Jennifer Wang

Abstract: Inspired by early Confucian texts such as the Analects, Mencius, and Xunzi, defenders of Confucian role ethics argue that persons are constituted by their social roles and relationships. However, this has the puzzling implication that persons cannot survive changes in social roles and relationships. This paper proposes ways to understand this claim by appealing to the notions of essence, material constitution, and four-dimensionalism. In particular, it will be suggested that role ethicists should distinguish biological humans from persons and should say either that (i) persons are materially constituted by biological humans, or that (ii) persons are four-dimensional objects that merely overlap with biological humans. There has thus far not been much contact between early Chinese philosophy and contemporary metaphysics in this vein. A secondary goal of this paper is to demonstrate that views in early Chinese philosophy can be examined within frameworks from contemporary metaphysics, and furthermore, that the results include novel theses not yet recognized in contemporary metaphysics.

Abstract: In the middle of the last century, it was common to explain the notion of necessity in linguistic terms. A necessary truth, it was said, is a sentence whose truth is guaranteed by linguistic rules. Quine famously argued that, on this view, de re modal claims do not make sense. “Porcupettes are porcupines” is necessarily true, but it would be a mistake to say of a particular porcupette that it is necessarily a porcupine, or that it is possibly purple. Linguistic theories of necessity fell out of favour with the publication of Kripke’s Naming and Necessity, and Quine’s arguments were put aside. In her recent book, Norms and Necessity, Amie Thomasson presents her modal normativism, which is an updated version of the mid-century theories just described. Quine’s arguments are thus relevant once again. We recapitulate Quine’s central argument, in the context of modal normativism. We then criticise Amie Thomasson’s discussion of de re modality. We finish by briefly presenting an alternative account of de re modal statements, which is compatible with modal normativism.

Abstract: This chapter examines views of grounding that take seriously the grounding-causation analogy, proposing interventionist or mechanistic models. It also surveys objections to such views.

Abstract: Barbara Vetter’s project in Potentiality is to articulate and defend a dispositionalist theory of modality based on potentialities. For Vetter, potentialities are (i) individuated by their manifestations alone, and are (ii) linked to possibility. So whereas defenders of what she calls the “standard conception” of dispositions typically base their theories of modality on counterfactual conditionals, Vetter bases hers on actual potentialities of concrete individuals. Vetter’s defense of a potentiality-based modal theory is truly impressive. In the course of developing this theory, she provides a novel logic and linguistic semantics, something that few other defenders of modal theories even attempt. I will have relatively little to say about these tasks. My focus will be on the metaphysics of her positive theory. I will say more about Vetter’s theory of modality after further introducing her notion of potentiality. I will consider one of Vetter’s main targets, Lewis’s theory of possible worlds, and use it to distinguish what I call “de re first” approaches from “de dicto first” approaches. This way of framing the disagreement helps shed light on what their respective accounts can intuitively accomplish. In particular, I will introduce objections to Vetter’s theory’s requirement that the grounds of de dicto modal truths must be routed through time. I also suggest an alternative de dicto first approach that Vetter does not consider, one which does not come saddled with Lewis’s ontology or with Vetter’s issues with de dicto modal truths. Rather, on incompatibilism, modality is grounded on second-order relations between (non-potentialist) properties, e.g. incompatibility or entailment. Defenders of de dicto first approaches, including incompatibilism, can better account for such de dicto modal truths, thus undermining some of the intuitive appeal of Vetter’s theory.

Abstract: In Making Things Up, Bennett defends an impressive array of theses surrounding the notion of building. My focus is on Bennett’s use of modal recombination principles in her arguments, including in particular the principle that contingent fundamental entities are freely recombinable. I have argued that such principles are motivated by mere intuition, and that we have reasons to reject them. I discuss how worries about modal recombination principles affect three of her key arguments, which concern (i) whether building is necessitating, (ii) whether relative fundamentality is primitive, and (iii) whether building is fundamental. I argue that while Bennett’s appeal to modal recombination is unjustified, she has other resources available to her in each of the three cases.

Abstract: There is a puzzle concerning the essences of fundamental entities that arises from considerations about essence, on one hand, and fundamentality, on the other. The Essence-Dependence Link (EDL) says that if x figures in the essence of y, then y is dependent upon x. EDL is prima facie plausible in many cases, especially those involving derivative entities. But consider the property negative charge. A negatively charged object exhibits certain behaviors that a positively charged object does not: it moves away from other negatively charged objects, towards positively charged objects, etc. It is commonly thought that negative charge disposes its bearer to move away from other negatively charged objects, towards positively charged objects, etc. But if negative charge is fundamental, then no other entities—including the property positive charge—can figure in its essence. We thus have a prima facie puzzle: How can we say anything interesting about the essences of fundamental entities without running afoul of EDL? In this paper, I present and discuss the consequences of EDL for the debate between causal essentialists and quidditists about properties, and propose solutions to the puzzle.

