Review of Fabrice Correia and Sven Rosenkranz, Nothing to Come: A Defence of the Growing Block Theory of Time (Springer, 2018)

Philosophy

College of Arts and Letters Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2019.03.15 Everything Fabrice Correia and Sven Rosenkranz Nothing to Come: A Defence of the Growing Block Theory of Time Published: March 12, 2019 Fabrice Correia and Sven Rosenkranz, Nothing to Come: A Defence of the Growing Block Theory of Time, Springer, 2018, 197pp., $99.99 (hbk), ISBN 9783319787039. Reviewed by Ulrich Meyer, Colgate University In this carefully argued book, Fabrice Correia and Sven Rosenkranz present a version of the growing block theory that they claim to be immune to the usual objections against this theory of time. I think they are right that their proposal does indeed enjoy such immunity, but I am not sure that their proposal is what other people had in mind when they endorsed the growing block theory. According to the way people usually think of the proposal, the growing block theory claims that past and present are real, but not the future. While all facts about the past are settled, the future is still open. As time goes by, the block of reality grows, with new layers of reality constantly being added to the past. Understood in this way, the growing block theory is one of a range of views in the philosophy of time that claim that the present moment is metaphysically privileged. While every time might describe itself as being present, there is only one time that is right about this. The objectively present time is the one time that characterizes the edge of the growing block, where the open future turns into the settled past. The standard objections to the growing block theory all focus on this proposed account of presentness. The Epistemic Objection denies that the present is special in the particular way indicated by the growing block theory; the Relativity Objection claims any attempt at singling out the present as metaphysically privileged runs afoul of our best physics. The growing block theory proposed by Correia and Rosenkranz – which I shall call 'GBT' – avoids these difficulties by not postulating a property of presentness at all. GBT describes a world of constant creation in which nothing ever gets destroyed. While new things continuously come into existence, GBT claims that nothing ever goes out of existence. That is all there is to GBT. (This is the upshot of the two postulates P1 and P2 on pages 43 and 44 that jointly define GBT.) THE FUTURE GBT is based on a standard propositional tense logic that gets presented in Chapter 1 and Appendix 1. A model for this logic is a set of times equipped with an earlier-than relation < plus some other structure that we need not worry about here. A pasttense claim Pφ ("it was the case that φ") is then said to be true at a time u just in case the embedded sentence φ is true at some time v such that v<u. Future-tense claims get evaluated in a symmetric manner. A claim of the form Fφ ("it will be the case that φ") is true at u just in case φ is true at some time v such that u<v. This tense logic postulates no fundamental difference between the past and the future. If we take a model and flip past and future, by changing < to its converse, then we get another model of the same system of tense logic. The system also validates bivalence for future-tense claims. For any sentence φ and any time u in any model, either Fφ or F¬φ is true at u. If we follow Michael Dummett and identify anti-realism about a subject matter with a failure of bivalence, then this tense logic – and hence GBT – is as realist about the future as it is about the past. There are systems of tense logic that do not have this feature, and which combine a realist account of the past with an antirealist account of the future. By opting for a standard system of tense logic in Chapter 1, Correia and Rosenkranz decline these alternative proposals from the outset. The authors say more about this in Chapter 7, where they argue that the only plausible way of making sense of the alleged openness of the future is in terms of indeterministic laws of nature, rather than in terms of a failure of bivalence. I am inclined to agree with them on this point (see my 2016), but I suspect that many growing block theorists will object that this abandons a central tenet of their view: that the present forms the boundary between the settled past and the open future. QUANTIFIED TENSE LOGIC For Correia and Rosenkranz, the asymmetry between past and future can only be captured by adding quantifiers to their system of tense logic. They claim that there is only one sense of 'everything' and that this is what their quantifiers express (p. 63) but I am not sure the matter is quite that simple. Similar to the modal case, combining tense operators and quantifiers is a non-trivial matter and there are at least three different ways of setting up a quantified tense logic. One option is to use time-relative quantifiers that have different ranges at different times. At each moment in time, these quantifiers range over what exists then. In this case, we can define a time-relative existence predicate E! in terms of quantification and identity, by regarding E!x as an abbreviation for ∃y y=x. The second option is to adopt untensed quantifiers that always range over the same objects, irrespective of whether these objects exist at the time at which we evaluate the quantifiers. To express time-relative existence claims, we would then need an independent existence predicate that cannot be defined in terms of quantification. A third option is to adopt untensed quantifiers and to retain the definition of E! in terms of quantification and identity. Our quantified tense logic would then entail that everything always exists. In the modal case, this view is advocated by Timothy Williamson (2002), who thinks that all objects exist necessarily. What other theories regard as merely possible objects, Williamson regards as necessary objects that happen to lack almost all properties in the actual world. Correia and Rosenkranz take quantification to be "unrestricted" (p. 13), which might suggest an untensed reading of the quantifiers. But that is not in fact their view. According to clause L8 of their model theory on p. 169, their quantifiers are time-relative. At each time u, the quantifiers range over the domain D(u) of things that exist then. Untensed quantifiers allow us to generate a complete system of quantified tense logic by combining a standard system of propositional tense logic with a standard system of quantificational logic and tensed Barcan formulae. This yields a tenseanalogue of the simplest quantified modal logic of Bernard Linsky and Edward Zalta (1994). The logic of time-relative quantifiers is more complicated. These quantifiers require changes to the underlying system of quantificational logic, such as the modified rule of universal instantiation A19 on p. 166. That they use time-relative quantifiers is not an objection to the view advanced by Correia and Rosenkranz. There are different ways of carving up the logical territory and this is the one they pick. In addition to standard tense operators and time-relative quantifiers, their system also includes an "at" operator that allows us to make claims about what is true at a particular time. The technical details of all this get spelled out in Chapters 2–4 and Appendix A1. Once all of this is in place, GBT can then be characterized as follows. Given any times u and v such that u<v, GBT claims that the domain Du of all objects that exist at the earlier time u is strictly contained in the domain Dv of all the objects that exist at the later time: Du⊂Dv. In other words, the domain of quantification strictly increases over time. At each time, something exists then that has never existed before, and nothing ever goes out of existence. According to GBT, the future is distinguished from the past as the direction in which the domain of quantification increases. THE EPISTEMIC OBJECTION One objection to the growing block theory is that it would saddle us with two senses of 'now'. There is the ordinary indexical nowi, tokens of which refer to the time of utterance. But the growing block theory also postulates a metaphysical nowm that picks out the edge of the growing block. The question is how nowi and nowm are related. If the growing block theory is right then there are many tokens of nowi that are stuck inside the block, far from the edge. What guarantees that we are not in this position? How do we know that, right now, the edge of the block is located at this very moment? That is, how do we know that nowi is nowm? The Epistemic Objection, which was first raised by Craig Bourne and David Braddon-Mitchell, claims that the growing block theory has no plausible answers to these questions. As we learn in Chapter 6, GBT avoids this problem altogether because it does not postulate a metaphysical nowm at all. GBT describes a world with a constantly increasing domain of quantification, but it does not stipulate the existence of a block of reality with a present edge that marks the border between a real past and an unreal future. (This is a direct consequence of the standard tense logic that Correia and Rosenkranz adopt in Chapter 1.) THE RELATIVITY OBJECTION If there were a metaphysical nowm then that would allow us to define an absolute notion of simultaneity in terms of colocation on the edge of the growing block. This would risk contradicting the theory of relativity, which is widely thought to reject a notion of absolute simultaneity. By not postulating a metaphysical nowm, GBT avoids this problem as well. However, Chapter 8 notes that this not the end of the matter. While GBT does not postulate a metaphysical nowm, it does help itself to an absolute temporal order relation <, which is not compatible with relativity theory, either. To overcome this problem, Chapter 9 and Appendix 2 present a way of spelling out the "constant creation" idea behind GBT in relativistic setting. CONCLUSION I think that Correia and Rosenkranz do indeed succeed at the task that they set themselves in the beginning of the book. Their proposal GBT is immune to the standard objections to the growing block theory. I am less sure whether other advocates of the growing block theory will regard it as a defense of their position. They might complain that GBT abandons the very thing that was distinctive about their view: a theory of presentness with a fixed past and an open future. While GBT avoids the problems of other growing block theories, it does run into a new problem of its own making. According to GBT, existence is a one-way street: objects can be created, but no object can ever be destroyed. It is certainly possible for the domain of quantification to strictly increase over time in this way, but that possibility does not appear to be actual. While you were reading this sentence, millions of photons were created, existed for a while, and then went out of existence again. Or at least that is what our physics suggests. Yet if we take this at face value then the actual world is a counter-example to GBT. I wish Correia and Rosenkranz had said a little bit more about how they would deal with this problem. REFERENCES Linsky, Bernard and Zalta, Edward (1994) "In Defense of the Simplest Quantified Modal Logic" Philosophical Perspectives 8, 431–458. Meyer, Ulrich (2016) "Fatalism as a Metaphysical Thesis" Manuscrito 39, 203–223. Williamson, Timothy (2002) "Necessary existents" in Anthony O'Hear (ed.) Logic, Thought and Language, Cambridge University Press, 233–251. Copyright © 2019 ISSN: 1538 1617 College of Arts and Letters Accessibility Information Notre Dame, IN


