Fundamentality And Modal Freedom

Wang, Jennifer

doi:10.1111/phpe.12082

Cited by 16 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 66 publications

(65 reference statements)

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“…35 We take it to be uncontroversial that all physical laws are at least nomic necessities. 36 Arguments against the view have for example been given in MacBride (1999), Fritz (2017), andWang (2016). consistency or conceivability of a state of affairs is sufficient for its metaphysical possibility and hence reject the view in question.…”

Section: Physical Laws and Metaphysical Necessitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The strong arm of the law: a unified account of necessary and contingent laws of nature

et al. 2021

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A common feature of all standard theories of the laws of nature is that they are ‘absolutist’: They take laws to be either all metaphysically necessary or all contingent. Science, however, gives us reason to think that there are laws of both kinds, suggesting that standard theories should make way for ‘non-absolutist’ alternatives: theories which accommodate laws of both modal statuses. In this paper, we set out three explanatory challenges for any candidate non-absolutist theory, and discuss the prospects of the two extant candidates in light of these challenges. We then develop our own non-absolutist theory, the essentialist DTA account, which combines the nomic-necessitation or DTA account with an essentialist approach to metaphysical modality in order to meet the three explanatory challenges. Finally, we argue that the distinction between kinematical and dynamical laws found in physical theories supports both non-absolutism in general and our proposed essentialist DTA view in particular.

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Section: Physical Laws and Metaphysical Necessitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 36 Arguments against the view have for example been given in MacBride ( 1999 ), Fritz ( 2017 ), and Wang ( 2016 ). …”

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confidence: 99%

The strong arm of the law: a unified account of necessary and contingent laws of nature

et al. 2021

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“…Call this view modal quidditism. I have argued in Wang (2016a) that ontological independence and modal independence come apart. I will not rehearse the arguments here.…”

Section: Modal Quidditismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Essences of Fundamental Properties

Wang

2019

Metaphysics

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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.

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“…Nevertheless, I do think it is plausible to suppose – like Schaffer – that as basic objects are not grounded in any other basic object, they should be “modally free” of one another (per the argument from “modal connections” we saw earlier, which can be traced to Ismael and Schaffer (forthcoming)). Having said that, there are admittedly those who are sceptical of whether basic/fundamental entities should be freely recombinable (i.e., Wang, ).…”

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confidence: 99%

An Inconsistent Triad: Priority Pluralism, Perdurantism and (the Possibility of) Gunky Time

Taylor

2020

Theoria

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Priority pluralism, perdurantism and that temporal gunkwhere some interval of time is gunky iff every interval of it has a proper subintervalis at least metaphysically possible, are three commonly held views in contemporary metaphysics. However, there cannot be a temporally gunky world where objects perdure, and where there are mereological simples. Given thatas I will arguepluralists should be committed to atomism, and cannot plausibly revise their view to accommodate temporal gunk if they are perdurantists, pluralism is incompatible with the combination of temporal gunk and perdurantism. Therefore, priority pluralism, perdurantism and the possibility of temporal gunk are jointly incompatible, and at least one of these views must be false. Subsequently, it means that at least one of the following views must be true: priority monism or metaphysical infinitism; endurantism; and/or that time is atomistic. The triad's inconsistency, then, has some interesting metaphysical implications.

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Fundamentality And Modal Freedom

Cited by 16 publications

References 66 publications

The strong arm of the law: a unified account of necessary and contingent laws of nature

The strong arm of the law: a unified account of necessary and contingent laws of nature

The Essences of Fundamental Properties

An Inconsistent Triad: Priority Pluralism, Perdurantism and (the Possibility of) Gunky Time

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