Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality

by Plantinga, Alvin; Davidson, Matthew

• ISBN13: 9780195103779
• ISBN10: 0195103777
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-03-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Perhaps no one has done more in the last 30 years to advance thinking in the metaphysics of modality than has Alvin Plantinga. Collected here are some of his most important essays on this influential subject. Dating back from the late 1960's to the present, they chronicle the development ofPlantinga's thoughts about some of the most fundamental issues in metaphysics: what is the nature of abstract objects like possible worlds, properties, propositions, and such phenomena? Are there possible but non-actual objects? Can objects that do not exist exemplify properties? Plantinga givesthorough and penetrating answers to all of these questions and many others. This volume contains some of the best work in metaphysics from the past 30 years, and will remain a source of critical contention and keen interest among philosophers of metaphysics and philosophical logic for years to come.

Author Biography

Alvin Plantinga is John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and the author of Warranted Christian Belief (OUP 2000), Warrant: The Current Debate, Warrant and Proper Function (both OUP 1993), and The Nature of Necessity (OUP 1979).

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(234)
Matthew Davidson
1. De Re et De Dicto	25	(21)
2. World and Essence	46	(26)
3. Transworld Identity or Worldbound Individuals?	72	(18)
4. The Nature of Necessity, Chapter VIII	90	(13)
5. Actualism and Possible Worlds	103	(19)
6. The Boethian Compromise	122	(17)
7. De Essentia	139	(19)
8. On Existentialism	158	(18)
9. Reply to John L. Pollock	176	(53)
10. Two Concepts of Modality: Modal Realism and Modal Reductionism 192
11. Why Propositions Cannot Be Concrete	229	(6)
Index	235
0340762527
Acknowledgements	iv
Introduction: Ban this sick filth!	1	(192)
1 Hating others: Religion, nationhood and identity	8	(42)
2 Mad science: Frankenstein and his monsters	50	(20)
3 Vampires: Children of the night	70	(30)
4 Monsters from the id: Horror, madness and the mind	100	(23)
5 Forbidden knowledge: Textuality, metafiction and books	123	(23)
6 Them!: Narratives of pestilence and invasion	146	(19)
7 Transformations: Body horror	165	(16)
8 Hail Satan!: Diabolism, the occult and demonic possession	181	(12)
Bibliography	193	(11)
Filmography	204	(6)
Index	210