Philosophy

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Critical appreciation of the poem "Ode to the West Wind ". ~Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri. "The proper study of mankind is man." Shelley holds a unique place in English literature by virtue of his power of making myths out of the objects and forces of Nature. Clutton-Brock has discussed in detail Shelley"s mythmaking power as revealed in the Ode to the West Wind: "It has been said that Shelley was a myth-maker. His myths were not to him mere caprices of fancy. They expressed by the only means which human language provides for the expression of such things, that sense which he possessed, of a more intense reality in nature than is felt by other men. To most of us, the forces of nature have little meanings. But for Shelley, these forces had as much reality as human beings. Have for most of us, and he found the same kind of intense significance in their manifestations of beauty that we find in the beauty of human belongs or of great works of art. The nature of this significance, he could not explain; but he could express it with enormous power in his art, and with a precision of statement which seems miraculous where the nature of the subject matter is considered... to Shelley, the West Wind was still a wind, and the cloud a cloud, however intense a reality they might have for him. ...we are not wrought upon to feel anything human in the wind"s power; but if we are susceptible to Shelley" magic, we are filled with a new sense of the life and significance and reality of nature." "Who shall decide when doctors disagree?" The poem ""Ode to the West Wind"" was written in the autumn of 1819, in the beautiful Cascine Gardens outside Florence and was published with ""Prometheus Unbound"" in 1820. The poet is himself in a mood of despondency and misery and says that he falls upon the thorns of life and is bleeding. He is seeking reawakening also through the poem and wants the wind to carry his dead thoughts and ideas like it has taken the leaves and wants fresh ideas to take birth. This is possible only if he first gets rid of stale ideas and thoughts and learns to replace them with new ones. In that sense even the poet is feeling a sort of intellectual deaths and is desirous of being given a new lease of life. "This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once wild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions." Nothing can surpass Shelley"s poetic description of himself in "Adonais", as a "frail form", "a phantom among men", "companionless" as "the last cloud of an expiring storm"The life of Shelley lays worlds apart from that of Byron. His treatment of Harriet apart, his private life was not vicious, but on the contrary in many respects exemplary. As far as the ideas, which he sang, were capable of application to life, he applied them in his own conduct. He preached the equality of man and he proved that he was willing to practice it. He was generous and benevolent to a fault. "Thunder is good; thunder is impressive. But it is lightening that does the work." Shelley started writing very early, but his first major work came in 1811. This was Queen Mab, along poem. It is a revolutionary poem, but there is much confusion in the development of the story. The next great poem "Alastor" came in 1815. In the same year he produced Mount Blanc and Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. These poems expressed the poet"s idealism. In the latter of the two poems, the poet expresses his feeling of the presence of a spirit in nature. In 1818-19, came the great drama, Prometheus Unbound. This is a major poem. As a drama it is not much of a success, but both in theme and in its individual songs it achieves greatness. In 1819, came another great play, The Cenci. This play portrays absolute evil as Prometheus Unbound portrays absolute goodness. This was followed by "The Witch of Atlas "and "Epipsychidion". In the same year published "Adonais", a lament on the death of the poet Keats. In the last year of his life (1822) Shelley wrote Hellas. Shelley left an unfinished poem, Triumph of Life. In addition to these long poems, Shelley wrote a large number of lyrics. The most well-known of these are "Ode to the West WinD", "To a Skylark" and "The Cloud". It is in these lyrics that we often find Shelley at his best. "Ode to the West Wind" is a great achievement-a poem in which great thought is combined with great art. Most of his lyrics are love poems. Many of them express the poet"s deep joy in life as well as his deep sorrow. "The weight of the superincumbent hour, It is a dying lamp, a falling shower; A breaking billow;" Shelley sets up a humanity glorified through love; he worships in the sanctuary left vacant by "the great absence of God" (His youthful atheism lacked warmth and in the end he turned to a type of pantheism). Love, as exemplified in his personal life, is a passionate kind of sensuality which becomes his simple moral code with no duty, blame, or obligation attached. The reign of love when no authority was necessary was his millennium. Most of Shelley"s poems are sad in tone and as such he is regarded as "the singer of endless sorrows", but this is not true of all his poems. Whenever he writes of the future of mankind, he turns ecstatically optimistic. "To err is human, to forgive divine." Shelley believed in a soul of the Universe, a Spirit in which all things live and move and have their being. His most passionate desire was for the mystical fusion of his own personality with his spirit. Spontaneity and fluidity are the proof of his wealth of imagination. There is no effect of laborious artistry about Shelley"s style at any time. According to Bradley," The language is poetical through and through, not, as sometimes with Wordsworth, only half-poetical, and yet it seems to drop from Shelley"s lips. It is not wrought and kneaded; it flows." The subsequent thought of the future at once turns his melancholy into ecstatic rapture and he ends the poem with one of the most optimistic and memorable prophecies about the future of mankind. The ecstasy arises out of his ardent belief in the imminent regeneration of mankind and the end of all evils. He hopes that all forms of tyranny and oppression will be replaced, in the millennium to come, by all-round happiness. The joyous rapture is born of an intense feeling of optimism. "And fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Most of Shelley"s poetry is symbolic. Shelley makes use of symbolism by means of his normal use of images including the personified forces of life and nature. He looks upon the West Wind as a personified force of nature and finds in it various symbolic meanings to suit the purpose of the poem. The West Wind drives the last signs of life from the trees and also scatters the seeds which will come to life in spring. In this way the Wind appears to the poet as a destroyer of the old order and a preserver of the new, i.e., a symbol of change. The Wind also symbolizes Shelley"s own personality. When he was a boy he was one like the Wind: "tameless, and swift, and proud." He still possesses these qualities but they lie suppressed under "a heavy weight of hours." In "Ode to West Wind", the poet begins his invocation in a buoyant mood. He looks upon the Wind as the destroyer of the present order and usherer of a new one. In the course of the poem, Shelley"s pessimism reaches its peak. He suddenly remembers his own plight: "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!" Shelley"s sky-lyrics-""Ode to the West Wind"", ""The Cloud"" and ""To A Skylark""-have all been interpreted as having symbolic significance. The West Wind drives away the old, pale; hectic- red leaves and scatters fresh seeds over the ground. Shelley thus looks upon the Wind as a destroyer of the old order and the usherer of a new one i.e., as a symbol of the forces that will end all evil and bring about the golden millennium in which there will be nothing but peace and happiness for mankind. In the poem The Cloud, the brief life of a Cloud has also been constructed by such critics as a symbol of the immortality of the soul. However, there is no doubt that his concept of the Skylark is entirely symbolic. Shelley"s Skylark, is not just a bird but an embodiment of this ideal, the poet can hear its song but the bird ever remains invisible. The skylark, by its very nature, also symbolizes Shelley"s own poetic spirit. "Ideals are like stars. We never reach them but, like mariners on the sea, we chart our course by them." Among the Romantic poets, Shelley is marveled for his inimitable abstract ideas, but he is less of an artist .He was aiming not at the poetry of art, but at the poetry of rapture. Keats advised him to be "more an artist" and to "load every rift with ore", but Shelley was aiming at a different effect from that of Keats"s richly decorated and highly finished poetry. The poem" Ode to the West Wind" is universally accepted as one of the best poems in English Literature. The poem is remarkable for its theme, range of thought, spontaneity, poetic beauty, lyrical quality, and quick movement similar to that of the wind itself. This poem along with the "The Cloud" and "The Skylark", mark an abiding monument to Shelley"s passion for the sky. Shelley himself writes: "I take great delight in watching the change in the atmosphere." The west wind wakes the Mediterranean up from its summer dreams and even manages to shake up the otherwise quite calm Atlantic Ocean. For its path the ocean starts to create cracks and the might of the west wind is so great that even the moss and flowers under the sea begin to tremble with fear. Thus, the west wind acquires the quality of being fearful and creating terror. The clouds are carried by the wind to a tomb and are locked there. During this season, the strong wind does not let the clouds gather easily since