Comments on Friederike Moltmann’s “Variable Objects and Truth-Making”

I have long admired Friederike Moltmann’s work at the intersection of linguistics and philosophy; and I have always been especially impressed by the way in which she has attempted to break free of the stranglehold of the possible worlds approach by showing how the diversified ontology of objects commonly associated with traditional metaphysics provides a much better tool for the investigation of natural language than the simple and stylized ontology of Montague semantics. The present paper is a characteristically rich, original and thought-provoking contribution to the subject; and I am afraid that I can do no more than pick my way through one or two of the many interesting issues that she raises. However, any criticisms I make on this score should not be seen to detract from my broad agreement with much of what she says....

Comments on Alasdair Urquhart’s “Fine on Arbitrary Objects”

Alasdair Urquhart’s chapter is a wonderful mix of observations on the theory of arbitrary objects, ranging over a number of historical, logical, and philosophical aspects of the theory. I was especially interested in what he had to say about the evolving conception of variables in the history of mathematics and, in the light of my own previous somewhat casual remarks on the topic, I would now like to follow up on his discussion....

The Problem of de re Modality

The problem of de re modality is how, if at all, one can make sense of it. Most who have discussed this problem have assumed that modality de dicto is relatively unproblematic. It is, rather, the interpretation of sentences involving, within the scope of modal operators, singular terms or free variables which is thought to give rise to grave—and in the view of some, insuperable—difficulties. Quine has two arguments against the intelligibility of de re modality: a “logical” and a “metaphysical” one. That the “logical” argument is central to Quine’s attack is surely indisputable. But my claim that it is his basic argument is, in effect, denied by Kit Fine. I can (and do) agree with Fine that there are some significant differences between the two arguments. The most important question, for my purposes, is whether he is right to claim that the two arguments have force independently of one another.

Comments on Gary Ostertag’s “Fine on Frege’s Puzzle”

Gary Ostertag’s chapter is an intriguing and probing investigation into the concept of coordination, or de jure co-reference, in which he is concerned not only to criticize the views on coordination which I presented in “Semantic Relationism” (SR) but also to develop a view of his own, one in which coordination is not a feature of what we say, but of how we say it....

Comments on Jessica Wilson’s “Essence and Dependence”

Jessica Wilson’s paper is a wonderfully sympathetic account of my general approach to metaphysics; and there is a special satisfaction to be had in being, not merely understood, but understood so well. I particularly appreciated her closing remarks to the effect that ‘first-order investigations [in metaphysics] are often characterized by stolid, even dogmatic adherence to one or other set of first-order views. Given how far we are from the end of metaphysical inquiry, it is too early for such dogmatism.’ I am often astonished by the confidence metaphysicians express in their own views and their indifference, or even hostility, to alternative views; and I can only hope that more of them will take her admonishments to heart....

Comments on Penelope Mackie’s “Can Metaphysical Modality Be Based on Essence?”

Penelope Mackie’s chapter raises a serious challenge to the essentialist account of modality. According to this account, the necessity of S is a matter of its being essential to some F’s that S be the case. Thus, under a familiar notation, the advocate of such an account will accept, for any sentence S, the equivalence:...

Comment’s on Philip Percival’s “Beyond Reality?”

Percival is interested in what Kierland and Monton (2007: 487) call the “Reality Principle”: (RP) Reality consists, and only consists, in things and how things are. He is interested in two different ways in which the all-encompassing conception of reality suggested by this principle may be challenged. We may, on the one hand, wish to restrict reality to only some of the things or to only some of the ways in which things are. This is how my reality predicate from QO and my reality operator from QR work; they effect a division within things or within how things are. We may, on the other hand, wish to allow for something beyond the things or how things are and hence beyond reality itself if reality only consists in things and how things are. Percival considers a number of different ways in which each of these two restrictive conceptions of reality might play out and he considers a striking application of the second conception to the case of time: for under a certain restrictive version of presentism, one may wish to claim both that reality consists in present things or how things presently are and that the past is somehow beyond reality as so conceived....

Fine on Frege’s Puzzle

The fact that (1) “Cicero = Tully” is informative whereas (2) “Cicero = Cicero” is not seems to resist explanation on traditional referentialist principles. According to Fine, the referentialist can make sense of the difference by appealing to the fact that in (2), but not (1), the singular-term occurrences are?coordinated. I argue that Fine’s account of this crucial notion is inadequate and present an alternative way of understanding it, one on which coordination facts do not enter into the content of what is said or asserted. To borrow from Wittgenstein, coordination lies not with what my words?say, but with what my words?show. To demystify the notion of showing, I indicate how it can be understood in terms of Grice’s notion of conventional implicature.

Essence and Dependence

I argue that Kit Fine’s essence-based account of ontological dependence is subject to various counterexamples. I first discuss Fine’s distinctive “schema-based” approach to metaphysical theorizing, which aims to identify general principles accommodating any intelligible application of the metaphysical notion(s) at issue. I then raise concerns about the general principles Fine takes to schematically characterize the notions of essence and dependence, which principles enter into his account of ontological dependence. The problem, roughly speaking, is that Fine supposes that an object’s essence makes reference just to what it ontologically depends on, but various cases suggest that an object’s essence can also make reference to what ontologically depends on it. As such, Fine’s essence-based account of ontological dependence is subject to the same objection he raises against modal accounts of essence and dependence—that is, of being insufficiently ecumenical.

Necessary, Transcendental, and Universal Truth

A simple puzzle leads Fine to conclude that we should distinguish between worldly sentences like “Socrates exists,” whose truth values depend on circumstances and unworldly ones like “Socrates is human,” which are true or false independently of circumstances. The former, if true in every circumstance, express necessary propositions. The latter, if true, express transcendental propositions, which, for theoretical convenience, we regard as necessary in an extended sense. Here it is argued that this understanding is backwards. Transcendental truths and sentences true in every circumstance (here labeled universal truths) are both species of necessary truth. The revised understanding is clarified by a simple formal system with distinct operators for necessary, transcendental, and universal truth. The system is axiomatized. Its universal-truth fragment coincides with something that Arthur Prior once proposed as System A. The ideas of necessary, transcendental truth are further clarified by considering their interaction with actual truth. Adding an operator for actually true to the formal system produces a system closely related to one of Crossley and Humberstone.