Necessary Facts

Abstract

This chapter is a discussion of the metaphysics of modality. The topic is approached through the lens of actualism and trope ontology, two doctrines that have been articulated and defended in previous chapters. The view to be expounded is that necessary facts are objective and not subjective or merely verbal. In addition, necessity is a feature of mereological and resemblance relations among actual ‘qualitied contents’. Since mereological and resemblance relations are intrinsic, our understanding of modality is cashed out in terms of intrinsicality. This is combined with a combinatorial account of possibility: what is possible is grounded in combinations of actual existents.