it blows them away. Shelley imagines that the wind gathers the clouds in a sepulcher till they have enough strength to burst forth and bring rain. Again the idea of destroyer and preserver is implicit. The clouds are destroyed and without rain the earth becomes barren but then clouds burst bringing rain which brings earth back to life. There is greenery everywhere and earth is rejuvenated. "Poetry is like a perfume which on evaporation leaves in our soul essence of beauty." Shelley calls the west wind the "dirge of the dying year" and in these words is hidden the idea of rebirth. The west wind once again brings winter and December but the end of the year implies the birth of a new one since December is followed by January and the new year with new hopes and resolutions. The poet is himself in a mood of despondency and misery and says that he falls upon the thorns of life and is bleeding. He is seeking reawakening also through the poem and wants the wind to carry his dead thoughts and ideas like it has taken the leaves and wants fresh ideas to take birth. This is possible only if he first gets rid of stale ideas and thoughts and learns to replace them with new ones. In that sense even the poet is feeling a sort of intellectual deaths and is desirous of being given a new lease of life. "Wild Spirit,which art moving everywhereDestroyer and Preserver-hear,O hear!" Shelley"s idea of the Islands of Delight as expressed in "Lines Written among the Euganean Hills", is merely a product of an unfounded optimism and has no logical bearing. Shelley"s faith is no doubt genuine and intense, but it comes from his abstract visions, not from sound logical reasoning. He is ever haunted by the Eternal Mind. He constantly endeavours to look beyond the evil of life and chases the invisible and impalpable. He gives various names to this unattainable thing. In his Hymn To Intellectual Beauty, he describes it as the spirit of Beauty pervading the universe. He speaks of it as an "unseen power" that rarely visits human hearts as an "awful loveliness" that can free this world from tyranny and oppression. Thus, a profound note of yearning for the unattainable is another feature of Shelley"s poetry. According to Cazamian,"The tone of Shelley"s poetry is that of a keen aspiration, in which mystical desire, with its anguished pangs and spiritual raptures, transcends the joys and sufferings of ordinary mankind." Shelley is pessimistic about the present but optimistic about the future. He believes that regeneration always follows destruction and that a new and utopian order is certain to come when the present degenerate system is ended. His optimism about the imminent dawn of a golden age is genuine and firm and his prophecy of that millennium underlies most of his poems. In Ode to West Wind also this prophetic note is present and present with the greatest intensity of expression. Shelley had a deep interest in ancient Greeks. His enthusiasm for the wisdom of the Greek philosophers is implicit in many of his poems. This gives Shelley a sharper appreciation of natural forms and the theory that artists and poets must try to remove the worldly cover from objects and expose the underlying ideal prototype. Platonism appeals to him most because the guiding power behind the ideal forms serves him in lieu of a religion. In "Adonais", Shelley"s Platonism has found the most elaborate expression. Like the other Romantic poets, Shelley too was an ardent lover of Nature. Like Wordsworth, Shelley conceives of Nature as one spirit, the Supreme Power working through all things "The one spirit"s plastic distress/ Sweeps through the dull dense world." Again he personifies each object of nature as an individual life, a part of that Supreme Power, Nature. He celebrates nature in most of his poems as his main theme such as ""The Cloud"", ""To a Skylark"", and ""To the Moon"". ""Ode to the West Wind"", ""A Dream of the Unknown"". The tone of pessimism set in the beginning with "dead","ghosts","corpse in grave" reaches its climax with " I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed". In the last stanzas the poet moves from the natural to the human misery and the mention of the hearth combines the two because hearth is seen as the centre of the earth where the natural world and the human one merge. The poet is seeking transcendence into the sublime as did Wordsworth in Tintern Abbey. The affinity of temper between them prompts the poet to appeal to the Wind to save him from his present plight. At this hour of distress the poet can look upon the Wind as a competent savior, a symbol of aid and relief. Finally, the West Wind is treated by the poet as representing the forces that can help bring about the golden millennium, when the miseries and agonies of mankind will be replaced by all round happiness. "And gentle Dullness ever loves a joke." Shelley shows no sense of history and cannot put forth the cause and remedies of the evils he finds in human society. He has an intense belief that regeneration of mankind is imminent but cannot tell us why and how it is coming. His West Wind is a symbol of the forces that will bring about this regeneration: it is nothing more. He has never told us what these forces symbolized by the wind are in reality. Shelley belongs to the younger generation of Romantic poets. Like the other two poets of his generation, he died young. His poetry divided itself into two distinct moods. In one he is the violent reformer seeking to overthrow the present institutions" in order to bring about the Golden Age. "A little learning is a dangerous thing." Sometimes Shelley becomes pantheistic in his concept of nature when he seems to believe that every aspect of nature is a manifestation of only one and invisible soul or spirit and that after the end of the earthly existence, everything is reunited with that one soul. "...that sustaining love Which through the web of being blindly wove By man and beast and earth and air and sea." Shelley"s lyrics are surpassingly musical and sweet. Swinburne was ecstatic in his tribute to this aspect of Shelley"s lyricism. Shelley out sang all poets on record, but some two or three throughout all time; his depths and heights of inner and outer music are as diverse as nature"s and not sooner exhaustible. He was alone the perfect singing God; his thoughts words and deeds all sang together. Arnold, one of the worst critics of Shelley, admired his music and remarked: "the right sphere of Shelley"s genius was the sphere of music." Shelley"s careful handling of diction fitting into the sense of his lines enhances the musical quality keeping with the swift, of his lyrics. The rhythm of Ode to the West Wind is thus exactly in gusty march of the wind itself: "O wild West Wind, thou breathe of Autumn"s being." Shelley never allows morbidity to overcome the enjoyment in his lyrics. Self-pity is no doubt his favorite theme, but in his lyrics, he presents this self-pity, not as something to be feared, but as an essential part of life. Shelley"s readers are never depressed because they are constantly reminded that sufferings lie only in the present and that in future all sufferings will be replaced by pure happiness. His despondency is soon replaced by an ecstatic rapture of joy when he comes to think of the future happiness of mankind, of the millennium to come: "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" Shelley calls the west wind a destroyer and a preserver at the same time. It is a destroyer because it makes the trees shed their leaves making them bare. The west wind is called a preserver since it carries the seeds to places where they lie in hibernation during the winter and when the sister of west wind, the east wind blows in spring time, they start to germinate and blossom into many different colored flowers. Winter is often seen as death since plants die and many animals hide themselves for the season. The earth looks barren and appears lifeless but spring is a time of rejuvenation, flowers blossom and insects and animals begin to start life again. The poet gives the credit of carrying the seeds to a safer place in winter to the west wind. This way it becomes the destroyer and the preserver. "(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in the air) With living hues and odours plain and hillWild Spirit, which art moving everywhereDestroyer and Preserver –hear,O hear!" This co-existence of pessimism and optimism-the swift replacement of one by the other-is a major attractive feature of Shelley"s lyric poetry. This poem is considered to be one of the finest lyrics in English poetry because of its sentiments and the perfect technical construction. The poet touches on the four elementsearth, sky, weather and fire and the transition from the wind to himself is very smooth one and does not feel enforced. It is a complex poem because of the number of similes and they do not appear to be enforced or excessive in any way. The movement of the wind from earth to sky and water is observed minutely by the poet keeping scientific facts in mind. The symbolism of destroyer and preserver is carried through the poem; first with the wind driving the dead leaves away to make place for new ones, secondly with the mention of pumice isle which was built with the lava from a volcano. Volcano is both a destroyer and a preserver since while it erupts it pours forth fire but once it subsides it leaves behind valuable minerals and fertile material. Finally, the poet"s own thoughts are dead leaves to be driven away so that new ones can take their place. The theme of rebirth is thus an integral part of the poem. "A deep resolute mind rises above all difficulties" The poet then describes how the wind carries loose clouds on its stream and spreads them from horizon to the height of the skies. The wind is the funeral song of the passing year because soon after autumn comes winter when the year ends and a new one begins. Winter is often seen as death since plants die and many animals hide themselves for the season. The earth looks barren and appears lifeless but spring is a time of rejuvenation, flowers blossom and insects and animals begin to start life again. The poet gives the credit of carrying the seeds to a safer place in winter to the west wind. This way it becomes the destroyer and the preserver. In his treatment of nature, he describes the things in nature as they are and never colours it. It is true, he gives them human life through his personifications, but he does it unintentionally for he felt they are living beings capable of doing the work of human beings. His mythopoeia power had made him the best romanticist of his age. In Ode to the West Wind, he personifies Nature as the Destroyer and the Preserver, and in ""The Cloud"", the cloud is a possessor of mighty powers. Shelley holds a