Impossible Worlds

Serious actualism is the principle that, for every entity x and every property φ, it could not have been that x did not exist but had φ. The principle was called ‘serious actualism’ by A. Plantinga, who argued for it. Accepting it has serious consequences about how it is philosophically preferable to develop first-order modal logic. In the paper I show why some alleged counterexamples to the principle should not convince us, and then I offer three arguments for serious actualism and for the corresponding principle about relations. According to the first, by accepting those doctrines we avoid a serious difficulty when we try to explain when two properties, or two relations, coincide in extension. The second argument relies on some tenets about sets. The third improves upon Plantinga’s reasoning in favour of serious actualism. I then draw some conclusions about when a linguistic expression ought to be regarded as a predicate from a logical and semantic point of view. Finally, I discuss certain principles about time and space that are analogous to serious actualism.

The book examines the notion of impossible worlds. Although the notion of an impossible world is not novel, several misunderstandings and misrepresentations have resulted in philosophical confusion. To avoid such confusion, the analysis here differentiates between the logical, semantic, epistemological, and metaphysical roles of impossible worlds.

The book's central hypothesis is that an understandable taxonomy of extreme positions about impossible worlds is required; it is not easy to hold the middle ground without taking the extreme positions seriously. These positions are compared in order to draw important lessons for logic, epistemology, and metaphysics.

The Extent of Impossibility is essential reading for scholars in philosophy and especially for scholars and researchers focusing on metaphysics, logic and epistemology.

This paper introduces and analyzes the phenomenon of possibility laundering in contemporary apologetics. Possibility laundering is the rhetorical maneuver by which speculative constructs of undetermined modal status are treated as if their possibility were established, and then elevated to necessity once competing options are dismissed. By cataloguing the kinds of phenomena most often subjected to this maneuver and examining case studies in the Kalam Cosmological Argument and fine-tuning apologetics, this paper demonstrates how persuasive force is generated through reclassification rather than through modal demonstration. The analysis highlights the need to maintain a strict distinction between the unknown and the possible, to resist false dichotomies, and to preserve epistemic humility in philosophical and theological inference.

The paper sketches some initial results from an ongoing project to develop an ontology-based digital form for representing uncertain information. We frame this work as a journey from lower to higher levels of digital maturity across a technology divide. The paper first sets a baseline by describing the basic challenges any project dealing with digital uncertainty faces. It then describes how the project is facing them. It shows firstly how an extensional ontology (such as the BORO Foundational Ontology or the Information Exchange Standard) can be extended with a Lewisian counterpart approach to formalizing uncertainty that is adapted to computing. And then it shows how this is expressive enough to handle the challenges.

While modern physics has achieved remarkable predictive capabilities through precise mathematical descriptions, it has abandoned fundamental understanding of "why things happen as they do," degenerating into "bookkeeping of work quantities." This research fundamentally reconstructs the concepts of force and energy in physics based on the framework of the preceding existence wave theory. Through a shift from the conventional active understanding that "matter generates force" to the passive understanding that "space quanta move objects," we solve the problem of the stable maintenance of the Sun-Earth system for 4.6 billion years, which is difficult to explain with conventional theories. Gravity is understood as a phenomenon where space quanta, having received mass existence waves, move collective existence waves to improve the processing capacity of the entire space quanta network. The energy required for force generation is supplied from space quanta, which are external to the physical systems set by humans, so the material energy within the system never becomes depleted. Through the proper understanding of energy concepts, we clarify that conversion between different physical phenomena involves specific physical mechanisms and unavoidable losses. We point out that energy conservation laws in physics depend on humanity's arbitrary system settings, and reinterpret the invariance of light speed as the information transmission speed of the space quanta network: c = lₚ/tₚ. This theory functions as a "conceptual guardrail" that provides a physical foundation to existing mathematical descriptions, clarifying the distinction between mathematical success and physical understanding. It is a unified theory that returns physics to its original purpose of understanding "the principles of things" and promotes a shift to a "field report" approach of "who does what and how."

Grok tries to formulate the conceptual frame work that constitutes The Last Unicorn, where metaphorical system of ancient symbolic philosophy such as Hermeticism, and Neoplatonism or Vedic traditions that admit manifestation of abstract concepts in actual life, in systemic manifold plane where information and revelation of its representation are allowed to seamlessly coexist.

