Angels Needle

How Many Angels Can Dance on the Point of a Needle?
Transcendental Theology Meets Modal Metaphysics

John Hawthorne
Magdalen College, Oxford, OX1 4AU, United Kingdom john.hawthorne@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
Gabriel Uzquiano
Pembroke College, Oxford, OX1 1DW, United Kingdom
Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011
We argue that certain modal questions raise serious problems for a modal metaphysics on which we are permitted to quantify unrestrictedly over all possibilia. In particular, we argue that, on reasonable assumptions, both David Lewiss modal realism and Timothy Williamsons necessitism are saddled with the remarkable conclusion that there is some cardinal number of the form @ such that there could not be more than @-many angels in existence. In the last section, we make use of similar ideas to draw a moral for a recent debate in meta-ontology.
In this paper we aim to shed light on an undeservedly disparaged metaphysical question, one often used to parody medieval scholastics: How many angels can dance on the point of a needle?1 It is not clear that many scholastics were guilty of devoting time to this question. There appears to be no discussion of this question in the work of Thomas Aquinas, whose attempt to work out the nature of angels by pure reason earned him the title of Angelic Doctor. In any case, there is nothing for them to have felt guilty about. We think that there is much to be learned from a proper assessment of this question. Modern commentators have the advantage of the tools provided by contemporary set theory, which was unavailable to scholastic commentators from
1
One source is DIsraeli (1875, p. 18), who writes: The reader desirous of being merry with Aquinass angels may nd them in Martinus Scriblerus, in Ch VII who inquires if angels pass from one extreme to another without going through the middle? And if angels know things more clearly in a morning? How many angels can dance on the point of a very ne needle, without jostling one another?
Some earlier references to this question in the seventeenth century can be found in Sylla 2005.
Mind, Vol. 120 . 477 . January 2011 Hawthorne and Uzquiano 2011 doi:10.1093/mind/fzr004 Advance Access publication 13 April 2011
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John Hawthorne and Gabriel Uzquiano
antiquity. Our results will not merely be of theological interest. It turns out that coincident angels raise potentially damning problems for some of the most prominent metaphysics of modality.
1. Preliminaries
First, some scene setting. To forestall any suspicion of heresy, we embrace the possible existence (and indeed actual existence) of angels. On location issues, there have been many opinions. We state our own, though here is not the place to defend them at length. To begin, we maintain that angels can literally occupy places in just the same sense that bodies can. Admittedly, this has been challenged by Boethius and many learned scholars who maintain that incorporeal things do not exist in a place.2 Yet we are partly encouraged in our opinion by the Angelic Doctor, who rightly insists that it is betting an angel to exist in a place (Aquinas, 1948, part I, q. 52, art. 1). Is occupation of an place by an angel a primitive fact? Or else is it parasitic on the application of angelic power to a place?3 Here we tend towards the former view, this time in deance of the Angelic Doctor, who follows the Damascene in the latter opinion, and is led to think that angels do not occupy places in the same sense as bodies can. We agree with the Angelic Doctor that angels can lack positive dimensive quantity. However, while he holds that while Angels fall outside the genus of dimensive quantity, we hold that they can have zero dimensive quantity, thus embracing a view he dismisses as manifest deception, namely that the indivisibility of angels is like that of a point. Given our conception of the dimensive quantities of angels, we conclude that perhaps excepting special cases of bilocation angels can occupy a single point at any given time. Finally, we assume that it is possible for more than one angel to occupy a single point at the same time. The Angelic Doctor has denied this on the grounds that an angel is present in its place by its effects and that two things cannot be immediate causes of one and the same thing. We answer that, rst, we doubt that an angel is in a place by the goings on in that place being its immediate effects and, second, that since many events can occur at a single place, the considerations given do not establish the conclusion.4
2 3 4
In De Hebdomadibus, as reported in Aquinas 1948, part I, q. 52, art. 1. See Aquinas 1948, part I, q. 52, art. 1.
We note in passing that the dialectic of this paper would be largely unchanged if we held the view that angels are extended but can be colocated.
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We shall not primarily be concerned with what it means for an angel to dance, rather than, say, run. Our focus is on the more central question of how many angels can occupy a single point say, one that forms the boundary point of a perfectly sharp pin or needle at a single moment in time. Contrary to certain philosophers of antiquity, we shall assume that it is perfectly possible for there to be innitely many beings in existence at the same time actual as well as potential innities are possible.5 We will also be making certain natural mereological assumptions about angels. That they can be spatially point-sized does not show that they can lack proper parts. (After all, a fusion of two cohabiting angels is spatially point sized and yet has proper parts.) Indeed, we do not wish to assume that angels lack or can lack proper parts at least one of us is tempted to the hypothesis that God is part of all things.6 However, we do assume that no one object is simultaneously a fusion of each of two different pluralities of angels. A fusion of Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, for example, is not a fusion of Michael and Gabriel, as some of its parts, namely, some even if not all of Raphaels parts, do not overlap either Michael or Gabriel.7 Among other things, our assumption has the consequence that no angel has another angel as a proper part a consequence we applaud. (To see this, suppose, say, that Raphael is part of Michael. Then, any part of Raphael would thereby be a part of Michael and therefore overlap him, with the consequence that a fusion of Michael and Gabriel would also be a fusion of Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.) Those naturalistic philosophers who have no truck with our theological pursuits will no doubt nd ways to apply the ensuing discussion to their own narrow concerns. For example, while they may repudiate angels, they are typically more accommodating to particles having integral spin otherwise known as bosons in modern particle physics. Such particles are generally thought to be point-sized. Moreover, according to the spin statistics theorem, while fermions point-particles with half integer spin cannot be colocated, bosons
Aquinass view is more nuanced: he claimed that God represents an actual innity but that no other actual innities exist. See Aquinas 1948, part 1, q. 7, art. 1.
6 7 5
See Hudson 2006 for a discussion of a similar hypothesis.
We will say that an object x is a fusion of the Fs if and only if every F is part of x and for any y, y is part of x if and only if y overlaps one of the Fs. Our denition of fusion is in line with Tarski 1956 and Lewis 1991, but not with Simons 1987. See Hovda 2009 for the signicance of this difference.
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are perfectly well able to cohabit a single spacetime point. An analogous modal puzzle hence arises for bosons.8
2. Against offensive arbitrariness