unique place in English literature by virtue of his power of making myths out of the objects and forces of Nature. Beauty, to Shelley, is an ideal in itself and a microcosm of the beauty of Nature and he calls it "Intellectual Beauty". He celebrates Beauty as a mysterious power. In the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, he says that when Intellectual Beauty departs, this world becomes a "dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate" and if human heart is its temple, then man would become immortal and omnipotent: "Man were immortal and omnipotent Did"st thou, unknown and awful as thou art Keep with thy glorious train firm state Within his heart." The West Wind is the breath of Autumn. Dead leaves, black, yellow and red in colour, fly before the wind, as the ghosts fly before a magician. The West Wind scatters the flying seeds. The seeds lie under the ground and when Spring comes, they grow into flowers of different colours and fragrance. The West Wind destroys dead leaves and preserves useful seeds. "Make me thy lyre, ev"n as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own!" The spirit of the west wind is described as "uncontrollable". The west wind is unstoppable and it affects everything that falls in its path. It affects the earth, the water in the oceans and the clouds of the sky. It is responsible for carrying them and locking them up in a sepulcher till they burst forth in fury of rain and hail. The poet thinks that the west wind has a free spirit and wanders as and where it pleases. He admires it for its freedom and wishes the wind would carry him along like a leaf or a cloud. Shelley then sums up the spirit of the west wind as "tameless, swift and proud." It cannot be kept in check so it is "tameless", the speed of the west wind is formidable and it is proud because it would not listen to any one. Finally, the poet refers the west wind as "Spirit fierce" and "impetuous one" that acts on the impulse of the moment. "The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean,know Thy voice,and suddenly grow gray with fear And tremble and despoil themselves: -------O hear!" The Wind blows through the jungle and produces music out of the dead leaves. Shelley requests it to create music out of his heart and to inspire him to write great poetry, which may create a revolution in the hearts of men. He wants the Wind to scatter his revolutionary message in the world, just as it scatters ashes and sparks from a burning fire. His thoughts may not be as fiery as they once were, but they still have the power to inspire men. He tells the Wind to take the message to the sleeping world that if winter comes, spring cannot be far behind. In optimistic note he declares that bad days are followed by good days. "Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lull"d by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae"s bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers," Idealism is a part and parcel of Shelley"s temperament. He is a rebel, like Byron, against the age –old customs, traditions, conventions and institutions, sanctioned only by practice and not by reason. Unlike Byron, but, he is not only a rebel but also a reformer. He wants to reconstitute society in keeping with his ideals of good, truth and beauty. According to ComptonRickett , "To renovate the world, to bring about utopia, is his constant aim, and for this reason we may regard Shelley as emphatically the poet of eager, sensitive youth; not the animal youth of Byron, but the spiritual youth of the visionary and reformer." Poetry is the expression of the poet"s mind. This is absolutely true of Shelley"s poetry. A study of Shelley"s poetry is the easiest and shortest way to his mind and personality. The fourth Stanza of Ode to the West Wind is entirely personal and autobiographical. An analogy with the West Wind helps the poet describe his own spirit:"tameless, and swift, and proud." The poet narrates the change, he has undergone in the course of his life. He was full of energy, enthusiasm and speed in his boyhood, but the agonies and bitterness of life- "A heavy weight of hours"-has repressed his qualities and has put him in an unbearable state. The expression of his sufferings "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!" is intensely genuine, heart-rending, and possibly the most spontaneous of Shelley"s emotional outbursts through his poems. "Lo! The poor Indian, whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, and hears Him in the wind." The calm Mediterranean was sleeping. The music of the glassy waves lulled the ocean to sleep. It was dreaming of towers and palaces reflected in its water. The West Wind creates furrows on the smooth waters of the Atlantic Ocean. At the bottom of the Atlantic grow plants and vegetation. These plants are dry, without sap though they live in water. When the West Wind blows in autumn, the plants on the land wither; the plants at the bottom of the ocean also fade and die. "Quivering within the wave"s intenser day," Shelley is describing the approach of the terrible West Wind. In the regions of the sky. Shelley"s emotional ecstasy fires his brain to that kind of superb conception which made the ancient Greeks fill the earth, the air sand the water with gods and goddesses who were but personifications of the forces of nature. "Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the soul." The cloud form on the horizon, gather up in the sky and then darken the space. The sky is at first blue, but it assumes a dark appearance on the approach of the vaporous clouds. From the distant and dim horizon to the highest point in the sky, the whole visible space is filled by the movements of the air. The clouds are up and spread themselves. The scattered and disorderly clouds look like the locks of the mighty West Wind personified, as seen approaching through the sky; these locks resemble the dishevelled and erect hair on the heads of intoxicated and frenzied female worshippers of the wine-god who used to dance madly about. "The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seem"d a vision,-" These lines are very touching and highly characteristic of Shelley. Shelley was a rebel and a revolutionary. He had a restless temperament which was even at war with something. In the West Wind, Shelley finds a kindred spirit. Looking at it, he is reminded of his youth when he too was free and uncontrollable. At that time, he did not think it an impossibility to vie with the West Wind in its speed, but the worries and mysteries of this life have proved too much for him and have made him tame and weak. He had lost his old vigour and force, and he appeals to the West Wind to lend him some strength and lift his dejected spirit as it lifts a cloud, wave or a leaf. He was very much oppressed by the hardships of the world and he wants somebody to support him through his struggle for existence in this world. He was indeed tameless and wild like the West Wind at one time, but now he is bowed down by the worries and care, and calls for help. Next, Shelley describes the agitated surface of the ocean cuts a thousand deep passages on itself for the march of the terrific wind; while the rush and tumult on the surface reach the vegetable world at the bottom of the ocean, the leaves, the flowers, the sapless forests there tremble with fear and are shaken loose pell-mell at the awful roar of the mighty wind. "The right divine of Kings to govern wrong." Desmond king-Hele remarks: "The verse technique and structure of the Ode to West Wind could scarcely be improved: it is the most fully orchesterd of Shelley"s poems, and consequently the most difficult to read aloud. The ever fluctuating tempo and he artfully random pauses in the long lines reflect the lawless surging of the wind and its uneasy silences. This device is not overworked: the wonder is that Shelley could use it at all when grappling with the problems of the terza rima and operating within a rigid structural framework. In conformity with this framework, which seemed to be in the Style of Calderon, the first three Stanzas are designed to show the wind"s power in three spheres of Nature, in preparation for the prayer to the Wind, as pseudo-god, in Stanzas 4 and 5. The keynote of the first three Stanzas is balanced. Their settings, land, sky and sea, give equal emphasis to the three states of matter, solid, gaseous and liquid. Each of the four seasons has its appointed place, and there is a full range of coloursred, yellow, blue, grey and black explicitly, white and green implicitly. Turmoil is balanced against calm, life against death, detail against generalization, cold against calm, life against death, detail against generalization, cold against warmth, plain against hill, and so on. The varied evidence of Stanzas1-3 is assembled in support of the narrow, one-track theme in the last two stanzas: the plan is sound, but in points of detail it falls short of perfection. For Shelley harps on his prayer rather too long. His defeatism becomes a trifle depressing, unless when reading the poem we happen to be in the same mood as he was...the note of self-pity is overplayed in the last two Stanzas; and this must be counted a blemish in what is otherwise a nearly faultless poem." "Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never is, but always to be blest." Except setting, development and thoughts the words are completely followed up from Critical Evaluation of Shelley by Dr.S. Sen and other books... ******************************************************


Philosophy

In our everyday discourse, most of us use modal statements to express possibility, necessity, or contingency. Logicians, linguists, and philosophers of language tend to use the possible world discourse to analyse the semantics of this kind of sentences. There is a disadvantage of this method: in the usual Quinean meta-ontology it commits the users to the existence of possible worlds. Even though there are many theories on metaphysics of these possible worlds, I will focus on the fictionalist approach, which aims to suspend the undesired ontological commitment. Therefore it is an anti-realist theory. The fictionalist strategy is based on the idea that according to our common-sense ontology, fictions and fictional entities do not exist, and one can treat the possible world discourse as a fiction, and the possible worlds as fictional entities. However, in the last two decades, realist theories about fictions and fictional entities have arisen, especially the abstract artefact theory. In this paper I try to revise the fictionalist approach to modality by keeping the main idea that possible worlds are fictional entities, while accepting that fictional entities are abstract artefacts. The result is a new realist theory of modal fictionalism.

