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Modal Fictionalism, Possible Worlds, and Artificiality

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Abstract

Accounts of modality in terms of fictional possible worlds face an objection based on the idea that when modal claims are analysed in terms of fictions, the connection between analysans and analysandum seems artificial. Strong modal fictionalism, the theory according to which modal claims are analysed in terms of a fiction, has been defended by, among others, Seahwa Kim, who has recently claimed that the philosophical objection that the connection between modality and fictions is artificial can be met. I propose a new way of spelling out the intuition of artificiality and show that strong modal fictionalism should be rejected.

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Notes

  1. A summary of these objections and further references can be found in Nolan (2011) and Sainsbury (2010: 175–192).

  2. I assume here that fictions are created by their authors and that they are neither abstract nor necessarily existing objects. This assumption does not have any consequence for what follows (see note 20 for a possible exception). In fact, the only essential point, which I take as uncontroversial, is that fictions are known in a community only at a particular time. The literature on this topic is vast. Among the various recent interesting discussions, see Currie (1990), Thomasson (1999: 93–114), and Sainsbury (2010: 91–114).

  3. In the literature on fictionalism and modality, it is frequently assumed that (1) the relevant fiction to be used to analyse modality is Lewis’s modal realism, and (2) modal fictionalism essentially involves a prefix operator. In this essay, I will follow these conventions. See Sainsbury (2010: 173–4) for other specifications of the fictionalist strategy. Of course, Lewis did not think of his theory as a fiction.

  4. It is generally assumed that in order for F to be true at w, F must exist at w.

  5. See Nolan (1997: 266).

  6. Counterpart theorists and supports of transworld identity can equally accept this point.

  7. Similar considerations apply to the other idioms suggested by Woodward: it does not seem right to say that it is possible for Caesar-w1 to conquer Gaul-w1 in virtue of a fiction in our world. Similarly, maintaining that Caesar (in our world) conquered Gaul in virtue of what is written in Lewis’ fiction seems bizarre.

  8. See Vetter (2011) for a survey of recent theories that do not employ the concept of a possible world as an explanatory device for modal claims.

  9. See Divers (2002: 26–40) for an illustration of the various applications of possible worlds to modality.

  10. Rosen (1990: 331–2).

  11. Lewis (1970: 19). See Speaks (2010) for a detailed survey of how these ideas have been articulated.

  12. The formulation of this point relies on a remark made by Nolan (2011).

  13. A recent study on these modal elements in our language is Portner (2009).

  14. See Peacocke (2008).

  15. See Peacocke (2008: 7–76).

  16. See Horwich (1998) and (2005). More on this in the next section.

  17. Rosen suggests that a modal fictionalist strategy may not be seen as providing a complete analysis of modality because the fictional operator may contain a hidden modal component. In this case, the advantage of adopting the theory would be reducing modal idioms to just one modal primitive. See Rosen (1990) and Divers (1999) for more details.

  18. An early paper discussing this issue is Richards (1975). A classical formulation of the difficulties of providing a semantical analysis for certain truths consistent with the way in which we acquire knowledge of their truth value is Benaceraf (1973).

  19. See Divers (2002: 149–165) and Sauchelli (2010: 348–357) for discussion.

  20. Another reason for which modal realism should be rejected is that it does not provide a complete reduction of modality in non-modal terms, and thus we do not have enough theoretical benefits to justify the acceptance of unknowable entities in our ontology for the sake of explanation. See Divers (2002) for discussion. This point, however, does not give any theoretical advantage to SFPW: if modal realism does not provide a reduction of modal concepts, neither does SFPW, given that the latter includes those principles of modal realism responsible for the analysis of modality. One possible theoretical advantage in adopting SFPW over modal realism is the alleged safer and saner ontology of the former. Contrary to modal realism, which asks us to believe in a plurality of worlds spatio-temporally disconnected from us, the fictionalist seems to be committed only to fictions, that is, a kind of entities we already believe in. However, whether the fictionalist’s ontology is really safe and sane depends on what kind of entities fictions are. A nominalist, somebody who does not believe in abstract objects, would not see a theoretical advantage in adopting SFPW if this requires accepting into her ontology abstract propositions to explain the nature of fiction.

  21. The problem of integrating different perspectives on the same topic has emerged in different areas of philosophy. For example, Peacocke discusses the integration challenge as the desideratum of reconciling the epistemological account of an area of discourse and its best metaphysical theory. See Peacocke (1999) on the integration challenge in general and Sauchelli (2010: 347–52) for the modal case.

  22. See Divers (2002: 38–9) for the distinction between pure and applied semantics.

  23. I have not specified in detail the requirements that a foundational theory of modal meaning should meet. However, among them, I would list ‘providing a convincing story of how the meaning of our modal talk is connected to our beliefs about the truth values of our modal claims.’

  24. See Peacocke (1999: 154).

  25. For an answer to the related worry of fetishism, see Woodward (2011: Section 1).

  26. See Divers (2002) for a survey of various accounts of modality.

  27. See Currie (1989), Lamarque (2002), and Davies (2004: 1–74) for discussion.

  28. Depending on when we read ‘presently’ in the proposed analysis.

  29. An attempt along these lines is pursued by Peacocke (1999).

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Paisley Livingston, Seahwa Kim and especially the anonymous referee of this journal for helpful and detailed comments.

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Correspondence to Andrea Sauchelli.

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Sauchelli, A. Modal Fictionalism, Possible Worlds, and Artificiality. Acta Anal 28, 411–421 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-013-0186-4

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