The reections so far have yielded a partial answer: At least two. But let us, ambitiously, press on. The answer Exactly seven is, prima facie, offensive to reason. While it seems perfectly imaginable that there are in fact at most seven angels on the point of any needle, it would be most surprising if some particular nite number provided a necessary upper bound. We would after all, nd it ridiculous to be told that there are, of necessity, at most seven happy zebras in reality. The proposed upper bounds seems no less ridiculous: in each case, the necessity seems an unhappy marriage of the brute and arbitrary. If the true bounds of necessity would appear totally arbitrary to the human intellect, then our capacity to reason and theorize about modality is radically more impoverished than we imagine. We shall not indulge in pessimistic scepticism here that is not to be expected of creatures made in Gods image. We could just about imagine that the answer exactly seven is not brute but has some further explanation. Perhaps God sees that it is immoral for more than seven angels to cohabit, and ensures that morally inappriopriate cohabitation while rife in the human realm never occurs in the angelic realm. (If angels were essentially good and sufciently knowledgeable, they would see to this themselves.) We shall assume in what follows that there are no such surprising constraints owing from the moral or the aesthetic, but that they ow from the structures provided by logic, pure mathematics, and the abstract metaphysics of concrete being. In particular, we shall assume that no such considerations rule out the possibility of innitely many concrete beings existing at the same time. And given that there could be innitely many concrete beings in existence and there could be colocated angels, it seems clear that no considerations from abstract metaphysics, logic, or mathematics would militate against the possibility of innitely many colocated angels.
8 Note that even if there is an upper bound on boson cohabitation dictated by the laws of nature, that does not settle the modal question, at least on the standard assumption that the laws of nature are contingent.
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3. A Cantorian reminder
We have achieved a fuller answer: innitely many . However, once the Cantorian hierarchy of transnite cardinals is revealed to us through the natural light of reason, we realize that this answer is still only partial.9 The coarse answer innitely many belies a range of ner-grained distinctions. After all the familiar nite cardinals comes @0, which is the rst transnite cardinal, that giving the cardinality of the set of natural numbers. And after @0 comes @1, which is dened as the next transnite cardinal. Unfortunately, we know very little about how @1 compares with the cardinality of other familiar sets such as, for example, the set of real numbers. We know that the set of real numbers has size 2@0 but not whether the latter cardinal is strictly greater than as opposed to exactly @1.10 But be that as it may, we do know that after @1 comes the next transnite cardinal @2, and we know further that after each @n, comes @n+1, which is its immediate successor. After all these, comes @!, which is the least cardinal greater than every @n for n 2 !. And after @! comes @!+1. As you may expect by now, after all cardinals of the form @!+n, for n 2 !, comes @!+!. And so on. Quite generally, for every ordinal , there is a cardinal @. The Cantorian scale of alephs provide us with a dizzying array of candidate resolutions to our theological quandary. But let us not forget another crucial tenet of the Cantorian framework: every set in the realm of the nite and the transnite has an aleph as its cardinal number, but, conversely, every aleph is the cardinal number of a set. More importantly, no aleph comes close to matching the magnitude of the Absolute, the veritable innity which:
cannot in any way be added to or diminished, and it is therefore to be looked upon quantitatively as an absolute maximum. In a certain sense it transcends the human power of comprehension, and in particular is beyond mathematical determination. (Cantor, 1932a, p. 405)
Here we side with Georg Cantor, who writes: It is my conviction that the domain of denable quantities is not closed off with the nite quantities and that the limits of our knowledge may be extended accordingly without this necessarily doing violence to our nature. I therefore replace the Aristotelian-Scholastic proposition: innitum actu non datur with the following: Omnia seu nita seu innita sunt et excepto Deu ab intellectu determinari possunt. [All forms whether nite or innite are denite and with the exception of God are capable of being intellectually determined.] (Cantor, 1932b, p. 176)
The assumption that 2@0 @1 is the Continuum Hypothesis, which is known to be independent from rst-order Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with choice (ZFC).
10
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Early on, Cantor went on to conceive of this absolute maximum as an appropriate symbol of the power and transcendence of God:
What surpasses all that is nite and transnite is no Genus; it is the single and completely individual unity in which everything is included, which includes the Absolute incomprehensible to the human understanding. This is the Actus Durissimus which by many is called God. (Cantor, 1979, p. 290)
But this further thought is of course far from obligatory in subsequent articulations of the Cantorian framework. What matters for present purposes is that unless we are prepared to allow for the possibility of so many angels as to match the Absolute, the scale of alephs exhausts the range of cardinalities we might hope to assign to them.
4. Indenite Extensibility
The answer exactly @7 is prima facie offensive to reason. The concern about arbitrariness for the answer exactly seven seem to carry over with roughly equal force to the answer exactly @7 : Perhaps a better answer might be to say that while there cannot possibly be absolutely innitely many angels in existence, no aleph manages to set an appropriate upper bound on the possible cardinalities of angels dancing on the point of a needle: Indenite Extensibility : There could not be so many angels as to exceed each and every aleph, but for each , there could be exactly @-many angels in existence. This answer does not suffer from the arbitrariness of previous answers, though you may well wonder about the assumption that the Cantorian sequence of alephs exhausts the range of live answers to our question. What might prevent God from creating so many angels on the point of a needle as to exceed each and every aleph? It is not obvious how, by themselves, the methods of trascendental theology can rule out the possibility of the existence of absolutely innitely many angels on the point of a needle. We would rather not speculate about the idea that, since the transcendent Absolute is an appropriate symbol for the power and transcendence of God, it is not to be matched by any other actual innity.11
11
It is striking that both Aquinas and Cantor reserve the greatest size for the deity.
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5. Plenitude
We have arrived at another live answer to our question: absolutely innitely many . Maybe there could be so many angels on the point of a needle that no aleph in the Cantorian hierarchy could ever do justice to their quantity. Unlike the offensive answers dismissed earlier, this strikes us as a live alternative to Indenite Extensibility. But what exactly would it be for some angels to be absolutely innite in number? Cantor (1967) used the series of ordinal numbers, which he called
, in order to measure absoluteness. In particular, he argued that a collection or multiplicity , to use his term X is absolutely innite and hence not a set if and only if
can be injected into X, that is, there is a one-one map from all the ordinals in the sequence into some members of X.12 Since there is a one-one map from
onto the aleph series, Cantors criterion gives us that X is an absolutely innite collection if and only if there is a one-to-one map from the aleph series into X. This observation can be used to sharpen the last live answer to our question. To say that there could be absolutely innitely many angels is to say that there is a one-one map from the alephs into the angels, which is to say that there could be at least as many angels as there are alephs. Plenitude: There could be at least as many angels as there are alephs. Plenitude tells us that there could indeed be so many angels as to exceed each and every aleph.
6. Some argumentative tools