No contributions by others. No works submitted towards another degree have been included in this thesis. No animal or human subjects were involved in this research. I would like to thank my supervisors. First and foremost, I would like to express sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dominic Hyde for his invaluable critical input and intellectual inspiration, boundless patience, encouragement and guidance. Without his wholehearted and unfailing support over the years, which by far surpassed any formal responsibilities or expectations, this thesis would not have been completed. I am grateful to my supervisor Toby Meadows for his meticulous and insightful critical input in ensuring that key parts of the thesis meet the highest of standards. The thesis has improved immensely as a direct consequence of working with him. I would also like to thank Joel Katzav for his diligent reading of the entire thesis draft, valuable feedback during the final stages of the writing process, and guidance in ensuring that the thesis is completed on time. I would also like to thank the examination committee -Franz Berto and Ed Maresfor their valuable critical remarks and advice regarding publication of the dissertation's content. This research was supported by Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship.

This article offers a quixotic reading of San Manuel Bueno, Mártir (1931) in an attempt to show the major influence that Miguel de Cervantes's masterpiece Don Quixote of La Mancha had in this novella by Miguel de Unamuno. This work will show the multiple parallels that exist between Don Quixote of La Mancha and San Manuel Bueno, Mártir, as well as between their protagonists, and the narrative techniques employed in both literary works.

The problem of contingent existence is the problem of how an individual's nonexistence such as Socrates's nonexistence is possible within the framework of possible worlds, or, equivalently, how a negative existential proposition about Socrates can be true at some world. This paper is concerned with Robert Adams's celebrated solution that distinguishes two modes of truth at a world: inner and outer. Adams argues that Socrates's nonexistence is not an inner truth but an outer truth at a world in which he does not exist. However, Adams's solution faces significant challenges, as his proposed rule for determining outer truths leads to undesirable consequences. For Adams's solution to be viable, a revised rule is necessary. Iris Einheuser attempts to address this issue by providing an alternative rule, arguing that Adams's rule is not inevitable. However, this paper argues that Einheuser's proposal ultimately fails, as it implies the unacceptable conclusion that all entities are necessary existents.

According to Richard Routley, a comprehensive theory of fiction is impossible, since almost anything is in principle imaginable. In my view, Routley is right: for any purported logic of fiction, there will be actual or imaginable fictions that successfully counterexample the logic. Using the example of 'impossible' fictions, I test this claim against theories proposed by Routley's Meinongian contemporaries and also by Routley himself (for what he called 'esoteric' works of fiction) and his 21st century heirs. I argue that the phenomenon of impossible fictions challenges even today's modal Meinongians.

Actual Title: Semantic Hierarchy in Analytic Philosophy and the Hierarchy of Kinds of Being in Fundamental Ontology within Continental Philosophy

o Abstract:  Looking at parallels between Kinds of Being meta-levels in Fundamental Ontology within Continental Philosophy and the levels of semantic scope discovered by Analytical Philosophy.

o Key Words:  Analytical Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, Kinds of Being, scopes of semantics, extension, intension, hyperintension, counterfactuals, counterpossibilities, impossible worlds.

This essay explores the ontology of non-actuality. The term 'non-actuality' refers to being insofar as it is not actual and yet is not reducible to non-being simpliciter (pure nothingness). Potentiality or virtuality, for instance, seem to occupy an intermediate space since these are neither actual nor pure nothing. In the first part, I propose a critique of actualism, the ontological position that considers that only that which is actual is real by considering an ancient version (Diodorus Cronus) and a contemporary debate on modalities (modal realism and modal fictionalism). I then analyze non-actuality through the case of virtual reality, the ontology of power, Aristotelian dunamis, and Deleuzian virtuality and reject the common reduction of potentiality to a lack or privation. As an alternative, I propose to conceptualize the form of process ontology that would accommodate virtuality and potentiality in terms of play (Spielraum).

Recently an abductivist approach to the epistemology of logic has gained traction. A necessary component of logical abductivism is justification holism, asserting that claims of logical entailment can only be justified in the context of an entire logical theory, e.g., classical, intuitionistic, etc. One view that is incompatible with abductivism is an atomistic view on which individual entailment-claims can be justified point-wise rather than in the context of a whole theory. This paper provides two atomistic counterexamples to justification holism in the epistemology of logic. Both examples appeal to pre-theoretic commitments of deductive validity. The main aim is to show that there are some foundational entailment-claims for which we can have propositional justification independently of theory choice and outside the context of a whole logical theory. If one were to give up on these foundational claims, all semantic and syntactic accounts of deductive validity would be non-starters.

