The modality principle and work-relativity of modality |
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Authors: | Danilo Šuster |
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Institution: | 1.Department of Philosophy Faculty of Education,University of Maribor,Maribor,Slovenia |
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Abstract: | Davies argues that the ontology of artworks as performances offers a principled way of explaining work-relativity of modality. Object oriented contextualist ontologies of art (Levinson) cannot adequately
address the problem of work-relativity of modal properties because they understand looseness in what counts as the same context
as a view that slight differences in the work-constitutive features of provenance are work-relative. I argue that it is more
in the spirit of contextualism to understand looseness as context-dependent. This points to the general problem—the context
of appreciation is not robust enough to ground modal intuitions about objective entities. In general, when epistemology dictates
ontology there is always a threat of anti-realism, scepticism and relativism. Davies also appeals to the modality principle—an
entity’s essential properties are all and only its constitutive properties. Davies understands essentiality in a traditional
way: a property P is an essential property of an object o iff o could not exist and lack P. Kit Fine has recently made a convincing case for the view that the notion of essence is not to
be understood in modal terms. I explore some of the implications of this view for Davies’ modal argument for the performance
theory. |
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