Abstract: Modal primitivists hold that some modal truths are primitively true. They thus seem to face a special epistemological problem: how can primitive modal truths be known? The epistemological objection has not been adequately developed in the literature. I undertake to develop the objection, and then to argue that the best formulation of the epistemological objection targets all realists about modality, rather than the primitivist alone. Furthermore, the moves available to reductionists in response to the objection are also available to primitivists. I conclude by suggesting that extant theories of the epistemology of modality are not sensitive to the question of primitivism versus reductionism.

Abstract: A fundamental entity is an entity that is ‘ontologically independent’; it does not depend on anything else for its existence or essence. It seems to follow that a fundamental entity is ‘modally free’ in some sense. This assumption, that fundamentality entails modal freedom (or ‘FEMF’ as I shall label the thesis), is used in the service of other arguments in metaphysics. But as I will argue, the road from fundamentality to modal freedom is not so straightforward. The defender of FEMF should provide positive reasons for believing it, especially in light of recent views that are incompatible with it. I examine both direct and indirect routes to FEMF.

Abstract: Properties seem to play an important role in causal relations. But philosophers disagree over whether properties or not play their causal or nomic roles essentially. Causal essentialists say that they do, while quidditists deny it. This article surveys these two views, as well as views that try to find a middle ground.

Abstract: In Propositions, Merricks argues against two leading views of propositions, and proposes a bold alternative on which propositions are necessary existents that represent the world as being a certain way. We cannot say anything more about how they manage to represent what they do. We cannot say anything more about how they manage to represent what they do. I will call his view ‘primitivism’. I think that many of Merricks’s arguments against rival views succeed. However, I am skeptical about primitivism for two reasons, which I elaborate on in this paper.

Abstract: Actualist Counterpart Theory (ACT) trades Lewisian worlds and individuals for ersatz worlds and individuals, but retains counterpart theory about de re possibility. While intuitively attractive, ACT has been rejected for two main reasons: the problem of indiscernibles and the Humphrey objection. I argue that in insisting that ersatz individuals play the same role as Lewisian individuals, actualists commit the ‘particularist fallacy’. The actualist should not (as commonly believed) require stand-ins for every Lewisian individual, for the simple reason that she does not believe that there are any particular non-actual individuals. Ersatz individuals should instead be construed as representations of actually existing qualitative ways for individuals to be, or qualitative properties individuals can instantiate. Non-instrumental uses of Kripke semantics and standard counterpart semantics require stand-ins for particular non-actual individuals. I argue that the actualist should instead adopt a non-standard counterpart semantics that more clearly illuminates the role that actual properties and relations play in explaining de re possibilities. The result is an intuitive and forceful reply to both the problem of indiscernibles and the Humphrey objection.

Abstract: Dispositionality is a modal notion of a certain sort. When an object is said to have a disposition, we typically understand this to mean that under certain circumstances, the object would behave in a certain way. For instance, a fragile object is disposed to break when dropped onto a concrete surface. It need not actually break – its being fragile has implications that, so to speak, point beyond the actual world. According to dispositionalism, all modal features of the world may be accounted for in terms of its dispositional features. My aim in this paper is to assess the prospects for dispositionalism by examining the most promising theories. Sections 1 and 2 clarify the assumptions and desiderata of a successful dispositionalist theory of modality. Section 3 introduces the principles governing the dispositionalist theories that apparently meet the desiderata. Sections 4 through 6 show that dispositionalism nonetheless faces three problems: while dispositions help account for modal features of the world that are local, diachronic, or gradable, they cannot account for certain modal features of the world that are global, synchronic, or absolute. I end by discussing the costs of preserving dispositionalism.

Abstract: Many are reluctant to accept primitive modality into their fundamental picture of the world. The worry often traces to this thought: we shouldn’t adopt any more primitive – that is, unexplained – notions than we need in order to explain all the features of the world, and primitive modal notions are not needed. I examine one prominent rival to modal primitivism, combinatorialism, and show that in order to account for all the modal features of the world the combinatorialist must adopt two additional primitive notions. My own modal primitivist view takes as primitive the notion of incompatibility between properties or relations. I show how the non-modal notions that the combinatorialist must adopt as primitive may be analyzed using my notion. The upshot is that with respect to the number of primitive notions, my modal primitivist theory comes out ahead.