In this paper, I argue that the nature question and the extent question in the metaphysics of modality (Divers 2013) have broader philosophical implications. To support this claim, I first analyse the distinction between separatism and non-separatism in general, with a particular focus on modal separatism and modal non-separatism. My primary aim is to demonstrate that non-separatism is methodologically more viable. This is because, when considered together, the two questions reveal a significant-if not indispensable-phenomenon underlying the philosophical debate. Finally, I extend the discussion to controversial theories in philosophy, highlighting how the same dialectic emerges in the context of impossibility.

It is said that the processes of learning are those of knowledge acquisition. Pedagogy is, then, designed in accordance with various theories of knowledge. In this paper, against the recent exaggeration about the representationalistic theory of knowledge, I argue strongly for the significance of a theory dealing with noncognitive foundations of knowledge acquisition, through tracing L. Wittgenstein's On Certainty.

Este estudio explora la operatividad como epopeya de "Un viaje a la India", de Gonçalo M. Tavares. Como principal incógnita plantea el hecho de que la obra se vincula tanto a la memoria épica como al pensamiento posmoderno, siendo que la primera está caracterizada por la defensa de modelos morales axiomáticos, y el segundo por el descrédito de criterios absolutos de verdad. Para arrojar luz a esta contradicción, la investigación propone un análisis de sus componentes fundamentales, partiendo de una valoración de los principales estudios contemporáneos de la epopeya y  apoyándose en estudios específicos de  la obra tavariana, para estudiar su relación con la Historia y sus efectos pretendidos en el lector. A partir de las herramientas expuestas, la investigación propone su uso como modelo teórico para el análisis de poemas épicos programáticamente afines a la obra estudiada.

A problem arises when necessary indeterminacies are introduced to standard alethic modal logic. This paper states the problem and shows a new method of resolution which does not commit to a theory of vagueness or to standardly used non-classical techniques. The method invokes an understanding of the universal and existential quantifiers in terms of the quantifiers most, half, and few and accords with our conceptual understanding of the universal and existential quantifiers.

Noneism is a version of Meinongianism, the view that some things do not exist. Allism is the view that everything exists, including those things that the noneist takes as non-existent. Since , there has been a discussion on whether or not one can translate the noneist theory into the allist theory and if, in that case, the differences between the two remain substantive. In this paper we propose a notion we call Theoretical Equivalence: two theories are theoretically equivalent, relative to an explanandum, if the models they produce to explain it are isomorphic. We take intentional objects -which are often considered as providing a prima facie motivation for Meinongianism -as our explanandum. We argue that noneism and allism are theoretically equivalent with respect to the problem of intentional objects, lending some support to Woodward's [40] translation of the noneist's 'to exist' into the allist's 'to be actually concrete', in the face of recent objections by Priest . We also claim, however, that while in a sense this makes the disagreement between noneism and allism insubstantial, in another sense, it doesn't. The domain or universe of discourse includes a wide variety of objects, existent as well as incomplete and impossible nonexistent objects. A version of this paper was presented at the Logic of Conceivability seminar; thanks to the LoC group for their feedback. In particular, thanks to Arianna Betti, Ilaria Canavotto, Manuel Gustavo Isaac, and especially to Richard Woodward, whose comments have been very helpful.

A truthmaker for a proposition P is exact if it contains nothing irrelevant to P. What are the exact truthmakers for necessitated propositions? This paper makes progress on this issue by showing how to extend Fine's truthmaker semantics for intuitionistic logic to an exact truthmaker semantics for intuitionistic modal logic. The project is of interest also to the classical logician: while all distinctively classical theorems may be true, they differ from the intuitionistic ones in how they are made true. This sheds new light on the status of the T and B axioms.

065 219 VIDEO FULL SHOT-THE MIDNIGHT CARNIVAL-NIGHT PAN SLOWLY over the black wagons to MOVE IN on the harpy in her cage. PAN 220 VIDEO Her pale, heavy eyes are closed, T.U 066 221 AUDIO RUKH (V.O.) (hoarse, nervous) I don't care how many damn spells you've got on her. VIDEO but they open as the CAMERA MOVES IN, blazing in the growing darkness.

