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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Modal criteria may introduce spurious ontological commitments when there are metaphysically necessary connections between distinct kinds of entity.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.If whales are necessarily mammals, then a theory committed to whales is automatically committed to mammals under modal criteria.
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    • 2.This holds even if the theory explicitly claims there are no mammals and that whales are fish.
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    • 3.If identity is necessary, a theory committed to Hesperus is automatically committed to Phosphorus, even if the theory asserts Hesperus exists and Phosphorus does not.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Fine's distinction between constitutive and consequential essence shows necessary connections don't collapse distinct ontological categories.
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    • 2.A theory committed to water is not thereby committed to H2O as a separate entity, even if water is necessarily H2O, because modal co-extension doesn't entail ontological multiplication.
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    • 3.Modal criteria that treat all necessary co-extensionals as joint commitments violate the Quinean principle that ontological commitment tracks existential quantification, not metaphysical necessity.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Kripke's necessary a posteriori truths demonstrate that necessary connections between kinds are discovered empirically, not legislated by our theories, so a theory's commitments cannot be read off from necessities unknown to its formulators.
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    • 2.A geocentric theory necessarily committed to Hesperus cannot thereby incur commitment to Phosphorus without collapsing the epistemic access condition that grounds ontological commitment attributions in the first place.
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