Modal Platonism and the Problem of Negativity

Tugby, Matthew

Abstract

The Platonic account of modality says, roughly, that truths about alien possibilities are grounded in uninstantiated universals. Recently, Ingram has raised a problem for this kind of view, which is that it apparently requires negative facts to play a truthmaking role. Ingram offers an alternative Platonic account which makes use of modal instantiation relations. In this paper, I highlight some of the costs of Ingram’s new account and argue that a more appealing version of Platonism—and modal theory in general—is one that is supplemented with an ontology of totality facts.

Citation

Tugby, M. (2018). Modal Platonism and the Problem of Negativity. Erkenntnis, 83(3), 465-476. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-017-9898-y

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 3, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Apr 22, 2017
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2018
• Deposit Date: May 11, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: May 12, 2017
• Journal: Erkenntnis
• Print ISSN: 0165-0106
• Electronic ISSN: 1572-8420
• Publisher: Springer
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 83
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 465-476
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-017-9898-y
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1359150