The first chapter of the introductory data book, Unacknowledged Virtue of The Last Unicorn: New Data Unraveling The Process of Creation.
Though it is not commonly acknowledged, The Last Unicorn is not a typical fantasy work.  Actually, it quite often goes beyond the norm of the genre in its peculiar attempt of description of the impossible and maintained attitude of denial of the traditional value system generally adopted in romance.  Against those subversive tendencies, the main subject of the work magic is reconsidered as an attempt for speculative philosophy in view of metaphysical reassessment of fictionality.
The Last Unicorn is one of the most important works that offer critical examples for the study of consciousness and fictionality, and the animated film The Last Unicorn is a specific work that allows us to truly grasp the metaphysical idea of synchronicity.  The discovery of Topcraft studio’s internal data such as synopsis, scenario and storyboard of the animated film offers an opportunity for consideration on fictionality and individuality in fictionality-reality continuum, that suggests the fictional archetype in “omnium” state, which is full of diversity hidden behind the original work, deviations in differing manifestation modes among numberless possible presentations.  It suggests the existence of countless latent possibilities that have not yet been embodied in the phenomenal world coexisting in the superimposed state of “archetypal fictionality”, which intuitive grasp may be able to comprehend beyond the limits of logical inference in synchronicity.

En el presente artículo se pretenden analizar los elementos literarios comunes que presentan las obras teatrales El consentidor y El disentidor, de Bertolt Brecht y la película Dogville, del director Lars von Trier con el teatro oriental. Para ello, se realiza un estudio comparativo de ambas obras atendiendo a conceptos como la mímesis aristotélica, la ruptura de las unidades (prestando especial atención a la ruptura de la unidad de espacio), la hibridación genérica y la posible metalepsis o ruptura de la lógica ficcional en estas creaciones artísticas. Así mismo, siempre teniendo en cuenta estos elementos, se analizan los rasgos comunes con el teatro oriental.

Daniel Nolan successfully predicted a hyperintensional revolution in metaphysics in his 2014 paper 'Hyperintensional Metaphysicsʼ. He argued that hyperintensionality is not restricted to representations. However, it seems that one of the most promising candidates for non-representational hyperintensionality has not yet been considered as such: art. We will argue that art can provide a rather strong case for non-representational hyperintensionality. One reason for this is that the hyperintensionality of art cannot be captured via a representational kind of hyperintensionality.

Daniel Nolan successfully predicted a hyperintensional revolution in metaphysics in his 2014 paper 'Hyperintensional Metaphysicsʼ. He argued that hyperintensionality is not restricted to representations. However, it seems that one of the most promising candidates for non-representational hyperintensionality has not yet been considered as such: art. We will argue that art can provide a rather strong case for non-representational hyperintensionality. One reason for this is that the hyperintensionality of art cannot be captured via a representational kind of hyperintensionality.

The paper is devoted to the consideration of the conception of fictional objects as objects with the finite set of special (non-generic) properties. The paper provides a formulation of this concept, and compares fictional objects with arbitrary objects and real objects in the context of their possessing of generic and non-generic properties, as well as in the context of the existence of these objects in the actual world and in possible worlds. The paper ends with a discussion of several comments related to the mentioned conception of fictional objects, which were proposed after a talk on this topic at the 7th Lem’s Readings conference

