The Actual and the Possible: Modality and Metaphysics in Modern Philosophy

250 Pages·2018·1.554 MB·English

by  Mark Sinclair (Ed.)

The Actual and the Possible
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The Actual and
the Possible
Modality and Metaphysics
in Modern Philosophy
EDITED BY
Mark Sinclair
1
3
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
NoteontheContributors ix
Editor’sIntroduction 1
1. AspectsofSpinoza’sTheoryofEssence:FormalEssence,
Non-Existence,andTwoTypesofActuality 11
MogensLærke
2. Wolff’sCloseShavewithFatalism 45
StephanLeuenberger
3. ModalAdventuresbetweenLeibnizandKant:Existence
and(Temporal,Logical,Real)Possibilities 64
OhadNachtomy
4. Kant’sMaterialConditionofRealPossibility 94
JessicaLeech
5. Hegel’sExpressivistModalRealism 117
ChristopherYeomans
6. RussellonModality 136
ThomasBaldwin
7. ModalityandDegreesofTruth:AnAustro-PolishSideline
inTwentieth-CenturyModalThought 170
PeterSimons
8. Heideggeron‘Possibility’ 186
MarkSinclair
9. DeReModalityintheLateTwentiethCentury:ThePrescientQuine 217
JohnDivers
Index 237

Acknowledgements
MythanksareduetoJamesClarkewhoorganizedwithmethe2013BritishSociety
fortheHistoryofPhilosophyannualconferenceattheUniversityofYork,andtothe
then President of the Society, Pauline Phemister, who offered insightful guidance
throughout.MythanksarealsoduetotheMindAssociationfortheawardofaMajor
ConferenceGrant.
MWS

Note on the Contributors
THOMASBALDWINisEmeritusProfessorofPhilosophyattheUniversityofYorkand
former editor of Mind. His recent work includes G. E. Moore: Early Philosophical
Writings, ‘G. E. Moore and the Cambridge School of Analysis’ and ‘Truth: British
IdealismanditsAnalyticCritics’.
JOHN DIVERS, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Leeds, is the author of
variousarticlesonmodality(inMind,Noûs,PhilosophyandPhenomenologicalResearch,
etc.),PossibleWorlds(Routledge,2002)andNecessityAfterQuine(contractedtoOUP).
MOGENS LÆRKE isSeniorResearcherattheCNRSinFrance,affiliatedattheENSde
Lyon.HeistheauthorofLeibnizlecteurdeSpinoza(Paris,2008)andLesLumièresde
Leibniz (Paris, 2015), of more than fifty articles principally on early modern phil-
osophy, and has edited five volumes including Philosophy and Its History (Oxford
UniversityPress,2013).
JESSICA LEECH is Lecturer of Philosophy at King’s College London. She gained her
doctorate from the Universities of Geneva and Sheffield. She works mainly on the
philosophyofmodalityandKant’stheoreticalphilosophy.
STEPHANLEUENBERGERisSeniorLecturerinPhilosophyattheUniversityofGlasgow.
He gained his PhD at Princeton, and received the Oxford Studies in Metaphysics
YoungerScholarPrize(2006)andtheLauenerPrize(2009).Hehaspublishedmainly
onthetopicsofmodalityandsupervenience.
OHAD NACHTOMY isAssociateProfessorandChairatBar-IlanUniversity.Heisthe
author of Possibility, Agency, and Individuality in Leibniz’s Metaphysics (Springer,
2007);theeditor(withJustinSmith)ofTheLifeSciencesinEarlyModernPhilosophy
(OxfordUniversityPress,2014)andMachinesofNatureandCorporealSubstancesin
Leibniz(Springer,2010);andhaspublishedsomefortyarticlesinthehistoryofearly
modernphilosophyandthephilosophyofbiology.
PETER SIMONS isEmeritusProfessorofPhilosophyatTrinityCollegeDublinandis
Honorary Professor at the University of Salzburg. He is the author of two books
and over two hundred articles, and specializes in metaphysics, the history of logic,
and central European (Polish and Austrian) nineteenth- and twentieth-century
philosophy.
MARK SINCLAIR is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Roehampton and
AssociateEditorattheBritishJournalfortheHistoryofPhilosophy.Hehaspublished