How are we to choose between Indenite Extensibility and Plenitude? And what constraints will our answer place on a proper metaphysics of modality? Before answering these questions, we need to call the readers attention to three potentially important ideas. One of them is a result that is largely beyond dispute. Two are quite natural hypotheses about the structure of the universe of set theory. (After sketching the consequences of these last two ideas we will entertain an approach to the metaphysics of size that somewhat bypasses them, but which preserves some of the lessons of the preceding discussion.)
12 Cantor relied on implicit assumptions that are far from innocent from a modern perspective. His conclusion, however, yields a very elegant criterion for absoluteness. See Hallett 1984, p. 172, for a detailed discussion of Cantors argument and his implications.
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6.1 Idea one: a mereological result Call a plurality disperse if and only if there are no two different subpluralities of it such that a single object is a fusion of each of them.13 The plurality consisting of an apple, its left half, and its right half is not disperse since the apple is a fusion of itself as well as a fusion of four other subpluralities, namely, the apple and its left half, the apple and its right half, the apples left and right half, and, nally, the apple and both its left and right halves. In contrast, for example, any plurality of mereological atoms will be disperse. It follows from our earlier assumption that the archangels Michael and Gabriel are a disperse plurality, for the simple reason that each of its three subpluralities results in a different fusion: a fusion of Michael, a fusion of Gabriel, and a fusion of Michael and Gabriel will be different from each other. Let us say that a fusion is based on a plurality if and only if it is a fusion of one of its subpluralities. We assume the principle of unrestricted composition that any plurality has a fusion. The result that we wish to draw attention to is the following: Remark 1: If a plurality is disperse and more numerous than one, then there will be more fusions based on that plurality than there are members of it. We draw on the following observation: Remark 2: If a plurality is more numerous than one, then it has more subpluralities than members. Two pluralities have the same size if and only if there is a one-one map from the rst onto the second. A map is a relation which pairs every object in the domain with at most one object in the range of the relation. Finally, a relation is a one-one map from one plurality onto another if (i) no two objects in the domain are paired with the same object in the range and (ii) the rst plurality is its domain and the range is exactly the second plurality. (If the range is a proper subplurality of the second plurality, we say that the relation is a one-one map from the rst plurality into the second.) Quantication over relations can be simulated by plural quantication over ordered pairs. However, we need the domain of individuals to be closed under the formation of ordered pairs. The question is
13 As we use the terms plurality and subplurality , to speak of a plurality of certain objects is to speak of the objects themselves. Likewise, for a subplurality of a given plurality of objects, by which we mean some of them.
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how to understand talk of ordered pairs. One option is to take them to be sets and rely on the closure of the domain under certain set-theoretic operations. Another option is to mimic ordered pairs in the framework of megethology : plural logic augmented with mereology.14 The appendix of Lewis 1991 shows how to simulate ordered pairs in our framework on the assumption that there are innitely many mereological atoms. And Hazen (1997) has shown how to relax this assumption further by carrying out the simulation in the context of an innite atomless mereology. Either way would suit our dialectical purposes, though each option comes with its own costs. The rst option requires any two objects to form a set, which, though a theorem of any Zermelo-Fraenkel-style set theory, makes our result to depend on a purely set-theoretic assumption. The second option requires one to assume fairly robust plural versions of choice as part of the framework of plural logic.15 There is a more serious worry in the vicinity. One way to put the second remark is as the claim that if a plurality is more numerous than one, then there is no one-one map from its members onto its subpluralities. But what sense is to be made of a relation between the members of the plurality and its subpluralities? It is not, after all, as if an ordered pair can pair an object with a plurality; we can only have an object gure as a second component of an ordered pair. Here we have to be devious and resort to coding.16 If x is in the domain of a relation R, think of Rx as the plurality of objects which the relation R pairs with x. Now think of x as a code in R for the plurality Rx. We can now think of a relation R as representing a one-one map from its domain into some pluralities, namely, those which are coded in R by a member of the domain. So, given a plurality more numerous than one, our observation becomes the claim that no relation can represent a one-one map from its members onto its subpluralities. Here is the (schematic) justication for the claim, which is inspired by the usual diagonal proof of Cantors theorem:
Suppose, for reductio, that there is a relation R that represents a one-one map from a plurality more numerous than one onto its subpluralities.
14 15
The term was coined by David Lewis in Lewis 1991.
Lewis (1991) identies some of these principles and their role in the simulation. Any of them t well with one of the important ideas limitation of size we will introduce in a moment. (This is because limitation of size will entail the existence of a well-ordering of the universe.)
16
See Shapiro 1991 for discussion of the coding scheme and its limitations.
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Then one such relation call it a groovy relation has one member of the plurality code a subplurality of which it is not itself a member.17 (If a member of the domain, a, codes in R a plurality consisting of a alone, then let a swap places with another, b, and the result will be a groovy relation.) Let R be a groovy relation. Now consider the codes in R of subpluralities of which they are not members. Call them the Beatles. Since, by reductio, R represents a one-one map that is onto, the Beatles must be coded in R by some member of the domain, call him Ringo. Now let us ask the question: Is Ringo one of the Beatles? Well, if Ringo is one of the Beatles, then we will deduce that he is not. After all, the Beatles are all and only codes of subpluralities that do not have them as members. If Ringo is one of the Beatles, then he thereby fails to meet a necessary condition for membership to the Beatles and we must conclude he is not one of them. But if we suppose that Ringo is not one of the Beatles, we can prove that he is. For if he is not, then he is the code of a subplurality that does not contain it as a member and therefore meets a sufcient condition for bona de membership to the Beatles. No groovy relation represents a one-one map from a plurality that is more numerous than one onto its subpluralities. Therefore, no relation does. We conclude that if a plurality is more numerous than one, then it has more subpluralities than it has members.18
We are now one step away from our mereological result. A disperse plurality that is more numerous than one has more subpluralities than members. But given unrestricted composition, every subplurality will have a fusion. By disperseness, different subpluralities will have different fusions, whence there are more fusions based on the initial plurality than there are members of it. To the extent to which our result did not depend on any contingencies, it holds necessarily.19
This would not be true if the plurality had only one member, for there is only one relation that represents a one-one map from its only member into its only subplurality, which is not at all groovy.
18 Although we have given an informal argument, plural comprehension is the only principle that is distinctive to the logic of plurals. In this respect, the argument is analogous to the Cantorian argument for the second-order claim that no binary relation can represent a one-one map from a concept, say, onto all its subconcepts (see Shapiro, 1991, p. 104). 17
Similar results hold for properties and propositions. Suppose we accept an abstraction principle that tells us that for every plurality, there is a property of being one of them. Then an analogous argument will show that for any plurality with more than one member, there are more identity properties based on that plurality than there are members. Suppose we accept an abstraction principle for propositions according to which for every plurality of worlds, there is a proposition that is true if and only if one of those worlds obtains. Then, an analogous
19
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6.2 Idea two: The Urelement Set Axiom Impure set theory is set theory with urelements, that is, non-sets. In contrast to pure set theory, in which one restricts attention to pure sets, in the context of impure set theory, many have found it natural to assume that necessarily, the urelements form a set. Call the proposition that the urelements form a set the Urelement Set Axiom.20 Although independent from the usual axioms of impure set theory (e.g., Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with urelements plus choice (ZFCU)), it is not uncommon to cite the iterative conception of set by way of motivation. On the iterative conception, sets are built in stages of a certain cumulative hierarchy. At stage zero we have the non-sets. At stage one we form arbitrary sets of urelements any urelements form a set in stage one. At stage two, we form arbitrary sets built of urelements and or level-one products. At stage omegath, we form arbitrary sets of urelements and products from nite stages. And, more generally, at stage , we build sets from materials that gure in prior stages. On this picture, the set of urelements will appear at stage one.21 Yet another consideration in support of the hypothesis has to do with the alleged universal applicability of mathematics, which is supposed to investigate structures presented by the other sciences. To the extent to which set theory is understood to provide a foundation for mathematics, we would expect the universe of sets to be rich enough to enable us to provide a set-theoretic surrogate for any structure whatever presented by the other sciences. Without the Urelement Set Axiom, we may not be able to represent certain structures
argument will show that for every plurality of worlds greater than one, there are more propositions based on those worlds than there are worlds. (An identity property is based on a plurality of things if and only if, for some subplurality, it is the property of being of the elements of the subplurality; a proposition is based on a plurality of worlds if and only if, for some subplurality, that proposition is true if and only if one or other of the worlds in the subplurality obtains.) Call an urelement that has no sets as parts an untainted urelement. A fusion of the empty set with a trout is undoubtedly an urelement, but not an untainted one as it still has a set as a proper part. A candidate restriction of the axiom is this: any untainted urelements form a set. This restricted version of the urelement set axiom would serve our dialectical purposes just as well. See Lewis 1986, p. 107, and Sider 2009 for support. When we begin with a set of individuals, the result is a transnite sequence of stages, which provides us with a map of the set-theoretic universe. If U is the set of individuals: U0 = U U1 U [ PU S Ul = <l U , for l a limit
21 20
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constituted by non-sets, and this would threaten the universality of mathematics.22 There is a more arcane motivation for the Urelement Set Axiom: McGee (1997) shows how the axioms of the resulting theory are able to x the structure of the domain of pure sets in combination with the size of the universe of all objects.23 However, weaker assumptions will do when one is willing to avail oneself of plural quantication over ordered pairs. The idea we introduce in the next subsection limitation of size would t the bill perfectly. Moreover, the axiom is exactly what you need if you want to avoid recourse to full second-order logic. However, since we take ourselves to have enough resources to simulate full second-order quantication, we are not particularly moved by this consideration. While we accord our second idea the urelement set axiom a measure of respect, we would not like to rest too much weight on it. As Nolan (1996, p. 254) emphasizes, nothing of strictly mathematical value would be lost if we were forced to abandon it in fact, set theorists seem to vary from ignoring urelements as a bothersome distraction to explicitly assuming, for convenience, that there are no urelements at all. Moreover, Zermelo (1930) sketched a conception of the universe of set theory with urelements as layered in stages of a cumulative hierarchy in which the urelements need not form a set. There is some evidence, then, that the heuristic picture of the universe of set theory as built in stages need not require the assumption that the urelements must form a set. 6.3 Idea three: Limitation of size One heuristic thought often used to motivate some of the axioms of set theory is the limitation of size view on which a plurality forms a set if and only if they are not in one-one correspondence with the entire universe of all objects. This principle, which is due to von Neumann (1925), helps motivate some of the standard axioms of ZermeloFraenkel set theory (with or without urelements). For example, limitation of size yields the axioms of separation and replacement as
This consideration has been independently advanced, for example, by Allen Hazen (2004) and Vann McGee (1997).
23 The result reads as follows: any two models of (schematic) second-order ZFCU + Urelement Set Axiom of the same cardinality have isomorphic pure sets. For a proof and an account of the difference between schematic and full second-order logic, see the appendix to McGee 1997. In the context of full second-order logic, our third idea below could be used to achieve the same purpose. 22
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immediate consequences. Separation says that any plurality of members of a set forms itself a set. Replacement, for its part, says that if a plurality is in one-one correspondence with the members of a set, then it does itself form a set. More surprisingly, perhaps, limitation of size yields justications for the axioms of union and choice.24 As for choice, von Neumanns principle delivers the existence of a global well-ordering of the universe. We know, by the reasoning of the Burali-Forti paradox, that the ordinals fail to form a set. Therefore, by limitation of size, we have that the ordinals must be in one-one correspondence with the entire universe. However, given that the ordinals are themselves well-ordered, a one-one map of the universe into the ordinals gives us a global well-ordering of the universe, which, in turn, entails weaker formulations of the axiom of choice.25 Against the background of the Cantorian framework, one attractive consequence of the von Neumann principle is that it tells us that the size of the Cantorian aleph series is the only extant size beyond all the alephs. You may think this is in line with the early Cantorian idea that the Absolute cannot be increased any further and thus sets a quantitative maximum (and furthermore, the limitation of size hypothesis makes the Cantorian series of alephs an adequate foundation for a perfectly general theory of cardinality we know from Cantor that if a plurality is too large to be numbered by an aleph, then the entire aleph series can be injected into it), but the von Neumann principle tells us that this can only happen if there is a one-one correspondence between the members of the plurality and the members of the aleph series. So, we can count on the aleph series as an appropriate measure of its size. The scale of alephs can thus be thought to form a proper foundation for the metaphysics of size by forming a kind of universal ruler, in the sense that the size of a plurality is determined by its relation to the ruler. If a plurality corresponds to a notch on the ruler, the aleph at that notch says what size it is. And if a plurality does not so
24 25
The claim that limitation of size gives us union is due to Levy (1968).
Not only was von Neumann himself aware of the strength of his axiom, he conceded that one might say that somewhat overshoots the mark. However, he went on to write I believe I was not too crassly arbitrary in introducing it, especially since it enlarges rather than restricts the domain of set theory and nevertheless can hardly become a source of antinomies (von Neumann, 1925, p. 402). We note in passing that one way of motivating the limitation of size axiom is by the Urelement Set Axiom. A second-order version of the axiom is, in the context of second-order ZFC, a consequence of the axiom of global choice. The observation can be extended to the case of second-order ZFCU given the Urelement Set Axiom
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correspond one can deduce what size it is: it matches the plurality of alephs and thus size of the universe. This is in fact the main consequence of the von Neumann principle we will be using in what follows. The von Neumann principle is not offered as a mere contingency. So let it be part of the third idea that it holds necessarily.
7. Plenitude under re
If all three ideas are embraced, two distinct arguments against Plenitude soon become available: (1) The Argument from the Urelement Set Axiom: Consider, for reductio, a world where there are exactly as many angels as there are actual alephs. And suppose that the domain of pure sets does not vary from world to world. Since, presumably, no angel is a set and they are therefore urelements, it follows, by the Urelement Set Axiom, that there is not only a set of urelements but, by separation, a set of angels. It follows, by Plenitude, that the entire sequence of alephs is in one-one correspondence with the members of a set. But, by replacement, the alephs themselves would have to form a set, which would in turn have an aleph as its cardinality. But the set-theoretic antinomies prohibit such a conclusion. Hence Plenitude must fail. A version of this argument has been used by Sider (2009) in connection to Williamsons necessitism. (2) The Limitation of Size Argument: We assume that a fusion of urelements is itself an urelement. And, since angels are themselves urelements, a fusion of angels must itself be an urelement. Given the mereological result, there must be strictly more urelements than there are angels. After all, our result tells us that there are strictly more fusions of angels than there are angels. Limitation of size tells us that the size of the urelements is at most the size of the alephs. Let us further make the benign assumption that the size of the aleph series does not vary from world to world. Given Plenitude, we are forced to conclude that the size of the angels matches the size of the actual alephs. But now, by our mereological result, we must conclude that there
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are strictly more urelements than there are alephs, which contradicts limitation of size. We conclude that Plenitude fails again.
8. Modal variation
We have been labouring under the assumption that that the aleph sequence, and likewise the domain of pure sets, remains constant from world to world. What if we relax that assumption? There are two ways to do this. One is to allow for modal variation in the domain of pure sets and yet to insist on a modal maximum for such a size: there is some world, wM, where the alephs (and the pure sets) have maximal size and hence there is no possible world where we can nd strictly more of them. Another denies a modal maximum for the size of the alephs or that of the pure sets: for any world w1 there is a world w2 where there are strictly more alephs and pure sets than there are at w1. If we choose the rst option, then there is a natural analogue of Plenitude: there is a maximum size for the plurality of angels, which is given by the maximum size for alephs and pure sets. But the analogue view will be undermined by either the Urelement Set Axiom or the Limitation of Size argument. If, instead, we choose the second option, then we no longer have a natural analogue for Plenitude available. Selecting any particular pure set size the size that the alephs actually have, for example as the modal maximum for the size of angels commits us to unwanted arbitrariness. It would be more natural to opt for an analogue of Indenite Extensibility instead. Just as the size of the alephs is indenitely extensible, so is the size of the angels. However, von Neumanns limitation of size principle is not particularly appealing in the context of Indenite Extensibility. For suppose we grant that there could have been strictly more alephs than there are in our world. And let us grant, in addition, that there could have been strictly more angels than there are alephs in our world, call their size . Whence now the modal guarantee that in any world in which there are exactly -many angels, there must be strictly more than -many alephs? Such a claim appears to institute a necessary connection between the sizes of distinct existences alephs and pure sets and angels that is not at all easy to justify. Having noticed that there could be exactly -many angels, on the one hand, and that there could be exactly -many alephs and pure sets, on the other,
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it becomes mysterious why those states of affairs should not be compossible. But once this compossibility is allowed, von Neumanns limitation of size principle fails, since there will be strictly more fusions of angels at such a world than there are alephs at that world. We shall not be speaking further to the view that the size of the alephs is modally inconstant. Such a view is certainly a minority view. And in any case it does little to disturb the intellectual thrust of the discussion so far, which favours the indenite extensibility vision.
9. Interlude
The materials presented thus far strongly point towards Indenite Extensibility. Does this provide us with a stable resolution of our scholastic inquiry, a secure result within transcendental theology? Matters are not quite so simple. In the remaining discussion we shall pursue two separate themes. First, we shall attempt to show that a number of prominent views in the metaphysics of modality cannot be squared with the Indenite Extensibility picture. If we hold that picture as a theological xed point, we are given new and surprising resources to select certain metaphysics of modality over others. Second, note that the space of alternatives explored thus far has been set by the Cantorian theory of cardinality, minimally supplemented by the assumption that we can make sense of the size of the entire sequence of alephs. However, it is not at all clear that this is the appropriate foundational framework. We sketch an alternative framework for thinking about sizes in which certain structural assumptions endemic to the set theoretic framework are exposed as non-obligatory and with which another important candidate resolution to our theological quandary presents itself.
10. Trouble for modal realism

