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    Not all existing things are necessary — Carmelics
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    Home/Modality & Possibility
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    Not all existing things are necessary

    Modality & Possibility
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason entails that contingent things require external causes, distinguishing them from self-grounding necessary beings.
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    • 2.If a thing's non-existence is conceivable without contradiction, as Hume argued of all matters of fact, then its existence is contingent rather than necessary.
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    • 3.Contingent existence, grounded in God's free choice among compossible worlds, is a core commitment of classical theism and Leibnizian metaphysics alike.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Modal actualism collapses the distinction between what is actual and what is necessary, rendering impossible any unrealized potentiality in nature.
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    • 2.Aristotle's distinction between potentiality and actuality requires that some actual states could have been otherwise, preserving genuine contingency in the world.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.There are possibles that never exist
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    • 2.If everything that exists were necessary, then nothing else could exist in its place
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    • 3.If nothing else could exist in its place, then everything that never exists would be impossible
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    Modality & Possibility

    Related

    Aristotle's distinction between potentiality and actuality requires that some ac...Contingent existence, grounded in God's free choice among compossible worlds, is...If a thing's non-existence is conceivable without contradiction, as Hume argued ...If everything that exists were necessary, then nothing else could exist in its p...
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    If nothing else could exist in its place, then everything that never exists woul...Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason entails that contingent things require ...Modal actualism collapses the distinction between what is actual and what is nec...There are possibles that never exist

    Similar

    If everything that exists were necessary, then nothing else could exis...82%Essential properties are necessary properties — they cannot be otherwi...77%All of a thing's requisites (necessary conditions) constitute a thing'...77%If (K) is necessary, then no metaphysically possible instance of C can...76%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: leibniz-modal
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    It should probably not be surprising that Leibniz's explication of the nature of the distinction between necessary and contingent truths can be translated into the terms of contemporary possible-worlds semantics. For Leibniz tells us in On Freedom (De libertate... 1689?) that he first came to think of the nature of possibilia in terms of fictional worlds, worlds that have existence in a somewhat tenuous sense. “But the consideration of possibles, which are not, were not, and will not be, brought
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit