Classical Theism, Philosophy, and Religion Forum / Resources for modal claims?

**Posted by Freakazoid** 9/20/2017 6:29 pm

Does anyone have some good resources on how Thomists approach modal claims? I realize that they are averse to standard possible worlds talk, but I don't know much after that.

**Posted by RomanJoe** 9/20/2017 11:50 pm

David Oderberg is sympathetic towards Thomism and he addresses modal claims in his book Real Essentialism.

**Posted by DanielCC** 9/21/2017 5:00 am

Freakazoid wrote:
Does anyone have some good resources on how Thomists approach modal claims? I realize that they are averse to standard possible worlds talk, but I don't know much after that.

Thomists are committed to a theistic version of the Powers theory of modality (the standard theory of modality for Aristotelian). Alexander Pruss has a book length study, Actuality, Possibility and Worlds, which defends this account as well as short essay introducing it:

The Actual and the Possible

This should be the go-to for those interested in Thomist and more generally theo-centric modal accounts.

Philosophers who endorse Thomist metaphysics, as opposed manualist disciples, have no reason to object to possible world semantics though they will of course reject theories that assay worlds as anything other than grounded in the Divine Mind. They do however claim along with mainstream Aristoteleans that possesion of a property across possible worlds is too coarse-grained a definition to capture what it means for something to have an essence.Kit Fine has an essay which goes into this in more depth:

Essence and Modality

Last edited by DanielCC (9/21/2017 5:14 am)

**Posted by Freakazoid** 9/21/2017 4:29 pm

RomanJoe wrote:
David Oderberg is sympathetic towards Thomism and he addresses modal claims in his book Real Essentialism.

Thank you. I actually have the book somewhere, I've just only read parts of it.

DanielCC wrote:
Philosophers who endorse Thomist metaphysics, as opposed manualist disciples, have no reason to object to possible world semantics though they will of course reject theories that assay worlds as anything other than grounded in the Divine Mind. They do however claim along with mainstream Aristoteleans that possesion of a property across possible worlds is too coarse-grained a definition to capture what it means for something to have an essence.Kit Fine has an essay which goes into this in more depth:

Thank you. I take it that this is why Pruss combines Aristotle (branching possibilities) with Leibniz (the Divine Mind)? From what I've gathered, he thinks that you need to "extend" the reach of the traditional Aristotelian account.

**Posted by Callum** 9/22/2017 2:10 pm

Freakazoid you won't chapter 1 if you go to Oderberg's book. I just received it yesterday!