Actuality and knowability

Actuality and Knowability

It is widely believed that for all p, or at least for all entertainable p, it is knowable a priori that (p iff actually p). It is even more widely believed that for all such p, it is knowable that (p iff actually p). There is a simple argument against these claims from five antecedently plausible premises. The argument is given below. Here ‘A’, ‘E’, ‘K’, ‘ ’, ‘^’ stand for ‘Actually’ ‘Someone e...

Chance and Actuality

The relation between chance and actuality gives rise to the following puzzle. On the one hand, it may be a chancy matter what will actually happen. On the other hand, standard semantics for ‘actually’ imply that sentences beginning with ‘actually’ are never contingent. In order to elucidate this puzzle, a kind of objective semantic indeterminacy will be defended: in a chancy world, it may be a ...

Modal Meinongianism and Actuality

Modal Meinongianism is the most recent neo-Meinongian theory. Its main innovation consists in a Comprehension Principle which, unlike other neo-Meinongian approaches, seemingly avoids limitations on the properties that can characterize objects. However, in a recent paper A. Sauchelli has raised an objection against modal Meinongianism, to the effect that properties and relations involving refer...

The Determinants of Knowability

Many propositions are not known to be true or false, and many phenomena are not understood. What determines what propositions and phenomena are perceived as knowable or unknowable? We tested whether factors related to scientific methodology (a proposition’s reducibility and falsifiability), its intrinsic metaphysics (the materiality of the phenomena and its scope of applicability), and its rela...

Counterparts and Actuality