Ross Cameron

Simon Blackburn posed a dilemma for any realist attempt to identify the source of necessity. Either the facts appealed to to ground modal truth are themselves necessary, or they are contingent. If necessary, we begin the process towards regress; but if contingent, we undermine the necessity whose source we wanted to explain. Bob Hale attempts to blunt both horns of this dilemma. In this paper I examine their respective positions and attempt to clear up some confusions on either side. I come to defend Hale’s conclusion that both horns of the dilemma can be resisted. I end by defending my own account of the source of necessity, and showing why it does not fall victim to Blackburn’s problem.

Metaphysicians eager to engage with substantive, thoughtful, and provocative issues will be happy with John Heil’s From an Ontological Point of View. The book represents not only a sustained defence of a specific metaphysical theory, but also of a specific way of doing metaphysics. Put ontology first, Heil urges us, in order to remember that the original fascination of metaphysics wasn’t the question ‘what must the world be like in order to correspond neatly to our use of language?’, but rather the altogether more fundamental ‘what must the world be like?’.

In his Truth and Ontology,1 Trenton Merricks argues against the truthmaker principle: Truthmaker: ∀p( p → ∃xxᮀ(Exx → p)). Truthmaker says that for any true proposition, there are some things whose existence guarantees the truth of that proposition: that is, some things which couldn’t all exist and the proposition fail to be true. His main arguments against Truthmaker are that there cannot be satisfactory truthmakers for (i) negative existentials, (ii) modal truths, (iii) truths about the past (given that presentism is true) and (iv) certain subjunctive conditionals, in particular so-called ‘counterfactuals of freedom’ and dispositional conditionals. I’m going to concentrate on the first three of these. But first I’ll say a bit about why we should care about Truthmaker. Merricks says that “No one gives much of an argument for Truthmaker. Instead, Truthmaker’s main support comes from something like the brute intuition that what is true depends in a non-trivial way on what there is” ( p. 2). He is, unfortunately, correct that truthmaker theorists have in general not been very good at motivating their theory. Too often is Truthmaker taken to be obvious, or an obvious consequence of realism, when really it is neither. But I think we can do better

In ‘A New Route to the Necessity of Origin’, Rohbraugh and deRosset offer an argument for the Necessity of Origin appealing neither to Suffciency of Origin nor to a branching-times model of necessity. What is doing the crucial work in their argument is instead the thesis they name ‘Locality of Prevention’. In this response, we object that their argument is question-begging by showing, first, that the locality of prevention thesis is not strong enough to satisfactorily derive from it the intended conclusion, and, second, that the argument is not sound unless the Necessity of Origin is operating as an implicit premiss.

In this paper I examine whether the Humean denial of necessary connections between wholly distinct contingent existents poses problems for a theory of tropes. In section one I consider the substance-attribute theory of tropes. I distinguish first between three versions of the non-transferability of a trope from the substratum in which it inheres and then between two versions of the denial of necessary connections. I show that the most plausible combination of these views is consistent. In section two I consider an objection to the bundle theory using the Humean doctrine that is advanced by Armstrong, and argue that it is unconvincing. In section three I return to the version of non-transferability that would cause obvious trouble for a substance-attribute theory, and less obvious trouble for a bundle theory. I argue that there is independent reason to reject this principle since, given a perdurantist metaphysic, it does not in fact secure what appeared to be its only benefit: namely that it allows tropes to act as truthmakers. I conclude that there is no objection to trope theory per se on the grounds that it brings commitment to necessary connections.

Consider two of my properties: my mass and my weight. There seems to be an interesting distinction between the reasons for my having these two properties. I have my mass solely in virtue of how I am, whereas I have my weight in virtue of both how I am and how my surroundings are. I have my weight as a result of the gravitational pull exerted by the Earth on a thing having my mass, whereas I have my mass independently of other things around me. If you change my surroundings, if you put me on the moon say, my weight will change, but my mass will stay the same

We examine moving spotlight theories of time: theories according to which there are past and future events and an objective present moment. In Section 1, we briefly discuss the origins of the view. In Section 2, we describe the traditional moving spotlight view, which we understand as an ‘enriched’ B-theory of time, and raise some problems for that view. In the next two sections, we describe versions of the moving spotlight view that we think are better and which solve those problems. In Section 3, we describe a version of the view that combines permanentism – the thesis that all things always exist – with propositional temporalism, the thesis that some propositions are sometimes true and sometimes false. In Section 4, we discuss a version of the view that is like an ‘enriched’ presentism. We conclude with some brief thoughts on issues that remain outstanding.

The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics is an outstanding, comprehensive and accessible guide to the major themes, thinkers, and issues in metaphysics. The Companion features over fifty specially commissioned chapters from international scholars which are organized into three clear parts: History of Metaphysics Ontology Metaphysics and Science. Each section features an introduction which places the range of essays in context, while an extensive glossary allows easy reference to key terms and definitions. The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics is essential reading for students of philosophy and anyone interested in surveying the central topics and problems in metaphysics from causation to vagueness and from Plato and Aristotle to the present-day

Skow argues that the best metaphysic of objective becoming is the moving spotlight theory. I agree, but I think the best version of the moving spotlight theory is not amongst the theories Skow describes. I look at Skow's moving spotlight theories that invoke an extra dimension of supertime, or new primitive supertense operators, or that make presentness a fundamentally relational phenomenon, and I raise some problems for these views. I argue that the moving spotlighter should take presentness to be an absolute phenomenon that changes in time. This has consequences for what it means to say the past is real.

I reply to Miller, Sider and Skow’s comments on my book The Moving Spotlight. I aim to make clearer the epistemic argument against non-presentist A-theories of time, and why I avoid it. I provide further elaboration of the moving spotlight view, and why I think there is real change in important features of things on this metaphysic. I explain further what I think is required for there to be genuine temporal passage, and why there is such a thing according to the moving spotlight view. I defend my argument that endurantism is incompatible with the B-theory.

In this paper I examine whether the Humean denial of necessary connections between wholly distinct contingent existents poses problems for a theory of tropes. In section one I consider the substance‐attribute theory of tropes. I distinguish first between three versions of the non‐transferability of a trope from the substratum in which it inheres and then between two versions of the denial of necessary connections. I show that the most plausible combination of these views is consistent. In section two I consider an objection to the bundle theory using the Humean doctrine that is advanced by Armstrong, and argue that it is unconvincing. In section three I return to the version of non‐transferability that would cause obvious trouble for a substance‐attribute theory, and less obvious trouble for a bundle theory. I argue that there is independent reason to reject this principle since, given a perdurantist metaphysic, it does not in fact secure what appeared to be its only benefit: namely that it allows tropes to act as truthmakers. I conclude that there is no objection to trope theory per se on the grounds that it brings commitment to necessary connections.

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] to the B-Theory, the God’s-eye perspective on reality is an atemporal one: it describes how things are across time – this happens, then that, then this. The B-Theorist holds that the ultimate account of reality does not change. Change is simply variation from one temporal point of reality to another. How things are across time does not change.According to the most popular A-Theory,1 presentism, the God’s-eye perspective on reality is a temporal one: it describes how things are now. This is what is happening now, although that did happen and this will happen. The presentist holds that the ultimate account of reality changes. Since different things did and will happen, different accounts of reality were and will be true....Moving Spotlight theories...