Suppose with Lewis (1986) that possible worlds are existing concrete universes. Suppose further that we embrace Indenite Extensibility: there could not be so many angels to exceed each and every aleph, but for each , there is a world in which there are exactly @-many angels. The trouble comes when we open up our quantiers and describe the structure of the pluriverse, the posited reality of multiple concrete universes. When we take in the universe in one sweep, some mereological decisions have to be made. Are we to allow fusions that are composed
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from objects from multiple worlds? For example, is there a object that has David Lewis as one part and a possible talking donkey as another? Lewis explicitly allows such fusions and, indeed, gives them substantive work to do in his metaphysics. (For example, in Lewis 1986 he recommends the identication of properties of individuals with sets of individuals, where such sets are typically transworld. However, in Lewis 1991 he identies sets with fusions of singletons. Therefore, properties of individuals become fusions of singletons, where such fusions are generally transworld.) It would be exceedingly strange, moreover, to disallow such composition. If the mereological gods are sufciently liberal as to allow the fusion of David Lewis with objects that are spatially and/or temporally distant, why should spatiotemporal disconnectedness provide an insuperable barrier? (Note that such barriers would be particularly surprising if, as he avers in Lewis 1991, mereology is analogous to logic. From that perspective, a prohibition on transword composition would be analogous to a bar on conjunction introduction for propositions about different worlds.) Once transworld composition is allowed, the very sorts of problems that aficted Plenitude re-emerge, even for the proponent of Indenite Extensibility. If for any , there are exactly @-many angels at one world or another, then there will be at least as many angels across the pluriverse as there are alephs altogether. (Note that this result does not even require the thesis which Lewis in any case embraces that angels are world-bound, that is, the thesis that angels at different worlds are numerically distinct.) The cardinality of the angels across the pluriverse will have to be greater than any aleph, since by hypothesis, any aleph is surpassed by the angels at some corner of the pluriverse. The connement of angels to aleph-sizes within worlds still leaves us with a pluriversal size that matches the size of the alephs and the pure sets across the pluriverse. With this result in place, both arguments against Plenitude can now be brought to bear against any such description of the pluriverse. The Urelement Set Axiom would force the angels across the pluriverse to form a set, which cannot be allowed for the reasons given above.26 And the combination of the von Neumann principle and the mereological result would entail that the angels across the pluriverse both do and do not match their fusions in size.
A similar argument given in Nolan 1996, pp. 2467, and adapted to the constant domain metaphysics discussed below by Sider (2009).
26
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It thus seems that if one is a modal realist, one can embrace neither Plenitude nor Indenite Extensibility: one has to claim that for some , @ does in fact provide a modal upper bound on the size of the angels can have in a world. One could say that at some world this size is attained by the angels. Or one could instead says that while it is never attained, any lower cardinal is attainable. Either way, the posited upper bound reeks of the very sort of arbitrariness we have been at pains to avoid. To ward off the Forrest-Armstrong argument against his favourite principle of recombination, Lewis has elsewhere noted that his brand of modal realism accepts certain size and shape limits on recombination.27 But notice that a restriction on the possible size and shapes of concrete universes do not help us much in a context where angels can be packed into a single point. While modal restrictions on size and shape of universes may not seem too outrageous, the restriction envisaged here to a particular aleph upper bound on the size of angels cannot be swallowed so easily. In so far as we know Indenite Extensibility to hold, we also know that modal realism is false. In a slightly different but related context, Nolan (1996) has recommended that Lewis drop the Urelement Set Axiom. Note that in the present context such an adjustment is not sufcient to solve the problem. After all, the proponent of Indenite Extensibility who is also a modal realist has two arguments to deal with, not one. Even with the Urelement set axiom dropped, a von Neumann limitation of size principle plus our mereological result will undo Indenite Extensibility.
11. Trouble for necessitism

