Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
Abstract
Actualism is an ontological thesis according to which the domain of existent objects and the domain of actual ones are the same. According to this thesis, we do not need to commit to any non-actual objects for solving any philosophical problems. The approach of Bernard Linsky, Edward N. Zalta and Michael Nelson is one of the current approaches to the actualism which is known as “New Actualism”. They offer a new presupposition about existent objects according to which a concrete object is in fact contingently concrete object and a non-concrete object, if not be (unlike the number 11) an abstract one is (like the Masaya’s child) contingently non-concrete object. So, by supposing contingently non-concrete objects, they can present a model with fixed domain and not-world-restricted quantifiers which can validate formulas like Barcan Formula, Conversion of Barcan Formula, Necessary Existence and Iterated Modality and offer a suitable explanation for intuitions which support the formula of Possibility of Aliens. However, some critics like Karen Bennett believe that in this approach, some non-actual entities have enumerated as actual objects and consequently New Actualism is a kind of Proxy Actualism. In this article, by adopting an opponent position to Karen Bennett’s one, we try to describe New Actualism and some criticisms about it and to show that New Actualism is not a kind of Proxy Actualism.
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