Dombrovszki, A.: Towards a New Theory of Modal Fictionalism. In: Ostium, roč. 13, 2017, č. 4. Abstract: In our everyday discourse, most of us use modal statements to express possibility, necessity, or contingency. Logicians, linguists, and philosophers of language tend to use the possible world discourse to analyse the semantics of this kind of sentences. There is a disadvantage of this method: in the usual Quinean meta-ontology it commits the users to the existence of possible worlds. Even though there are many theories on metaphysics of these possible worlds, I will focus on the fictionalist approach, which aims to suspend the undesired ontological commitment. Therefore it is an anti-realist theory. The fictionalist strategy is based on the idea that according to our commonsense ontology, fictions and fictional entities do not exist, and one can treat the possible world discourse as a fiction, and the possible worlds as fictional entities. However, in the last two decades, realist theories about fictions and fictional entities have arisen, especially the abstract artefact theory. In this paper I try to revise the fictionalist approach to modality by keeping the main idea that possible worlds are fictional entities, while accepting that fictional entities are abstract artefacts. The result is a new realist theory of modal fictionalism. Keywords: analytic philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of language, fictionalism, modality, possible worlds The aim of this paper is to provide a revised version of the so-called fictionalist approach to modality.[1] Proponents of this view hold that realist theories about possible worlds, and therefore the whole possible world discourse is just a useful fiction, and – at least I suppose that – possible worlds are fictional entities. It seems that with this strategy fictionalists can use the possible world discourse without the undesired ontological commitment to the worlds. However, according to a widespread analysis of fictional discourse, fictions, as well as fictional entities, are actually existing abstract artefacts, despite our common-sense intuitions about the non-existence of them. If this analysis is correct, then the modal fictionalist can't maintain her antirealist position towards possible worlds: she must accept that possible worlds are abstract artefacts too. But this is certainly not a problem for her: I will argue in favour of this new, realist modal fictionalism. In Section 1.1, I introduce a set of background assumptions from the field of philosophy of language and ontology, to restrict the domain of my investigation. I call this sketched meta-theory the "Kripkean framework", assuming that most followers of Kripke share these assumptions. In Section 1.2, I point out one major problem for the Kripkean framework, which is the improper treatment of sentences containing empty names. Probably the best solution for this problem is the complete elimination of empty names, introducing artificial reference-surrogates for every proper name. It means that, accepting this solution, fictional characters – like Emma Woodhouse or Sherlock Holmes – are existing abstract artefacts. In Section 2, I put forth an analogue between the analysis of fictional discourse and the fictionalist treatment of the possible world discourse, concluding that if one accepts that Jane Austen's Emma, and the fictional character Emma Woodhouse in it exist, then she must accept that David Lewis's On the Plurality of Worlds[2], and the possible worlds in it also exist. This analogue is a key component in my argument. In Section 3, I try to elaborate a realist modal fictionalist theory in detail, contrasting it with extant variations in the modal fictionalist theory. 1.1 The Kripkean Framework In the following, I am going to define a theoretical framework for our current investigations, called the Kripkean Framework (KF).[3] I suppose that most followers of Kripke accept this set of beliefs, and that its assumptions are widely hold in contemporary analytic philosophy. KF is going to be summarised in six points, from (a) to (f). (a) The Quinean meta-ontology.[4] Instead of something like the Meinongian approach to metaphysics, I will use a Quinean meta-theory, relying on its two basic features. Firstly, the ontological system is not hierarchical, every entity exists on the very same level, e.g. if one says that abstract entities exist, she means that they exist in the same sense as chairs, tables, trees, mountains and so on, except that abstract entities lacks spatial or spatiotemporal extension. Secondly, one's ontological commitments are indicated by the bounded variables of the existential quantifier, and nothing else. (b) The neo-Russellian theory of propositions.[5] Expressing a proposition is a necessary condition for a sentence to be meaningful. I consider propositions to be structured entities, containing different types of entities. For example, in KF, the sentence "Peter is taller than David" expresses a proposition, containing Peter and David as physical entities, and the "x is taller than y" binary relation which can be considered a universal. Although the metaphysical nature of these propositions is an important question, especially when their constituents include physical and abstract objects together, it won't be elaborated here, because this problem does not affect the current aims of this paper. (c) The Millian semantics of proper names. As J. S. Mill put forth, proper names have only denotation, without any connotation.[6] It means that, contrasted to a descriptivist approach,[7] the only semantic value of a given proper name is its referent. Think of them as tags. From this theory, (d) and (e) follows.[8] (d) The direct-reference theory (DR). According to the DR, a proper name's only semantic contribution to a given proposition – expressed by a sentence containing that name – is its reference. While there is a certain similarity between (c) and (d), they are not the same: the Millian account is a semantic theory about proper names, while DR is about a relation between proper names and propositions. These two theories together need not give an exhaustive semantics for proper names. (e) Kripke's rigid designation thesis.[9]A rigid designator refers to the very same individual in every possible world (PW) where the individual exists, and worlds where the individual doesn't exist, the name fails to refer. According to Kripke, every proper name is a rigid designator. The concept of PW and the PW discourse itself are important notions for this paper, so further clarification follows. (f) Analysis in terms of the PW discourse. During our ordinary discourse, the most of us are use modal statements to express possibility, or necessity. See for example the following statement: (1) It is possible that Richard Nixon had a green hair. To analyse these kind of statements, logicians, linguists, and philosophers tend to use the PW discourse, which aims to paraphrase modal sentences. In this particular case, from (1) we can get (2) There is a possible world where Richard Nixon had a green hair. Technical advantages of this method would be the topic of another paper, what is important here is that PW discourse is a useful tool for semantic investigation. 1.2 The Problem of Empty Names While KF works well with the usual cases of our ordinary discourse, sentences containing empty names raise a challenge to the view. Empty names – proper names without reference – have three types: names of mythical entities (e.g. "Zeus"), names of hypothetical entities (e.g. the planet "Vulcan"), and names of fictional characters (e.g. "Emma Woodhouse"). To illustrate the problem of empty names, consider the following sentence: (3) Emma Woodhouse lives in Hartfield. The problem is that, according to (d), the contribution of the proper name "Emma Woodhouse" to the proposition expressed by (3) would be the reference of the name – Emma herself –, who doesn't exist. So, a full-fledged proposition cannot be expressed, and taking (b), one can conclude that (3) is meaningless and therefore without any truth value in the KF. But (3) is considered as true, and can be understood by any competent speaker of English – so something is wrong in the analysis. This problem raises a trilemma for the proponents of KF. Firstly, one could solve the problem by denying the universality of the framework. It means that although we analyse the semantics of our ordinary discourse within the KF, for fictional discourse, and for other sentences containing empty names, we need a different theory with the assumption that fictional names are not Millian. However, giving up the universality of KF wouldn't be the best choice to solve this problem since having one general theory for describing the very same phenomena is always better than having two. Secondly, one might assume that sentences containing empty names express gappy propositions.[10] The gappy proposition view is indeed compatible with (b) and (d), but it has its own disadvantages. One major problem is the evaluation of gappy propositions: how can one assign truth-value to these structures? Moreover, some philosophers argue that gappy propositions are not propositions at all. Here, I'm not going to argue against this view,[11] from now on I just assume that propositions must be full-fledged. Thirdly, the remaining option is to eliminate all empty names from KF. It means that artificial reference-surrogates are introduced into our ontology: fictional characters, mythical entities and hypothetical entities are now considered as actual existing objects. This includes the existence of fictions and theories in which these entities appear. I think this is the best option which one can choose to save KF, but this one also comes with a compromise: the cost is the extended ontology. If one can accept the existence of fictional characters, then she should ask in what metaphysical category they fit. There are three options which are compatible with the meta-ontological presumption (a) in KF. These are Platonism, Lewisian concretism, and abstract artefact theory. The latter is the most popular version of realism about fictional characters, assuming that, in agreement with our common-sense intuitions, fictional characters are made by their authors. With this intuitive assumption, most of the problems of Platonism and concretism can be avoided.