In Williamson 1998 and Williamson 2002, Timothy Williamson has argued for a view according to which the very same objects exist at all worlds. So, for example, David Lewis necessarily exists. The appearance of contingency is explained away via the hypothesis that Lewis is concrete at some worlds though failing to be concrete at others, together with the speculation that exists in natural language sometimes means concrete existence and not the existence simpliciter that concerns logic and metaphysics.
27
See Lewiss discussion of recombination in Lewis 1986, pp. 1024.
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On this view, then, every possible angel exists. Of course, a possible angel need not be an angel perhaps one has to be concrete in order to be angelic. (We leave aside the issue of what the concrete/nonconcrete distinction might come to if, as the Angelic Doctor seemed to hold, an angel is form without matter.) Yet, even if we take care to distinguish bona de angels from bona de entities that are merely possible angels, the seemingly happy solution provided by Indenite Extensibility becomes destabilized. After all, if for any , there could be exactly @-many angels, then there actually are at least as many possible angels as there are alephs. Now while many possible angels may not be angels, it seems clear that a possible angel is not a set. (For one reason, it seems that a set is necessarily a set and that nothing could be both a set and an angel.) Then, as Ted Sider has pointed out (in Sider 2009), the Urelement Set Axiom will make trouble for Williamsons position. Moreover, even if that axiom is dispensed with in accord with Nolans advice our second argument will proceed along familiar lines. Assuming unrestricted composition, there will be strictly more fusions of possible angels than there are possible angels. But once von Neumanns principle is assumed, this cannot be reconciled with the claim that there are exactly as many possible angels as there are alephs.28 The problems facing Lewis and Williamson are highly analogous and bear emphasis. In both cases, we are given philosophical systems that allow for quantication over all possible objects. In Williamsons case this is because all possible objects are actual. In Lewis case this is because we are allowed to open up our quantiers so that they range beyond what is actual. In both cases, this kind of quantication, when combined with Indenite Extensibility, brings proper-class-many possible angels within the domain of our broadest quantiers. And this spells trouble when combined with various of our three ideas.
12. Conning composition

