Aug 2026· Synthese· Vol 208· 0 citations· 18 references
Abstract
In this paper I discuss an initially very plausible principle about metaphysical explanation, which has recently been explicitly defended. Suppose some q metaphysically explains the metaphysical necessity of p. Does q then also metaphysically explain p’s truth? The principle at issue, call it ‘(NT)’, gives an affirmative answer to that question. I show that (NT), if true, has widespread consequences concerning the metaphysics of modality, of fundamentality, and the debate about metaphysical explanation. Most importantly, under some plausible assumptions, (NT) would render a plethora of well-established views in modal metaphysics plainly false. Luckily, however, despite its initial plausibility, (NT) fails as a general principle about metaphysical explanation. I shall argue that the three discussed general arguments for (NT) all fail, that the specific arguments in its favor all depend on very specific (and, arguably, contentious) metaphysical views on the source of modality, and that (NT) is indeed incompatible with other (arguably less contentious) metaphysical views concerning modality.
Many philosophers have argued that the orthodox analysis of epistemic-modal sentences, on which such sentences assert facts about what is compatible with some contextually given informational state, is fatally flawed. As an alternative, some have suggested a nonfactualist reading of such sentences. On this reading, u...
Deep scientific realism is scientific realism plus the claim that science requires a metaphysical interpretation. Metaphysics is supposed to fill an intelligibility gap: science by itself, it is argued, does not provide a clear image of reality. The metaphysics needed to deliver the goods comes from a toolbox of concep...
Raoni Arroyo, J. B. Becker Arenhart· Synthese· 0 citations
Recent critiques of metaphysics tend to focus on arguing that it is methodologically unreliable, otherwise epistemically deficient, and/or irrelevant to practical concerns. Defenders counter that metaphysics is continuous with science, an unavoidable part of inquiry, and/or already yielding valuable results. So far, ne...
Sam Baron, Finnur Dellsén, James Norton· Synthese· 0 citations
This article proposes a revisionary approach to the meta-metaphysics of law. It challenges the growing tendency in analytic jurisprudence to treat questions about the nature of law as metaphysical problems that require employing explanatory metaphysical tools (e.g., grounding). Instead, it argues that metaphysical cl...
Miguel Garcia-Godinez· Law and Philosophy· 0 citations
: Modal essentialism holds that some x is essentially F if and only if at every possible world at which x exists, x is F . This view entails (ignoring the case of extreme essentialism) that distinct possible worlds can represent de re (singular) possibilities for the same individual. In the literature we find haecceiti...