The problem of modality and specifically the truth of modal claims, the source of modal knowledge, and the metaphysical status of modal facts has engaged philosophers since the beginning of speculative reasoning. Modality has been deeply analysed from various theoretical perspectives. Each puts forth distinct philosophical assumptions about language, knowledge, and reality, along with the roles these assumptions play in revealing modal reality. One might naturally assume that the theoretical rigor with which problems of modality are approached today rests solely on the development and use of formal methods in contemporary philosophy. However, it is surprising to observe that many breakthroughs in the metaphysics of modality occurred long before the formal methods of analytic philosophy. These breakthroughs reveal that foundational insights into the nature of possibility and necessity were present in earlier philosophical traditions, demonstrating a deep historical continuity in the investigation of modality. Modality: A History offers a rich and wide-ranging exploration of these deep problems surrounding modal phenomena. Although the book discusses modality primarily as a subject of philosophical interest, it also takes the reader beyond the borders of traditional philosophy, provoking reflection on philosophical problems from perspectives often considered external to philosophy proper, such cosmology, religion or music. This makes the book valuable not only to philosophers but also to those with interdisciplinary interests. The book consists of the editor's introduction, nine regular chapters arranged chronologically, and five reflections that add depth to the analysis. The first chapter, 'Aristotle on Modality' by Marko Malink, outlines Aristotle's theory of modalities as a study in its own right. Malink shows that modality plays a crucial role in Aristotle's metaphysics, particularly in his logical works and his account of final causes. Moreover, Aristotle's understanding of necessity and possibility figures prominently in reasoning about time, leading to significant investigations into fatalism. Malink's chapter also delves into how Aristotle's ideas were received by his students and further developed by the Megarics and the Stoics. In the second chapter, 'Modality in Medieval Latin Philosophy', Simo Knuuttila guides the reader through the account of modal propositions in medieval philosophy. He places particular emphasis on the necessity of the present and the importance of temporality for understanding scientific facts. Drawing on the idea of diachronic modalities, Knuuttila explores the relationship between modality and temporality, particularly as it relates to an extensional framework for understanding the world. He concludes by discussing intentional modals and modal logic, offering insights into how medieval thinkers understood the overlap between language, thought, and modal truth. Knuuttila's chapter illustrates that the medieval period was not merely a bridge between ancient and modern philosophy, but rather a rich era for investigating modality, especially in its reflections on the relationship between time and modality.

This is an exploration of some problems of nonexistence, with special attention paid to Nathan Salmón’s account of merely possible and impossible objects (or entities or things). According to this account, we can refer to such objects and attribute properties to them. The terms ‘possible’ and ‘impossible’ should be understood in the familiar metaphysical sense, so that a merely possible object is one that does not exist at the actual world but exists at some metaphysically possible world (it could exist even though it does not) and an impossible object is one that does not exist at any metaphysically possible world (it could not exist at all). Other nonexistents, such as objects that once existed at the actual world but no longer do, will also be discussed, but mainly by way of comparison to merely possible and impossible objects. Salmón subscribes to both the direct reference theory of names and the Millian theory of names. Section I is a preliminary discussion of these theories, contrasting them with the formerly orthodox views of Frege and Russell. Section II presents Salmón’s account of merely possible and impossible objects. Sections III and IV are an evaluation and defense of a modified version of the account. Among other things, it is argued that Salmón’s account does not slip into any problematic form of Meinongianism. However, section V questions why Salmón’s account of impossible objects would not extend to Meinong’s notorious round square.

La propuesta modal que Doležel (1999) plantea para el análisis de los mundos posibles del texto literario cuenta con la ventaja de caracterizar la nómina de existencia del mundo ficticio desde su actuación y valoración en el mismo. No obstante, la tendencia inmanentista de la propuesta obvia las entidades pragmáticas de autor y lector desde las que el mundo posible es valorado de acuerdo con la realidad efectiva en la que estas se ubican. Así, planteamos en este estudio una apertura de los cuatro operadores modales hacia su dimensión pragmática a partir del establecimiento de una analogía entre el fundamento peirceano y las modalidades narrativas. Esta analogía evidencia que la accesibilidad semiótica entre el mundo fictivo y la realidad efectiva de autor y lector establece la valoración de verosimilitud que determina la caracterización del modelo de mundo resultante.

Structural rules Classical consequence P ⇒ C from a finite sequence of premises P to a conclusion C says that C is true in every situation where all of the propositions in P are true. Without displaying any logical operations in the language at all, whether Booleans, quantifiers, or modalities, this bare-bones relation between abstract premises and abstract conclusions satisfies a number of interesting principles high-lighted in Scott 1971 and later publications. These are the following structural rules:

According to an important part of the Kabbalistic tradition, God is Ayin, that is, God is no thing whatsoever. God is nothing, indeed. Unfortunately, it remains unclear what this really means. My paper aims at casting some philosophical light on this obscure set of ideas, and it tries to accomplish this task in the following way. First of all, I argue that 'Ayin' cannot be understood as a quantificational term, for this would ignore the grammar of the word ‘Ayin’ and misconstrue the intended meaning of what Kabbalist thinkers claim about it. Secondly, I argue that 'Ayin' cannot be understood as an empty term, for this would deliver an uncharitable way of reading what Kabbalists claim about Ayin. According to some of the most important semantics of empty terms, claims about Ayin would, in fact, turn out to be either false or neither-true-nor-false. To conclude, I argue that ‘Ayin’ can be understood as a non-empty term, that is, a term which refers to something. After discussing some of the problems we face in identifying the referent of 'Ayin' with Jacquette's N-nothing, the empty world and the empty set, I argue that it might be promising to appeal to what mereologists call the null individual.