In this and the next two sections, we address possible ways that one or other or our metaphysical targets Lewis and Williamson, that is
A similar problem arises for someone who wants to combine Indenite Extensibility with the assumption that possible worlds are themselves objects as opposed to properties, propositions, or any other items not in the range of the rst-order quantiers. If for each , there is a world in which there are @ angels, then there are as many possible worlds as there are alephs, namely, proper-class-many. But this fact cannot be reconciled with the combination of limitation of size and our mereological result.
28
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may try to deal with the argument from Limitation of Size. It goes without saying that those who are thoroughly convinced by the argument from the Urelement Set Axiom will not, in any case, be assuaged. When confronted with the Limitation of Size argument, one natural escape route for Williamson is to restrict the scope of our favourite mereological principles to concrete existence: while there may well be a fusion of angels, there need not be a fusion of possible angels. One natural restriction if it even serves to be so called on mereology is to rst-order objects, objects that are t assignments for rst-order variables.29 But that does not help here, since angels are obviously rst-order objects. Similarly, it does not help anyone who takes possible worlds to be rst-order objects. A more relevant consideration in favour of such a restriction is that it may, in any case, be recommended by considering the case of the pure sets themselves. After all, the combination of limitation of size and our mereological result cannot be reconciled with our allowing unrestricted composition to extend even to the realm of pure sets, at least on one natural assumption on their mereological structure. Assume (with Lewis, for example) that the plurality of singletons of pure sets is disperse. Then, by the mereological result, there are strictly more fusions of singletons of pure sets than there are singletons of pure sets. But this contravenes the von Neumann limitation of size principle as the singletons of all pure sets do not themselves form a set and must thereby be in one-one correspondence with all things. A natural reaction to this is to delimit the scope of composition. But once we recognize that composition does not apply to sets, it may also be natural to remove other nonconcrete objects from its scope of application. Note that this move is not available to the modal realist. On Lewiss view possible angels are just as concrete as actual ones.
Note that this provides an attractive way of blocking certain arguments that put prima facie pressure on limitation of size. Consider for example an argument that proceeds via noting that there are more identity properties based on the alephs than there are the alephs (see n. 18). Does this show that the limitation of size principle is false after all? The defender of limitation of size need not resort to a despairing nominalism at this point. A natural and we think more promising response is, with Frege, to insist on a deep rift between the values of rst- and second-order variables, and on the back of this argue that it is mistaken to try to cram the values of second-order variables into the domain of rst-order variables. Assuming a similar rift between rst-order and propositional variables, arguments against the limitation of size that proceed via the plenitude of propositions can be similarly blocked.
29
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13. The one and the many

The attempt to make trouble for unrestricted composition by applying the combination of the limitation of size principle and our mereological result to the realm of pure sets can be resisted by adopting a nonstandard view of their mereological structure. Suppose that one holds that a sufcient (though not necessary) condition for an object set or urelement to be part of a set is that the former be a member of the latter. Then the disperseness assumption required for the mereological result would not hold. In the case of possible angels, a nonstandard merelogy can also escape the argument. When one learns of the Williamsonian framework, it is perhaps natural to think of possibly (but not actually) concrete objects as being scattered like merelogical dust across Platonic Heaven. Yet that conception is far from obligatory. Among the mereological alternatives we suggest one that is particularly appealing, and which is indeed perhaps more theologically proper. Suppose we adopt a mereology that as against classical extensional mereology abandons the presumption that parthood is antisymmetric: if x and y are parts of each other, x is identical to y. (Such an abandonment is quite familiar among those who are careful to distinguish a ship from the quanity of steel or wood that constitutes it, even in cases where they eternally coincide). It now becomes possible to think of the possibly (but not actually) concrete objects, not as forming a disperse plurality, but as parts of each other, forming an entangled unity. When an object becomes concrete it breaks off from that is, becomes mereologically discrete from those entangled entities, and when it ceases to be concrete, it returns to that is, becomes mereologically reconciled to those entities. While this is not perhaps a full vindication of Plotinus doctrine of a return to the One carried into scholastic philosophy by the early Church Fathers it is perhaps as close to a vindication as sober analytic metaphysics can provide.
14. Restricting limitation of size