[12] So, from now on, I suppose that fictions and fictional characters are existing abstract artefacts.[13] 2. The Analysis of Fictional Discourse and Modal Fictionalism: An Analogue In this section, I put forth an analogy between the usual analysis of fictional discourse in KF, and the fictionalist approach to modality. I think from this analogy follows an important conclusion, namely, if one treats the theory of modality as fiction, and the possible worlds in this fiction as fictional entities, then the ontological categorization must be the same as in the case of "regular" fictions. It means that from a fictionalist point of view, possible words are existing abstract artefacts, despite the original goal, which is antirealism. Let's see a typical analysis of fictional discourse by Nathan Salmon.[14] This approach is based on two important distinctions. The first is about the interpretation and truthmaker of sentences. Consider again sentence (3). It is obvious that taking literally, as it's about our actual world, (3) is a false sentence, because Emma is just a fictional character, an abstract entity, which lives nowhere. Call this interpretation the external reading of (3). But we have a strong intuition that in some contexts we rather take (3) as a true sentence. The reason is that in the book Emma, we can find information about the protagonist's home: she lives in Hartfield indeed. When we rely on the fiction evaluating the sentence, we are in the internal reading. So, sentences of the fictional discourse are ambiguous. A convenient tool to explain this ambiguity is the so-called story operator: "according to fiction f". This leads us to a distinction between objectfictional and meta-fictional sentences. Object-fictional sentences are the regular sentences of fictional discourse, like (3). But one can compose a meta-fictional pair of every object-fictional sentence, by taking it into the scope of the story operator. Thus, the meta-fictional pair of (3) looks like the following: (4) According to Emma, Emma Woodhouse lives in Hartfield. Using meta-fictional sentences, we can explain our intuitions about the truth-value of the internal reading of (3). According to this analysis, in the internal contexts we use the object-fictional sentences as a shorthand for their meta-fictional pairs. This provides a plausible explanation of the ambiguity of the sentences about fictional entities. After this very brief introduction, I'm going to sketch the main idea behind the fictionalist approach to modality.[15] The starting point is sentence (2). Remember that, according to (a), we accept a Quinean meta-ontology, which means that (2) is an existentially committing sentence, because the term "possible world" is in the scope of the existential quantifier "is". Of course, there are a lot of philosophers who not satisfied with the idea that using the PW discourse they must accept the existence of possible worlds. The main aim of modal fictionalism is to provide a theory which allows them to use the PW discourse, without undesired ontological commitments. This aim can be reached by considering the PW discourse as a fictional discourse, and the possible worlds as fictional entities in this "story". The account is driven by the intuition that fictions and fictional entities do not exist in our actual world. Fictionalists also appeal to the story operator. In fact, the fictionalist treats sentences of PW discourse, like (2), literally false in the external interpretation, while in the internal contexts she considers it an abbreviation of the sentence: (5) According to Lewis 1986, there is a possible world where Richard Nixon had a green hair. It may look arbitrary to choose David Lewis's theory as the fiction, on which the fictionalist relies on, but this is just a practical choice: Lewis had the most detailed elaboration of the theory of possible worlds. This approach seems to work at first sight: putting the existential quantifier behind the scope of the intensional story operator leads to the suspension of the undesired ontological commitments. My concern here is that in KF the existence of fiction and fictional characters are taken for granted – without these abstract artefacts KF is not able to handle the problem of empty names. For those who choose KF as the general framework in philosophy of language, modal fictionalism also can't provide an antirealist account. The reason is if one accepts the existence of the fiction Emma, and of the fictional entity Emma Woodhouse in this fiction, then she must accept the existence of the "fiction" Lewis 1986, and the fictional entities in it. It would be an arbitrary choice to say that some fictions and fictional entities exist but others do not. So, for advocates of KF, classic modal fictionalism seems an unsuccessful theory. One question arise here: what's the point of this whole investigation? One can immediately reply to my critique: "those who have already accepted the existence of Platonic objects (propositions are assumed in KF), moreover, the existence of abstract artefacts, are just not the ones who would willingly accept the fictionalist approach to modality. They don't want to be antirealist about possible worlds, because they are already working with a broad ontology." It looks like my objection misses the target, no actual philosopher would ever meet such a problem. Here comes the positive part of my project: I think the objection I raised above leads us to a new theory of modal fictionalism, which is realist, and considers possible worlds as abstract artefacts. I also think that this realist version of modal fictionalism is a better choice than other variations, especially for those who has already accepted the existence of abstract artefacts. In the final section I will develop a detailed version of this account, called the hybrid modal fictionalism (HMF). 3. Hybrid Modal Fictionalism Let the variations of "classical" modal fictionalism be our starting point to differentiate between them and HMF. Two questions will help to do this job. The first question is what makes our everyday modal sentences like (1) true? Or more accurately: what are the truthmakers of these sentences? Advocates of timid modal fictionalism are agnostic about this question. They don't aim to build a robust metaphysical theory about modality, all they want is a "permission" to use the PW discourse without the undesired ontological commitments. On the other hand, strong modal fictionalists (SMF) assume that the truthmaker of our ordinary modal sentences is the fiction itself, e.g. the truthmaker of (1) is Lewis 1986.[16] The second question: what is the ontology of the fiction on which the fictionalist relies, in this case Lewis 1986? There are also two answers here. According to the Platonist version of modal fictionalism, Lewis 1986 is a Platonic entity, discovered by David Lewis, while the artefactualist view considers the theory as a human-made entity. Of course, the possible worlds described in the stories don't exist, because the classic versions of modal fictionalism are antirealist views. To sum up, there are three versions of modal fictionalism, the strong Platonist, the strong artefactualist and the timid modal fictionalism. Advocates of the timid version are not concerned with metaphysical issues, even though it would be possible to distinguish between them regarding the other aspect too. In the previous section, I presupposed that if fictions and fictional characters exist, then they should be treated as abstract artefacts. Because of this assumption, I am not going to consider the Platonist version from now on, which means that only two options remained to keep the possible world discourse without the undesired ontological commitments. But a certain doubt arises about the success of this kind of antirealism. The main idea behind the fictionalist's programme is that fictional entities, like Emma Woodhouse or Sherlock Holmes don't exist, and possible worlds can be considered as fictional entities. But in KF, there are good reasons to treat fictional entities as existing, human-made abstract objects. Otherwise, the theory cannot explain the semantics of fictional discourse. My main thesis is that if a KF theorist chooses the fictionalist view about possible worlds, she chooses a realist option, because it would be an ad hoc decision to accept the existence of one type of fictional entities (the fictional characters), but deny another type, e.g. the existence of hypothetical entities (like the possible worlds). So, for those who accept KF, modal fictionalism can't be the antirealist position which it aims to be. But does it mean that modal fictionalism is not a feasible choice for KF theorists? Not at all. My positive project aims to develop a realist account of modal fictionalism, which considers possible worlds as abstract artefacts. Someone can raise certain doubts about the significance of this project. There are already two fine options to be realist about possible worlds: genuine realism and ersatz realism, both developed in detail, and can explain the metaphysics of modality. Moreover, realist modal fictionalism seems like a twisted idea: the aim of modal fictionalism was to provide an antirealist account about possible worlds. The account which I would like to develop just seems at least suspicious, so let's see what we can say in favour of such a realist modal fictionalism. To motivate the idea, I will sketch a descriptive picture of the early history of modality in a nutshell. I do this for strengthen certain intuitions, and to show that there is a place for a theory which considers possible worlds as abstract artefacts. The idea to analyse modal sentences in our ordinary discourse is not a new one: Aristotle wrote about it already. However, the rapid expansion of the topic was in the mid 20th century, when modal logic arose, and different systems of it