scholarly journals Another Look at the Modal Collapse Argument

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Omar Fakhri
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Classical Conception

On one classical conception of God, God has no parts, not even metaphysical parts. God is not composed of form and matter, act and potency, and he is not composed of existence and essence. God is absolutely simple. This is the doctrine of Absolute Divine Simplicity (ADS). It is claimed that ADS implies a modal collapse, i.e. that God’s creation is absolutely necessary. I argue that a proper way of understanding the modal collapse argument naturally leads the proponent of ADS to reject a particular premise of the argument: namely, “the same identical cause brings about the same effect.” However, I argue that the rejection of that premise leads to a deeper problem for ADS. It leads to an explanatory gap: how can we explain the relevant type of indeterminism in an absolutely simple God?

Phenomenal Concepts and the Materialist Constraint

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Levine
Keyword(s):  
Physical Properties ◽  
First Person ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Phenomenal Concept ◽  
Phenomenal Concepts ◽  
Phenomenal Concept Strategy ◽  
The Explanatory Gap

Here I address the “phenomenal concept strategy” for addressing anti-materialist intuitions, such as the explanatory gap, by appealing to the special nature of phenomenal concepts. I look in depth at several proposals, including John Perry’s influential presentation in Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness, and argue that they all fail in meeting what I call the “materialist constraint”, which is the principle that no property or relation that is not realizable in physical properties or relations be appealed to in the account. I conclude that some relation such as acquaintance must be invoked to explain our first-person access to conscience experience, and that currently no materialist model for such a relation exists.

scholarly journals The non-existence of institutional facts

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedrich Christoph Dörge ◽  
Matthias Holweger
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Standard View ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
Monetary Value ◽  
Tacit Belief ◽  
Vladimir Putin ◽  
Thomas Theorem

AbstractThat certain paper bills have monetary value, that Vladimir Putin is the president of Russia, and that Prince Philip is the husband of Queen Elizabeth II: such facts are commonly called ‘institutional facts’ (IFF). IFF are, by definition, facts that exist by virtue of collective recognition (where collective recognition can be direct or indirect). The standard view or tacit belief is that such facts really exist. In this paper we argue, however, that they really do not—they really are just well-established illusions. We confront realism about IFF with six criteria of existence, three established and three less so but highly intuitive. We argue that they all tell against the existence of IFF. An obvious objection to IFF non-realism is that since people’s behaviour clearly reflects the existence of IFF, denying their existence leaves an explanatory gap. We reject this argument by introducing a variant of the so-called ‘Thomas Theorem,’ which says that when people collectively recognize a fact as existing, they largely behave accordingly, regardless of whether that fact really exists or not.

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