Lewis (1991) opts not quite for von Neumanns limitation of size principle, as we have stated it, but instead for a more qualied version of it, restricted to singletons: a plurality of singletons forms a set, that is, their fusion has a singleton, if and only if they are not in one-one correspondence with all the singletons. So, there is exactly one size a plurality of singletons can be and not form a set. But this leaves
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open whether or not there are more objects altogether than there are singletons. And indeed, there are, in Lewiss framework, many more arbitrary fusions of singletons than there are singletons. On this system, then, the Cantorian sequence of alephs matches the size of the singletons, but it is far from matching the size of all things. Does this qualication enable him to escape from the Limitation of Size argument that we have advanced against the modal realist? It does not. Lewis is quite explicit that any urelement has a singleton. Assume that there are again exactly as many angels as there are alephs. Then there are strictly more fusions of angels than there are alephs. Since every fusion of angels is itself an urelement, both angels and their fusions have singletons. But now we are forced to admit contra the qualied principle that there are at least two different sizes a plurality of singletons can have and not form a set. There are, in other words, two different sizes that are larger than any aleph.30
15. A guide for the set-theoretically perplexed

Not all metaphysicians will be content to use pure sets as the basis for an exhaustive account of size. Some will think that pure sets are merely a useful ction. Others will indulge in pure set ontology but believe that such an ontology is inadequate to a complete account of size. The latter may break from the traditional set-theoretic strictures by positing a scale of sizes that extends beyond the aleph sequence by countenancing sizes greater than the size of any set. If the von Neumann principle holds, this would only add an additional endpoint to the series of alephs. But some may postulate, in deance of the von Neumann principle, a multitude of sizes beyond the sizes captured by the alephs. Let us now approach the metaphysics of size in a way that is neutral on set theory. We take a page from Frege, who famously offered a quite a different foundation for arithmetic. He started from what has come to be known as Humes principle:
The number of Fs is identical to the number of Gs if and only if there are exactly as many Fs as there are Gs.
To be sure, if we take urelement to mean non-set as we have done then Lewis would not accept the principle that there is only one size a plurality of urelements can have and not form a set. (Compare, for example, the plurality of all proper classes, i.e., fusions of singletons without a singleton, with a subplurality of that plurality of the size of the pure sets.)
30
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One immediate consequence of Humes principle is that no matter what Fs we consider, we are in a position to ascribe a cardinal number to them whether or not they are set-sized. Thus even if there is no set of all self-identical objects, we can, according to Frege, assign a cardinal number to them, that is, anti-zero.31 In what follows, we will reify sizes as certain objects, but, unlike the traditional set-theoretic framewok, we will assume them to be governed by a modal version of Humes principle as formulated in a suitable language:
Necessarily, the size of Fs is identical to the size of Gs if and only if there are exactly as many Fs as there are Gs.
Let us concede upfront that the adoption of this principle relies on the presupposition that any two pluralities are comparable in size: either there are exactly as many Fs as there are Gs, that is, they are in one-one correspondence, or there are strictly fewer Fs than there are Gs, that is, the Fs are in one-one correspondence with some (but not all) Gs, or there are strictly more Fs than there are Gs.32 This assumption takes us far beyond orthodox set theory, which remains silent when it comes to the question of whether various proper classes are comparable in size. Some further assumptions are natural enough, though not extractable from the principle alone. Some of them are analogues to certain unofcial assumptions on the nature of sets. In particular, it is natural to assume that sizes, even if not sets, are, like sets, necessary beings. We assume, too, that it is not necessary that everything is a size. Cardinal comparability gives us that the sizes posited by our principle are linearly ordered. A further natural assumption though certainly one not extractable from the previous ones is that sizes are well ordered, i.e., given any sizes, there is a least one of them. (This rules out, for example, the hypothesis that not only is the Continuum Hypothesis false, but also there is a countable number of densely ordered sizes between the size of the reals and the size of the naturals.) In a setting like this, where an ontology of sizes is posited that need not be identied with sets, there is little to speak in favour of the Urelement Set Axiom. If there are no sets, it will not be true. And even if sets are posited alongside sizes, the Urelement Set Axiom cannot be tolerated since it will be manifestly unacceptable to allow
31 32
The term anti-zero comes from Boolos (1997).
Otherwise, if too many pluralities turned out not to be comparable in size, then there might not be enough objects to satisfy the principle in the rst place.
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that the sizes form a set. (Otherwise, the set of all sizes would have an aleph as its cardinal number. But this means that our scale would leave out sizes for any succeeding aleph, let alone the entire series of alephs.)33 And in a setting like this, there is little force to the von Neumann principle. When the aleph series no longer forms the basis for the metaphysics of size one cannot, without special additional argument, plausibly assume that the alephs arbitrate the limitations on size. What are the alternatives to Indenite Extensibility and Plenitude in this new setting? And how should we choose among them? We have been silent on one feature of the linear ordering of sizes, namely, whether it has an absolute upper bound, a modal anti-zero. To be sure, our modal variation of Humes principle requires the existence of an anti-zero relative to each world in which it holds. But if the universe is modally inconstant, that observation does not settle whether there is a modal anti-zero. We may, after all, wish the scale of sizes to mark all the alternative sizes some objects might have, whether or not they have do them. But then, what counts as anti-zero with respect to the actual world may not correspond to the endpoint of the entire scale of possible sizes. Now if sizes are themselves objects and, as we have assumed, themselves necessary beings, then the size of the objects in each world is at least the size of all the sizes. Given that there is at least one non-size, there are innitely many sizes. But little further can be deduced from the preceding assumptions, and, in particular, we cannot deduce whether or not the well-ordering of sizes has an upper bound. Let us now return to our original question both from within a framework that assumes no end-point for the series of sizes and one that does. A structure with no endpoint is notably different from the combination of the Cantorian framework and the von Neumann principle. There is manifestly a topmost size at least if we assume modal constancy for the alephs and hence the pure sets. But in the present setting there is no such size. If sizes have no endpoint, no natural analogue for Plenitiude is available. Of course one could still insist that, even though there are plenty of sizes greater than any aleph, the maximal size for angels is that of the entire aleph sequence. But what could justify this when there are plenty of sizes beyond
We understand urelement to mean non-set and leave open whether the urelement set axiom could be tolerated on a different reading of the term.
33
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that of the aleph sequence? Here, then, the natural view is an analogue of Indenite Extensibility: no matter what size you pick, there could have been strictly more angels than that on the point of a needle. But notice now that there are crushing objections to Lewis and Williamsons modal metaphysics, and indeed, to any metaphysics that quanties over all possibilia. For if, for any size, there could be that many angels at the end of a needle, then no size whatever can be coherently associated with the merely possible angels (in Williamsons case) or with the transworld panoply of angels (in Lewiss case). The lesson is that if one is to indulge in quantication over all possibilia then one had better opt for a scale of sizes with a topmost element. Suppose instead one opts for a scale of possible sizes with a topmost element. Let us call the topmost size, a modal anti-zero. The necessitarian is independently committed to there being such a size, which is modally constant. Then one can adapt two of the earlier positions to the present setting. One position is that the number of angels on the point of a needle could be anti-zero the analogue of Plenitude. The other is that while the number of angels on the point of a needle could not be the modal anti-zero, there is no upper bound on the size angels could be and, indeed, for any size less than antizero, the angels could be strictly larger in size than . This is the analogue of Indenite Extensibility. But given that there are strictly more fusions of angels than there are angels, the analogue of Plenitude will be unstable. And, as before, the analogue of Extensibility will be rendered unstable by various modal metaphysics that permit quantication over all possibilia. However, in the current framework there is a genuinely new option. In the Cantorian framework combined with the von Neumann limitation of size principle, the maximal cardinality namely, that of the entire aleph sequence has no immediate predecessor. However, we are not, in the current framework, entitled to the assumption that the modal anti-zero has no immediate predecessor. Of course we may boldly speculate that the modal anti-zero does not have one. But it is at least open to us to speculate that the modal anti-zero does have an immediate predecessor, call it a modal anti-one. In this setting we may have a principled reason for claiming that there is a particular maximum less than the modal anti-zero that angels can have, namely, the modal anti-one. Our mereological result will rule out the modal anti-zero, but not the modal anti-one. (Note that the mereological result cannot be reapplied to the fusions of the angels to get an even
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larger size since the discreteness assumption will not hold for the fusions.)34
16. A meta-ontological sermon

