Existence and modality in Kant: lessons from Barcan
Existence and modality in Kant: lessons from Barcan
This essay considers Kant’s theory of modality in light of a debate in contemporary modal metaphysics and modal logic concerning the Barcan formulas. The comparison provides a new and fruitful perspective on Kant’s complex and sometimes confusing claims about possibility and necessity. Two central Kantian principles provide the starting point for the comparison: that the possible must be grounded in the actual and that existence is not a real predicate. Both are shown to be intimately connected to the Barcan formulas, and Kant’s views on what he distinguishes as three different kinds of modality are then considered in light of this connection.
Barcan, Existence, Kant, Modality
1-41
Stephenson, Andrew
b8c80516-d835-4479-bee0-869d771af0cf
1 January 2023
Stephenson, Andrew
b8c80516-d835-4479-bee0-869d771af0cf
Stephenson, Andrew
(2023)
Existence and modality in Kant: lessons from Barcan.
The Philosophical Review, 132 (1), .
(doi:10.1215/00318108-10123761).
Abstract
This essay considers Kant’s theory of modality in light of a debate in contemporary modal metaphysics and modal logic concerning the Barcan formulas. The comparison provides a new and fruitful perspective on Kant’s complex and sometimes confusing claims about possibility and necessity. Two central Kantian principles provide the starting point for the comparison: that the possible must be grounded in the actual and that existence is not a real predicate. Both are shown to be intimately connected to the Barcan formulas, and Kant’s views on what he distinguishes as three different kinds of modality are then considered in light of this connection.
Text
Stephenson, A. (2022) - Existence and Modality in Kant_Lessons from Barcan
- Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 11 March 2022
Published date: 1 January 2023
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Funding Information:
For written comments on earlier drafts of this essay I am very grateful to Sebastian Bender, Anil Gomes, Nora Kreft, Tobias Rosefeldt, Wolfgang Schwarz, Lee Walters, an anonymous reviewer for another journal, and two anonymous reviewers for the Philosophical Review. For discussion I am grateful to audiences in Aarhus, Beirut, Berlin, Bristol, Cologne, Dublin, Nottingham, Oxford, Southampton, St. Andrews, and Tutzing. All of these exchanges changed and improved the paper. I am grateful to the North American Kant Society for awarding an earlier draft their Wilfrid Sellars Prize, and I gratefully acknowledge the support of a visiting fellowship at the DFG-funded Human Abilities project at FU and HU in Berlin, a research fellowship from the Humboldt Foundation at the Forschungskolleg for Analytic German Idealism at the University of Leipzig, and my department in Southampton for granting me leave to take up these awards.
Keywords:
Barcan, Existence, Kant, Modality
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Local EPrints ID: 456773
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/456773
ISSN: 0031-8108
PURE UUID: 86ab3c5e-bb16-415d-8235-467c401b93d8
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Date deposited: 11 May 2022 16:34
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:48
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