En este trabajo, señalamos el hecho paradójico según el cual la ficción argentina vino a dar voz a los sujetos subalternos (Spivak, 2003) y reconocemos, en primer lugar, las operaciones efectuadas por Bartolomé Hidalgo y Esteban Echeverría a partir de las posibles interacciones entre los paradigmas culturales «civilizado» y «bárbaro». Posteriormente, elaboramos un breve excursus teórico y abordamos Una excursión a los indios ranqueles de Lucio V. Mansilla para comprender cómo la obra desarticula los estereotipos establecidos por el «discurso público argentino» (González, 2012) en torno a una otredad de carácter monstruoso. Reconocemos así su inscripción en la «heterodoxia literaria» (Bocco et al, 2023), al tiempo que advertimos la instauración de una nueva «ortodoxia» que, desde principios de este siglo, se ha dedicado a revisar, cuestionar y/o deconstruir los estereotipos y las dinámicas entre otredades forjados por los textos canónicos decimonónicos. En este marco, situamos la obra de Carlos Gamerro y analizamos las inflexiones de las voces populares en sus dos novelas emplazadas en el siglo XIX, identificando aquellas operaciones que vuelven sobre la fórmula civilización/barbarie para auscultarla con mayor amplitud y profundidad.

It has been a while since I’ve been captivated by ‘the incredulous stare’ and its persistent role in the history of philosophy. This silent yet expressive gesture, often signaling disbelief or scepticism, serves as a kind of philosophical punctuation—a non-verbal response to ideas that challenge conventional thinking. From ancient dialogues to modern philosophical debates, the incredulous stare embodies the tension between accepted norms and provocative thought, prompt- ing both parties in a philosophical debate to reassess their assump- tions. This essay presents an exploration of the ‘incredulous stare’, a re- action in philosophy to theories that seem counterintuitive or incred- ible. I claim that the incredulous stare, while often seen as a resistance to certain theories, is not a decisive argument against them. Rather, I argue that it is a marker of deeper philosophical debates. Portions of this essay have been presented at the 2023 Austral- asian Association of Philosophy (AAP) conference in Melbourne, as well as departmental seminars in Bratislava, Oxford, and Bristol. I am deeply grateful to the participants of these events for their insightful questions, feedback, and stimulating discussions, which have pushed me to rethink and refine key aspects of this work. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the anonymous re- viewers whose thoughtful critiques and recommendations helped re- fine and clarify many of the arguments presented in this essay. Their detailed comments have been invaluable, and any remaining errors or oversights are entirely my responsibility. This essay has been funded by VEGA 2/0125/22.

This paper examines the structure of moral paradoxes, arguing that moral dilemmas are grounded in moral agents and necessitate the same explanation as the logical behavior of these agents. Consequently, logical and moral laws derive from a different source than nomological and metaphysical laws. Furthermore, it is asserted that logical and moral laws are pluralistic in nature, permitting numerous logical deviations without leading to absurdity.

Counterfactuals abound in science, especially when one deals with models. Some models, namely highly idealized models, have assumptions that are metaphysically impossible. This means that in science one has often to deal with counterpossibles. According to the standard semantics for counterfactuals, all counterpossibles are vacuously true. But scientific practice shows that counterpossibles are not always regarded as vacuously true by scientists. To do justice of the use of counterpossibles in science, some authors think that we should adopt a semantics that allows for impossible worlds. It seems difficult to reconcile the role played by highly idealized models in science with scientific realism. Nevertheless, some authors think that it is possible to provide a realist account of highly idealized models. In this view, scientific realism should not be interpreted as the claim that models aim to provide accurate representations of models' targets, rather it should be interpreted as the claim that models aim to provide true modal information about models' targets. This variant of scientific realism seems to imply a commitment to some form of modal realism. I develop an objection to that variant of scientific realism by elaborating on some arguments originally developed to show that there are unknowable facts.

