Have it your way then. "Determinism" in your sense is equivalent to necessitarianism, or to actualism in M. R. Arers's sense. It is a contentious metaphysical doctrine that I dont know any living analytic philosophers to be endorsing. I wonder what your ground might be for endorsing it, if it isn't the mistake in modal logic that I have highlighted. — Pierre-Normand
Possibility is, by definition, not an actual state. — TheWillowOfDarkness
"Natural" law is a lie. It's merely a misreading of our current theories about the world as pre-deterministic. — TheWillowOfDarkness
If you ask me if it's possible that I may have left my keys in the car, and I reply that it is indeed possible, I am certainly not implying that it isn't actual -- that it is merely an unactualized possibility -- but rather that it might me the case. — Pierre-Normand
And I'm pretty sure you misunderstand my position — Mongrel
I didn't say that forms expressed in actuality were not also a possible world. I merely said that possibility does not equal actuality. Any possible world is, by definition, possible. This includes one with expression of the things in the actual world. — TheWillowOfDarkness
If it is impossible for me to turn into a tiger, there can be no possibility of me turing into a tiger (whether we call it "logical" or "actual" ). — TheWillowOfDarkness
You've qualified your view thus: "Any statement about actuality that is true is necessarily true."
I am not going to understand your position any better if you are unwilling to clarify it. There are no contingent facts, on your view, it would seem. The only contemporary philosopher I can think of who has endorsed a view that comes anything close to this is Timothy Williamson, but his thesis is restricted to the predicate of existence. He has argued that anything that actually exists exists necessarily. But things that exist can still have some of their properties contingently, on his view. — Pierre-Normand
The issue with the standard modal approach is not in confusing possibility with actuality, it is in confusing actuality with possibility. The necessity of actual state is treated as if it is only possible. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Hence the actuality of P doesn't preclude the possibility of not-P — Pierre-Normand
Not everything that is actual is necessary. — Pierre-Normand
Indeed. I am talking about the relationship of necessity though. That the actuality/necessity of P (Paris exists as the capital of France) does not preclude the possibility of Paris being (or not being) the capital. The possible worlds (possibility) are true no matter what is necessary (actual). — TheWillowOfDarkness
Paris is the capital of France.
Could this statement be necessarily true?
Viewpoint A: Yes. It depends on the intentions of the speaker. If the speaker means by "France" the actual France, then there is only one possible world that includes this object. Therefore, if the statement is true, it's necessarily true. If the speaker meant an object that is included in multiple possible worlds, then it would not be necessarily true.
Viewpoint B: No. When we speak of the "actual France" (with Paris as its capital) we aren't talking about a object numerically distinct from any "alternative France" (e.g. France with Toulouse as its capital). In all possible worlds where France exists, it is the same object having various determinations, which is just to say that we are considering the very same object (that we refer to in the actual world) having counterfactual determinations. Hence the speaker's intentions alluded to above seem irrelevant to the question. Secondly, this question of the necessity of the statement "Paris is the capital of France", as interpreted in English, is ambiguous since it appears to conjoin two distinct claims of de re necessity: (1) regarding France, that it has Paris as its capital necessarily, and (2) regarding Paris, that it be France's capital necessarily. Both claims seem prima facie false although a case could possibly be made for the second one being true if Paris had arisen historically as France's capital (and depending on one's ideas about city individuation.) — email
The criticism of viewpoint A given in viewpoint B is correct.
However, the question Is the sentence 'Paris is the capital of France' necessary? is not ambiguous -- provided we are asking about the necessity of the proposition that is the semantic content of the English sentence. Since the sentence isn't ambiguous, it has a single meaning or semantic content. Either that content is a necessary truth or it isn't. In fact it isn't.
Qualification: Sentences with proper names typically can be used by speakers to make different but related statements. That is, assertive utterances of the same unambiguous sentence can result in different propositions being asserted. This is not a matter of the linguistic meaning of the sentence, it is a matter of slightly different uses of the sentence. However, the slightly different uses imagined in viewpoint B are alike in expressing slightly different propositions, neither of which is necessary.
Finally, your query indicates that you need to think about how words like 'actual' and 'actually' work. Different theorists have different views. Mine is given in a paper titled "Actually." You can find a manuscript version of it on my website. The published version is most easily found in my Philosophical Essays, Volume 2. — Scott Soames
Dear Ms Dunnagan and Mr Normand, I think that if both "France" and "Paris" are proper names, and hence rigid designators, that
"Paris is the actual capital of France", where that means "Actually, Paris is the capital of France" is clearly a necessary truth, and a posteriori, since we must know a contingent truth about the actual world to know that "Paris is the capital of France" is true in the actual world. Of course, if either "Paris" or "France" is not intended as a proper name, the truth of the assertion will depend on the intentions with which it is uttered. Also, "Paris is the capital of France" (without any mention of what is actually the case) could of course be false in a world where Toulouse is the capital. So, if one just hears that last sentence uttered, there are all sorts of ways of interpreting it, but the standard meaning, in which "Paris" and "France" are proper names, produces a contingent sentence, unless some use of "actual" or "actually" is included in which case it becomes necessary.
Does that help?
Bernard Linsky — Dr Linsky
Since adding the actuality operator to a contingent truth produces a necessary truth, and since it is widely assumed that adding it to a truth that is knowable only aposteriori preserves aposteriority, the actuality operator is often seen as a rich source of the necessary aposteriori.........Although these results appear obvious, it is wise to withhold judgment on them until we have a clearer picture of what the actual world-state really is. — Soames' essay, Actually
You actually have to use the actually operator to turn a contingent truth into a necessary one. — Mongrel
Anyway.. "Actually, the capital of France is Paris."
We agree the above statement is necessarily true and aposteriori? — Mongrel
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