consequences.

As I recall, my thought was along the following lines.  The biconditionals

N. x is a necessary being iff x exists in all metaphysically possible worlds

C. x is a contingent being iff x exists in some but not all possible worlds

are neutral with respect to reductions of the RHS to the LHS or vice versa.  So we can legitimately ask:  Is a necessary being necessary because it exists in all worlds, or does it exist in all worlds because it is necessary?  And:  Is a contingent being contingent because it exists in only some worlds, or does it exist in only some worlds because it is contingent?  My answer was that existence in all/some worlds is grounded in, and explained by, the different ways of existing of the Paradigm and what depends on it.

It seems the principle, then, is that what is possible depends upon what is actual, depends upon the potentialities that exist in what is actual, etc. Would you agree to this?

That's the next step, but my principle was merely that possible worlds talk is a very useful façon de parler, a graphic manner of speaking that allows us to picture modal relations in extensional terms  using the machinery of quantification, but that necessity and contingency of existence cannot consist in, or be constituted by, existence in all/some worlds.

But I do take the next step, though I didn't work it out in the book.  The Paradigm is the numero uno necessary existent and as such the ground of all actualities other than itself, but also the ground of all possibilities.  Mere possibilities, after all, are not nothing, and so have some ontological status shy of actuality.  So I had the not entirely original thought that mere possibilities could be identified with powers of the Paradigm.

Are there bad consequences of this, however? It seems like there is nothing actual sufficient to ground the truth of a typical counterfactual of creaturely freedom about nonexistent agents, like "If Bill the Bald Bostonian were offered the chance, he'd freely agree to murder the Yankees star pitcher". Does that mean it isn't true in any possible world? Can there be any truths about nonexistent agents and their free actions at all, assuming the only kind of free action is libertarian-free action? Can their be any truths in other possible worlds about what existent agents would freely do?

Underlying your question is whether there could be nonexistent but possible individuals.  The conclusion I came to in the book was that all mere possibilities are general in nature, hence not involving specific individuals.  Before Socrates came into existence there was no merely possible Socrates, though there was the possibility of there existing a snub-nosed sage, married to a shrewish wife, who was given to moments of abstraction when he communed with his daimon, etc.  To get a feel for the issue here, imagine someone prophesying the coming of Socrates, master dialectician, fearless questioner of powerful men, who ran afoul of them, got sentenced to death, etc.  Imagine the prophet being asked, after Socrates is on the scene, whether the Socrates in existence is the one he prophesied, or a numerically different one.  My claim is that this question makes no sense.  Before Socrates came into existence, there was no individual Socrates.

I was pushed into this view by my arguments against haecceity properties and also by my vew that existence is not a property added to a pre-formed fully individuated essence, but the unity of an individual's constitutents.  Accordingly, existence individuates so that there is no individuation apart from existence, hence no merely possible individuals.

Comments

[Steven]

Dr Vallicella,

Thank you for the post!

My thoughts are basically on the subject of Molinism; if what is possible depends upon, is contingent upon, etc., what is actual, then what can we say about the possibility of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom? Can there be any such things?

It seems not. A counterfactual of creaturely freedom requires that there can be truths about nonexistent agents, let alone truths about what nonexistent agents would do if they were to exist.

But if, as you say, "existence individuates so that there is no individuation apart from existence, hence no merely possible individuals," then there can be no counterfactuals of creaturely freedom.

That is all good and fine by me, because I'm not a Molinist anyway. I hadn't realized the ontological consequences a Molinist view of divine providence requires, but it is interesting to note the inconsistency.

Given all this, I'm wondering what sort of providential view someone who accepts your paradigm theory of existence must accept. Of course, as you say in the book, the Paradigm is something like God, a God of the philosophers. But it seems to me that if the Paradigm is bringing things into existence, and all changes and events can be explained completely in terms of the Paradigm's activity (which you should grant, if you're an occasionalist), then the Paradigm seems pretty interested in the affairs of contingent creatures like you and I. How are we to understand the Paradigm's providential control of things?

[George R.]

Dr. Vallicella,

You had me until the last paragraph. I’m afraid, however, that I’m going to have to quibble with your assertion that “existence is. . . the unity of an individual’s constituents.” It seems to me that existence must be something more than this; for there are conceivably beings with no constituent parts to unite, such as angels. Therefore, existence would be for them something other than the unity of constituent parts.

[Bill Vallicella]

Goerge R,

Constituents needn't be either spatial or temporal or material. My scheme could accommodate angels as long as they have properties.

[Bill Vallicella]

Steven,

You ask me such hard questions! Let me think about it.

[Steven]

I did a post some time ago on what kind of providential view an occasionalism would require.

It seems to me that, as an occasionalist, you must accept, for any contingent event that occurs in the world, that it happened because God willed it be so at that time. The question then is, why did God will that event to occur, as opposed to any other event that might have occured?

God, being a rational being, would act for reasons; he'd have some kind of end in mind in doing anything at all. Thus if he wills that E occur, then he had to have some kind of end in mind, the achievement of which requires that E occurs (or perhaps is best accomplished by E occurring). God doesn't will that E occur for no reason at all; rather, he has some kind of end in mind which he is trying to achieve.

If God is acting for reasons, and he has an end in mind when he wills events to occur, and he knows which events are proper for accomplishing that end, then he knows what the future will be. This is because he knows what else he is going to do to accomplish that end. Therefore, there are truths about the future. The truthmaker for future propositions could then be presently (or timelessly?) obtaining events in God's mind (like his planning to do X, or whatever).

You, of course, agree with me that God's knowing the future is incompatible with ordinary agents (like you and me) having libertarian freedom of the will. So, if my reasoning here is good and sound, then you shouldn't believe in libertarian freedom of the will so long as you accept occasionalism. (At least, you shouldn't believe in a libertarianism that requires AP. If occasionalism is consistent with any other kind of libertarianisms is a topic for a later discussion.)

Really, it seems to me the sort of providential view you must accept is somewhat Calvinistic. You should believe that Peter was saved (let's say) because God ultimately willed that he be saved. You don't have to accept all aspects of Calvinist theology, like limited atonement (if you believe in the atonement at all) or reprobation (if you believe in hell at all), but you should accept something pretty similar to Calvinism.