were developed. It is essential to consider these systems as a creation of logicians, which I think matches our pre-philosophical intuitions. So, logicians tried to model these kind of sentences, and for the formal models they coined the concept of "possible world", to help us understand the semantics by getting an intuitive picture of what's going on in these mathematical structures. Unfortunately, they weren't careful enough, and curious philosophers asked the question: what are the possible worlds? This innocent question led to a whole segment of mainstream analytic philosophy, modal metaphysics – leading to some wild theories, e.g. genuine realism, which assumes that possible worlds represent possibilia, and they are natural entities like mountains, rivers or forests. According to the account presented here, keeping in mind this description from an external perspective of what happened, possible worlds are not representing possibilia. They do not exist like mountains, rivers or other natural, mind-independent objects. Possible worlds are creations of logicians and philosophers, they use them to solve semantic problems. I think this approach has a greater intuitive power than ersatz realism. Maybe one can worry about the inflation of ontology: isn't it the case that ersatz realism is more parsimonious then HMF? The answer is no, we already accepted the existence of abstract artefacts to solve the problem of empty names. Accepting that possible worlds are also abstract artefacts, doesn't inflate further the ontology.[17] Now, let's see the general features of HMF. In the following, I will elaborate the theory, summarising five important properties of it. (i) Realism about possible worlds, and (ii) possible worlds are abstract artefacts. These points are already explained by the analogy between the novel Emma, the fictional character Emma Woodhouse, and the fiction of Lewis 1986, the fictional entities, which are the possible worlds. It's worth noting that while "Emma Woodhouse" is a singular referring term, "possible world" refers to a natural kind. We can distinguish a weaker and a stronger argument supporting the analogy sketched above. According to the weaker argument, we don't suppose that the semantics of proper names and natural kind terms are the same. In KF, using the term "possible world" does not necessitate the existence of possible worlds as we saw in the case of proper names. But according to the fictionalist's viewpoint, we put these terms into the very same category, both refers to a fictional entity, or a kind of fictional entities. It would be an ad hoc decision to consider one of them an abstract artefact, while the other a Platonist or even a non-existent entity. The stronger version of this argument is when we suppose that singular terms and natural kind terms have the same semantics, i.e. both are directly referring terms.[18] If this stronger claim is true, then the existence of possible worlds is a consequence of KF. (iii) Paraphrasing ordinary language sentences using PW discourse can be considered as an explication in the Carnapian sense.[19] By paraphrasing I mean the translation of (1) to (2). To understand the concept of explication, it is useful to draw a distinction between ordinary language and scientific language. Expressions of ordinary language are imprecise, ambiguous, subjective and qualitative – expressions with these properties are inappropriate for scientific purposes. If one examines the expressions of scientific language, she will find precise, univocal, objective and quantitative expressions, because these are required for scientific investigations. Explication is a process, in which we substitute the explicandum, which is usually an ordinary language expression, or an outdated expression of scientific language, with the explicans: an adequate expression for scientific usage. For example, in our ordinary discourse, all of us say things like "x is hotter than y", "the Earth is round", or "x is red"; things which we perfectly understand. However, these expressions are rough for the sophisticated scientific discourse. Scientists usually express these properties as "x has a higher temperature than y", "the Earth has a geoid shape", "x reflects a light with a wavelength between 620 and 740 nanometres". These scientific expressions describe the same phenomena, but in a more precise manner, better suited for scientific discourse. We can also think about the PW discourse as an explication.[20] In this case, the explicanda are the modal terms of our ordinary language: "necessarily p", "possibly p", and "impossibly p", and the explicantia are "according to Lewis 1986, it is true in every possible world, that p", "according to Lewis 1986, there is at least one possible world where it is true, that p", and "according to Lewis 1986, there isn't any possible world where it is true, that p". While our modal intuitions can be different about what is the meaning of the word "necessary", logicians adequately defined it as "is true in every possible world". (iv) HMF is agnostic about the truthmakers of modal sentences used in ordinary language. Practically, it means that we simply don't apply the story operator to these statements. We take them literally, and assign a truth-value to them, but when it comes to the truthmakers – just like the timid fictionalists – we are silent about the issue. If we recall, proponents of SMF think in a different way: the fiction – Lewis 1986 – is the truthmaker of sentences like (1). This is a very strong claim, which also not a plausible one, if we consider the consequences of such a view. Let's see the two main objections against SMF. The first one is Daniel Nolan's argument about artificiality.[21] Usually, we think about modalities as natural, objective properties of things, which are rather independent of what we think about them. The fact that the table in front of me could have been painted red, doesn't depend on people's activities. According to Nolan, if SMF is true, then modalities must be some artificial properties, which only exist because David Lewis wrote a book in 1986. If he hadn't existed, and nobody else thought up a theory of possible worlds instead of him, then nothing would have been possible. In addition to this, before 1986, there weren't any modalities at all, because the truthmaker wasn't available back then. This seems to be false. Moreover, there is a modal argument in the same manner, according to which it is a contingent fact that Lewis wrote his book in 1986. But it seems that the existence of our objective modal truths cannot depend on contingent facts.[22] The second one is an epistemological issue. If Lewis 1986 underpins the semantic value of our ordinary modal claims, then epistemic access to this theory – or fiction – is required to understand sentences like (1). It means that, if someone is not familiar with Lewis's theory, then she is not able to evaluate the truth-value of (1), and maybe she can't understand it at all. Given the fact that only very few people – probably philosophers – are familiar with genuine PW realism, most speakers of language are in trouble – who otherwise are considered as competent language users. This consequence doesn't seem like an acceptable one. These two roughly sketched arguments aim to show that SMF is in trouble: the idea that Lewis 1986 has any role in our ordinary modal discourse is not a viable one. The objections can arise because of this broader application of the story operator. Since HMF doesn't extend it to the ordinary language, it can avoid the problems. But I think the story operator certainly has a role in PW discourse, in fact, the story itself is the truthmaker of its sentences, like (2). This leads us to the last property of HMF. (v) The truthmaker of the PW discourse is Lewis 1986. Unlike in the timid version of modal fictionalism, I admit that, there is some semantic role for the story operator "according to Lewis 1986"; but I don't think this role is as broad as in SMF. The assumption that Lewis 1986 is the truthmaker of the sentences of the PW discourse, analytically follows from the semantics story operator. If we look at sentence (5), it exactly means that the sentence is true according to the fiction, basically because of Lewis 1986. Another motivation for this assumption can be reached if one takes the "external viewpoint",[23] which was introduced in the descriptive picture of modality above. Users of the PW discourse created the theory to get a model of our ordinary language discourse, to use it for semantic analysis. Because PW discourse is an artificial linguistic structure with semantic rules given by logicians and linguists, it is natural to see in a way that these rules are chosen by a theory, a "fiction" which they consider as a good model. Of course, one can decide that Lewis 1986 is not the best story which can be applied as a theory of modality, but this is not the point here – it can be replaced with any other fiction. Note that the arguments against SMF do not hold for HMF. Nolan's artificiality problem can't be raised, because PW discourse is admittedly an artificial linguistic tool, which wouldn't exist without the activity of philosophers like David Lewis. Similar things can be said about Sauchelli's epistemic problem: if one is not familiar with Lewis's work, or at least she doesn't have a grasp of what possible worlds are, she won't be able to evaluate the truth-value of (5) – maybe she wouldn't understand what this sentence says at all. One interesting thing about HMF is that it not just avoids these problems, but I think these two objections even strengthen the account, showing that it matches our intuitions. So, according to HMF, in contrast with the weak version, Lewis 1986 has an important role as a truthmaker, but in contrast with the strong version, this role extends only to PW discourse, the ordinary modal sentences are not involved in this picture. This is why Hybrid Modal Fictionalism got its name: the account is between the two versions of modal fictionalism with respect to this semantic aspect. But from a metaphysical point of view, there is another difference: while the fictionalist's main project is to keep the PW discourse without the ontological commitments, HMF is a realist theory. Accepting that possible worlds are abstract artefacts doesn't mean that we inflate our ontology since its already accepted in KF to provide a solution for the problem of empty names. 