Notes for 10/6/2026

  

10/6/2026

 

[Philosophy Club every Wednesday, 5-6 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave")

Bioethics Club Tuesdays from 4:30-5:30 in CAS 436.]

 

Do you think it is possible for an infinite number of things to exist?

 

Essay #1 available

 

1.           God is omnipotent.

2.           There is no finite maximum to the number of substances an omnipotent being can create.

3.           If there is no finite maximum to the number of substances an omnipotent being can create, then God can create an infinite number of substances.

4.           Therefore, God can create an infinite number of substances.

 

Is this argument sound?

 

Some claim an existing collection with an infinite number of members is impossible.

 

Suppose God decides to create an infinite number of substances.

How many substances will God add to the collection?

An infinite number.

How many substances can God add to the collection NOW?

An infinite number.

 

 

 

 

Is the containment theory of truth just nuts?

 

The dominant theory of truth in philosophy today is the correspondence theory:

 

-      A statement is true just in case it corresponds to the facts.

-      ‘P’ is true if and only if P (“Snow is white” is true iff snow is white.)

 

 

The correspondence theory doesn’t do well, though, with counterfactuals.

-      If Trump had not won the 2024 Presidential election, Harris would have.

-      If God had made a world with unicorns in it, that world would have been inferior to this world.

 

 

The problem is that with counterfactuals, there are no facts for statements to correspond to.

 

 

Leibniz “solves” this by making truth depend on concepts of things rather than on things themselves, because in the case of counterfactuals, there often are no things.

(A possible thing = God’s concept of a thing.)

 

Unicorns could have existed. Unicorns exist in some possible world.

 

 

(And Leibniz was not a possible-world (modal) realist, like the late David Lewis.)

 

 

The complete concept doctrine CCD:

When God considers any thing, he considers everything that is ever true of it. (All its predicates.)(Because God is omniscient.)

 

 

 

But God’s omniscience also extends to counterfactuals.

 

This means there is a complete concept not only for every actual substance, but also for all merely possible substances.

 

 

 

The CCD poses obvious problems for free will.

 

 

Consider:

       Eric decides not to sing on 10/6/2026.

 

 

Since this is in my complete concept, it appears to follow that I could not have decided to sing, and therefore that my not singing was not free.

 

 

But does this follow?

 

Several replies are possible:

(a)       Could I have more than one complete concept?

(b)       Could my complete concept include free decisions?

 

 

Leibniz appears to reject (a). He needs to do this because otherwise PSR would be violated when we ask why it is true that I didn’t sing rather than that I did.

 

 

In explaining his view to Arnauld, L says that if Adam had not sinned, he would not have been “our Adam.”

 

This could be understood as saying “If Adam had not sinned, he would have had a different CC.”

 

But we would still need to ask why Adam had the CC he did rather than a different one.

 

More to the point, though, since CCs exist in the mind of God, and God knows all free choices of actual and possible creatures, their free choices must be part of their CCs.

 

So, L appears to accept (b) above: Free choices are included in CCs.

 

Both compatibilist and libertarian views of free will are consistent with this.

 

Libertarians believe we have free will and that this consists in there being alternate possibilities when we make free choices.

 

Compatibilists believe free will is consistent with there being only one thing we can do at the time we do it, because what matters is the quality of reasons for that choice.

 

 

 

But most Leibniz scholars read him as a compatibilist.

 

 

 

Arnauld spotted what he thought was a more worrisome problem. Nevermind human freedom: The CCD also appears to limit God’s freedom.

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