In this paper, I list various kinds of 'plurality' in philosophical investigations. By plurality, I mean a plurality of methodological criteria which we apply to philosophical phenomena and which are very often incompatible with each other. Any philosophical phenomenon can be approached from different methodological viewpoints and result in utterly different ontological and ideological commitments. In other words, I assume that one philosophical problem can have different solutions which depend on different methodological and theoretical presuppositions. Instead of considering this feature of philosophical theories as a problem, I take this plurality as a natural meta-philosophical result. As an example, I consider impossible phenomena and ways of treating them systematically.

Cet article présente une étude menée dans le cadre du deuxième colloque international de la SIRFF, intitulé Fictions Impossibles. Il analyse le roman de science-fiction "The Lathe of Heaven" (1971) d'Ursula Le Guin qui semble défier les limites du monde réel en remettant en question les lois physiques, les principes logiques et les limites anthropologiques actuels. En utilisant le cadre conceptuel de la théorie littéraire des mondes possibles de Marie-Laure Ryan, l'article explore les impossibilités présentes dans l'œuvre et examine si elles suffisent à remettre en question le modèle de monde logiquement consistant qui caractérise les œuvres de science-fiction.  Ces impossibilités créent-elles un monde impossible qui remet en question nos connaissances du monde réel ? Et dans ce cas, comment ce monde fictionnel impossible peut-il être compris ?

Some55years after thepublicationofRussell’s seminal
‘OnDenoting’, Quine adopted the theory of definite
descriptionspresentedthereintoformulatehisperspicuous
linguafrancafor thesciences.Thispaper illustrateshow,
insodoing,Quine’s linguafrancainheritedanoldantin
omyatthecoreofRussell’stheoryofdefinitedescriptions,
specifically, the lackofcongruencybetweennotationand
metaphysicalcommitmentswhenthevariableassumesthe
roleoffundamentalsingularreference.Inthiscontext, the
papercontendsthatthephrase‘tobeispurelyandsimply
tobethevalueofthevariable’ isfarfromthestraightfor
ward solutionQuine initially envisioned for his lingua
franca.Additionally, it argues that it isunlikely that an
attempt toaccount foradeterminateobject theory, such
asthosepropoundedbyRussellandQuine,canprovesuc
cessfulwhengroundedinareferentialtheoryofquantifica
tional logicwherethevariable, seenasasimplerangeof
values, holds fundamental singular referent-position.The
paperconcludesbysuggestingthatMeinong’sobject the
orycouldresolvetheproblemofthevariable,albeitatthe
cost of potentially undesirable ontological and logical
commitments. Alternatively,Kit Fine’s recent workon
otherantinomies inthevariablemayprovideapromising
approachtoexploringhowtosalvagethevariableasafor
malfoundationforontology

Introduction 1 Modality 1 Applications of Possible Worlds 2 What are Possible Worlds? 2 Impossible Worlds 3 Conclusion 4 References 4 Key Points • actuality • possibility • analysis of nonemodal claims • analysis of modal claims • impossibility

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the nature and role of hypothetical reasoning about impossibilities. The interest in this subject stems from the simple observation that wondering is an inherent aspect of our experience. Whether one regrets choosing a taxicab over the subway or contemplates the outcome of an election turning out differently, the question 'What would have happened if...?' is a familiar one. While we often focus on possible scenarios, we also ponder impossible ones: What if whales were fish? What if a man could be in two places at once? What if one could draw a round square?

Puzzles concerning such questions sparked a heated discussion over the nature and role of hypothetical reasoning about impossibilities. This book goes beyond being an opinionated introduction to this debate. After comparing various approaches to this issue, it proposes a novel perspective that draws on considerations from epistemology and the philosophy of explanation and dependence.

Targeting researchers and students interested in the philosophy of modalities, this book delivers an in-depth analysis of a captivating and often overlooked aspect of human reasoning.

Los valores de la función zeta de Riemann y los números primos están relacionados, cuando se evalúa en valores de parte Real >1, pero eso NO significa los ceros de zeta y los números primos están igualmente distribuidos, o que se pueda conseguir la distribución de unos en términos de la de los otros, a lo mas que se ha llegado es que si la HR fuese cierta, se podría saber un "poquito" mas, sobre como se acumulan aproximadamente los números primos o como se comporta aproximadamente el siguiente número primo, sin ser pleno conocimiento de la distribución de los números primos, ni nos pone en condiciones de generar exactamente el siguiente número primo, en términos del anterior.