4. Summary In this paper, I introduced a new approach to modal metaphysics, which I called Hybrid Modal Fictionalism. The main idea was presented by an analogy between the analysis of fictional discourse in the Kripkean Framework, and the fictionalists' usual treatment of modality. In section 1.1, I sketched a general framework for the further investigations, including the neoRussellian theory of propositions and the direct reference theory. These assumptions led to a problem (section 1.2) with empty names, which can be eliminated by extending the ontology, providing reference-candidates for empty names. In section 2, the aforementioned analogy was sketched between the fiction Emma and Lewis 1986, and between the fictional character Emma Woodhouse and the fictional entities, the possible worlds. If one accepts the existence of the first kind, she should accept the existence of the second also. Finally, in section 3, I tried to elaborate further the idea of HMF. The finer details are still missing, but it seems that there is a good prospect for extending the classical taxonomy of modal metaphysics to include the new option presented in this paper. B i b l i o g r a p h y CARNAP, R.: Meaning and Necessity. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1947. CARNAP, R.: Logical Foundations of Probability. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1950. EVERETT, A.: Empty Names and 'Gappy' Propositions. In: Philosophical Studies, Vol. 116, No. 1, 2003, pp. 1–36. FITCH, G. – NELSON, M.: Singular Propositions. In: ZALTA E. N. (ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2016 Edition: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/propositions-singular. FREGE G.: Sense and Reference. In: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 57, 1948, pp. 209–230. KAPLAN, D.: Demonstratives. In: ALMOG, J. (ed.): Themes from Kaplan. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1989, pp. 481–563. KIM, S.: Modal Fictionalism and Analysis. In: KALDERON, M. E. (ed.): Fictionalism in Metaphysics. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2005, pp. 116–133. KRIPKE, S.: Naming and Necessity. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1980. KRIPKE, S.: Reference and Existence. Oxford University Press: New York, 2013. LEWIS, D.: On the Plurality of Worlds. Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1986. MARTÍ, G.: The Question of Rigidity in the New Theories of Reference. In: Nous, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2003, pp. 161–179. MILL J. S.: A System of Logic. John W. Parker: London, 1893. MOUSAVIAN, S. N.: Gappy Propositions. In: Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2011, pp. 125–158. NOLAN, D.: Three Problems for 'Strong' Modal Fictionalism. In: Philosophical Studies, Vol. 87, No. 3, 1997, pp. 259–275. ROSEN, G.: Modal Fictionalism. In: Mind, Vol. 99, No. 395, 1990, pp. 327–354. SALMON, N.: Nonexistence. In: SALMON, N. (ed.): Metaphysics, Mathematics and Meaning. Oxford University Press: New York, 2005, pp. 50–90. SEARLE J.: Proper Names. In: Mind, Vol. 67, 1958, pp. 166–173. SEARLE, J.: The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse. In: SEARLE, J. (ed.): Expression and Meaning. Cambridge University Press: New York, 1979, 58–75. SOAMES, S.: Beyond Rigidity. Oxford University Press: New York, 2002. THOMASSON, A. L.: Fiction and Metaphysics. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1999. VAN INWAGEN, P.: Meta-Ontology. In: Erkenntnis, Vol. 48, No. 2, 1998, pp. 233–250. WOODWARD, R. Is Modal Fictionalism Artificial? In: Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 92, No. 4, 2011, pp. 541–548. ZVOLENSZKY, Zs.: Against Sainsbury's Irrealism About Fictional Characters. In: Magyar Filozófiai Szemle, Vol. 54, No. 4, 2012, pp. 83–109. ZVOLENSZKY Zs.: Artifactualism and Authorial Creation. In: Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2014, pp. 457–469. ZVOLENSZKY Zs.: An Argument for Authorial Creation. In: Organon F, Vol. 22, No. 4, 2015, pp. 461–487. N o t e s [1] I am grateful to Andrea Komlosi, Zsofia Zvolenszky, and the participants of the Characters of Current Philosophy and Its Methods conference in March 2017 for discussions of the issues raised in this paper. This research has been supported by the UNKP–17–2 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry of Human Capacities. [2] LEWIS, D.: On the Plurality of Worlds. Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1986. [3] This tag doesn't mean that KF actually represents Kripke's standpoint. [4] In the way as its presented in VAN INWAGEN, P.: Meta-Ontology. In: Erkenntnis, Vol. 48, No. 2, 1998, pp. 233–250. [5] See for an introduction to proposition theories: FITCH, G. – NELSON, M.: Singular Propositions. In ZALTA E. N. (ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2016 Edition: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/propositions-singular. [6] MILL J. S.: A System of Logic. John W. Parker: London, 1893, pp. 34–41. [7] According to the descriptivist picture, proper names has another semantic value, identical with a description (FREGE G.: Sense and Reference. In: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 57, 1948, pp. 209–230.), or a set of descriptions (SEARLE J.: Proper Names. In: Mind Vol. 67, 1958, pp. 166–173.). [8] If one thinks that the only semantic value of a proper name is its reference, then she should think that that reference is the only contribution to the proposition. The other choice is to think that proper names doesn't contribute to propositions, which is not a plausible option. In the case of (e), see MARTÍ, G.: The Question of Rigidity in the New Theories of Reference. In: Nous, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2003, pp. 161–179. [9] KRIPKE, S.: Naming and Necessity. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1980. [10] The idea of gappy propositions comes from KAPLAN, D.: Demonstratives. In: ALMOG, J. (ed.): Themes from Kaplan. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1989, pp. 496. [11] Others have done it. See EVERETT, A.: Empty Names and 'Gappy' Propositions. In: Philosophical Studies, Vol. 116, No. 1, 2003, pp. 1–36, and MOUSAVIAN, S. N.: Gappy Propositions. In: Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2011, pp. 125–158. [12] For the arguments, see ZVOLENSZKY, Zs.: Against Sainsbury's Irrealism About Fictional Characters. In: Magyar Filozófiai Szemle, Vol. 54, No. 4, 2012, pp. 83–109; ZVOLENSZKY Zs.: Artifactualism and Authorial Creation. In: Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2014, pp. 457–469; ZVOLENSZKY Zs.: An Argument for Authorial Creation. In: Organon F, Vol. 22, No. 4, 2015, pp. 461–487. [13] Most important advocates of the abstract artefact theory are KRIPKE, S.: Reference and Existence. Oxford University Press: New York, 2013; SALMON, N.: Nonexistence. In: SALMON, N. (ed.): Metaphysics, Mathematics and Meaning. Oxford University Press: New York, 2005, pp. 50–90.; SEARLE, J.: The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse. In: SEARLE, J. (ed.): Expression and Meaning. Cambridge University Press: New York, 1979, 58–75.; and THOMASSON, A. L.: Fiction and Metaphysics. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1999. [14] SALMON, N.: Nonexistence. [15] Originally introduced by ROSEN, G.: Modal Fictionalism. In: Mind, Vol. 99, No. 395, 1990, pp. 327–354. [16] These versions are differentiated by NOLAN, D.: Three Problems for 'Strong' Modal Fictionalism. In: Philosophical Studies, Vol. 87, No. 3, 1997, pp. 261–264. [17] For the explanation of this idea, and the case of the false ontological parsimony, see THOMASSON A. L.: Fiction and Metaphysics, pp. 137–145. [18] There are good arguments for this, see for example the last three chapters of SOAMES, S.: Beyond Rigidity. Oxford University Press: New York, 2002. [19] See CARNAP, R.: Logical Foundations of Probability. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1950, pp. 1–18. [20] This viewpoint is not my own, Carnap also thought it as an explication process, however, he hasn't use the term "possible world" back then. See: CARNAP, R.: Meaning and Necessity. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1947. [21] NOLAN, D.: Three Problems for 'Strong' Modal Fictionalism, pp. 264–266. [22] Contingency problem is discussed further in WOODWARD, R.: Is Modal Fictionalism Artificial? In: Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 92, No. 4, 2011, pp. 541–548; and in KIM, S.: Modal Fictionalism and Analysis. In: KALDERON, M. E. (ed.): Fictionalism in Metaphysics. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2005, pp. 116–133. [23] This "external viewpoint" is somehow essential for HMF: I don't consider possible worlds as representations of counterfactual situations, I consider them as merely theoretical tools of linguists, logicians and philosophers. The easiest way to understand this is to look at they discourses, they papers, they works, and describe your experiences. Without this changed viewpoint, it would be hard to accept for example the idea that possible worlds are abstract artefacts, which explains why this option haven't arise yet. Consider an analogy with the hammer: for the users, the hammer is an instrument with a function, it can be used to drive a nail into the wall, like the possible worlds are representations of counterfactual situations for a philosopher. On the other hand, from an "external viewpoint", e.g. for a physicist, the hammer is not an instrument, just a physical thing, a construction of particles, as I think possible worlds are just artificial abstract artefacts. In this project, I try to regard possible worlds as a physicist regards an ordinary object. Áron Dombrovszki Department of Logic Institute of Philosophy Eötvös Loránd University Budapest e-mail: email@example.com