The Bounds of Possibility: Puzzles of Modal Variation

Description

In general, a given object could have been different in certain respects. For example, the Great Pyramid could have been somewhat shorter or taller; the Mona Lisa could have had a somewhat different pattern of colours; an ordinary table could have been made of a somewhat different quantity of wood. But there seem to be limits. It would be odd to suppose that the Great Pyramid could have been thimble-sized; that the Mona Lisa could have had the pattern of colours that actually characterizes The Scream; or that the table could have been made of the very quantity of wood that in fact made some other table. However, there are puzzling arguments that purport to show that so long as an object is capable of being somewhat different in some respect, it is capable of being radically different in that respect. These arguments rely on two tempting thoughts: first, that an object's capacity for moderate variation is a non-contingent matter, and second, that what is possibly possible is simply possible. The Bounds of Possibility systematically investigates competing strategies for resolving these puzzles, and defends one of them. Along the way it engages with foundational questions about the metaphysics of modality. Cover Title_Pages Contents Foreword List_of_Figures Introduction 1. Logical Tools 2. Tolerance Puzzles 3. Motivating Non-Contingency 4. Coincidence Puzzles 5. Accepting Hypertolerance 6. Hypertolerance and Supervenience 7. Rejecting Iteration 8. Iteration for Metaphysical Necessity 9. Tolerance and Chance 10. Tolerance and Counterpart Theory 11. Resolving the puzzles 12. Refinements and Choice Points 13. Alternatives and Challenges 14. Indiscernible Tolerance Arguments 15. Non-Qualitativeness and Aboutness Appendix A Modal Logics with and without Necessitation Appendix B Rigidity and Ancestral Iteration Appendix C Consequences of the Rigidity Axioms Appendix D Narrower Modalities in Higher-Order S4 References Index_of_Names Index_of_Topics_and_Named_Principles