Counterpossibles

Kocurek, Alexander W.

doi:10.1111/phc3.12787

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 117 publications

(182 reference statements)

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“…For a recent overview of the debate, seeKocurek [2021]. Also seeBerto and Jago [2018].24 I take no position in this paper on the correct semantics of counterfactual statements with impossible antecedents, other than that the semantics should allow us to make sense of cases where we would intuitively judge a counterfactual statement with an impossible antecedent as non-vacuously true or as false.…”

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confidence: 97%

A Modal Condition for the Beginning of the Universe

Linford¹

2022

Erkenn

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This paper considers two problems -one in philosophy of religion and another in philosophy of physics -and shows that the two problems have one solution. Some Christian philosophers have endorsed the views that (i) there was a first finitely long period of time, (ii) God is in time, and yet (iii) God did not have a beginning. If there was a first finitely long period of time and God is in time then there was a first finitely long period of time in God's life. But if God's life includes a first finitely long period of time, then, on one initially intuitive conception of beginning to exist, God began to exist. Thus, at first glance, (i)-(iii) are not mutually compatible. Meanwhile, on a variety of proposals for quantum gravity theories or interpretations of quantum theory, space-time is not fundamental to physical reality and instead can (somehow) be explained in terms of yet more fundamental physical substructures. As I show, there is a strong intuition that if space-time is not fundamental to physical reality, then, even if there were a first finitely long period in the life of physical reality, physical reality would be beginningless. Thus, both theistic philosophers and philosophers of physics have developed theories on which some beginningless entities have a first finitely long temporal period in their lives and so both groups should be interested in developing criteria that distinguish such entities from entities with a beginning. In this paper, I offer one necessary (but not sufficient) condition, namely, that entities that begin to exist are absent from the closest possible worlds without time. The view that I defend has one significant upshot: no sound argument can use the mere fact (if it is a fact) that past time is finite to reach the conclusion that the totality of physical reality had a beginning. PENULTIMATE DRAFT -FORTHCOMING IN ERKENNTNISthe view that while there is a first finitely long period of time in God's life, God's life was beginningless (Craig [2001a], Erasmus [2021], Loke [2017]). This view is conceptually problematic because, prima facie, to begin to exist just means that one's life included a finitely long initial period of time. On the other hand, as discussed below, a variety of contemporary physical theories and research programs are committed to the claim that the Cosmos is not fundamentally spatiotemporal (

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A Modal Condition for the Beginning of the Universe

Linford¹

2022

Erkenn

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“…For an overview of arguments that non-vacuous counterpossibles are important for metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of logic, as well as arguments for orthodoxy, see Alexander W Kocurek (2021)…”

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Safety first: making property talk safe for nominalists

Himelright

2022

Synthese

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“…For criticism, see Cohen 1987, 1990Zagzebski 1990;Mares 1997;Nolan 1997;Merricks 2001;Goodman 2004;Vander Laan 2004;Kim and Maslen 2006;Krakauer 2012;Brogaard and Salerno 2013;Kment 2014;Bernstein 2016;Berto et al 2018;Jenny 2018; Tan 2019. See Berto andNolan 2021;Kocurek 2021a for an overview.…”

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The Logic of Hyperlogic. Part B: Extensions and Restrictions

Kocurek¹

2022

The Review of Symbolic Logic

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This is the second part of a two-part series on the logic of hyperlogic, a formal system for regimenting metalogical claims in the object language (even within embedded environments). Part A provided a minimal logic for hyperlogic that is sound and complete over the class of all models. In this part, we extend these completeness results to stronger logics that are sound and complete over restricted classes of models. We also investigate the logic of hyperlogic when the language is enriched with hyperintensional operators such as counterfactual conditionals and belief operators.

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Counterpossibles

Cited by 13 publications

References 117 publications

A Modal Condition for the Beginning of the Universe

A Modal Condition for the Beginning of the Universe

Safety first: making property talk safe for nominalists

The Logic of Hyperlogic. Part B: Extensions and Restrictions

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