Some lost souls, rebelling against the natural light, have promulgated the heretical view that metaphysics is but wordplay. What went by the name of substantive metaphysics among our distinguished semantic predecessor was, according to these naysayers, a case of capturing the same facts using different notations. What was taken to be substantive is alleged to be supercial. And what goes for our predecessors goes for contemporary metaphysicians who carry the torch of metaphysical learning. These lost souls are careful not to avow the heresies of vericationism, at least not in public. Instead, they avow what purports to be a new semantic picture, one according to which there is no distinguished or privileged meaning of exists, there is, some object, or of any of the other foundational expressions in which ontological disputes are canvassed. Instead, ontological proposals, if they are not to be construed as crazy disavowals of what is selfevidently true in English, are at best charitably construed as tacit proposals for using ontological language in new ways to capture old facts. We cannot engage directly with the detailed semantic theories that these naysayers offer us. For they have not provided such theories. Instead, they present us with a ramshackle mixture of Moorean posturing and sample translation schemes that allegedly render metaphysical questions empty. The paradigm example indeed, often the only example that is offered of an empty metaphysical dispute is that between the nihilist who believes that only simples exist and the proponent of classical mereology who adds a full stock of fusions to whatever simples exist. At least part of the rhetoric of our heretical opponents is that every possibility construed as a set of possible worlds that is embraced by the proponent of one position is embraced by the other. Let us say that position A modally advances on position B iff there is some set of worlds such that there is a sentence in As language that is true at all and only those worlds and which is reckoned to be possibly true by the
If with Lewis we admit singletons, there may be a principled reason for a third answer, a modal anti-two. Moreover, if the power-plurality operation jumps n steps up the size tree, we may envisaged reason for other answers as well namely, a modal anti-three, a modal anti-four, etc.
34
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defender of A, but there is no sentence in Bs language true at all and only those worlds and that is reckoned to be possibly true by the defender of B. With this in place, one might think it altogether obvious that, assuming the Nihilists language is sufciently rich, and interpretation is sufciently charitable, the Mereologist and Nihilist will be so situated that neither makes a modal advance upon the other. Insofar as one agrees that there is a non-empty set of worlds picked out by there are three things in the mouth of the Mereologist, it will be a set captured by there are two simples in the mouth of the Nihilist (and will also be captured by there are two things in the mouth of the Nihilist on the charitable assumption that the Mereologist ought to treat him as using a quantier that is restricted relative to the Mereologists quantier). Now there is plenty to say about this sort of semantic picture thinking which goes beyond the scope of this tract. But one lesson should be immediately obviously from the considerations adduced above, namely that it is far from clear that mereology makes no difference to which possibilities are possible for the concrete simples themselves. In particular, suppose that the mereologist adopts a conception of size grounded in the Cantorian framework. He will likely, for the reasons given, balk at the possibility of a plurality of concrete simples that are as plenitudinous as the alephs. By contrast, the Nihilist will be under no similar pressure to deny that possibility. Hence, from the perspective of the Nihilist there will be a genuine possibility for the concrete simples that the Mereologist is blind to on any reasonably charitable and natural construal of the Mereologists language. Thus, the Nihilist will take himself to have modally advanced on the Mereologist. Of course things will look different to the Mereologist. If he charitably construes the Nihilists quantiers as restricted, he will not think that the Nihilist is guilty of error in the claim there are only simples. But he will, even from this (excessively?) charitable perspective construe the Nihilist as incorrect in claiming Possibly, the concrete simples are so numerous as to match the alephs in size. From the perspective of the Mereologist, there is no modal advance made by the Nihilist. So, does one theory modally advance on the other? One can only decide this by guring out which theory is true! When the deconstructionist smoke has cleared, we can only settle whether one theory modally advances on the other by theorizing as best we can. The lesson is obvious enough: semantic ascent to a discussion of language games, notations
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and linguistic rules was never an adequate substitute for doing metaphysics.35
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35 We would like to thank ystein Linnebo, Daniel Nolan, Robbie Williams, Timothy Williamson, and audiences at Abeerden, Chicago, Leeds, Manchester, MIT, Nottingham, Oxford, Paris, and Vancouver.
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Angels Needle

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How Many Angels Can Dance on the Point of a Needle?

Transcendental Theology Meets Modal Metaphysics

John Hawthorne and Gabriel Uzquiano

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

Mind, Vol. 120 . 477 . January 2011

Hawthorne and Uzquiano 2011

How Many Angels?

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

See Hudson 2006 for a discussion of a similar hypothesis.

Mind, Vol. 120 . 477 . January 2011

Hawthorne and Uzquiano 2011

John Hawthorne and Gabriel Uzquiano

2. Against offensive arbitrariness

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

Mind, Vol. 120 . 477 . January 2011

Hawthorne and Uzquiano 2011

How Many Angels?

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

Mind, Vol. 120 . 477 . January 2011

Hawthorne and Uzquiano 2011

John Hawthorne and Gabriel Uzquiano

Mind, Vol. 120 . 477 . January 2011

Hawthorne and Uzquiano 2011

How Many Angels?

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

6. Some argumentative tools

Mind, Vol. 120 . 477 . January 2011

Hawthorne and Uzquiano 2011

John Hawthorne and Gabriel Uzquiano

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

Mind, Vol. 120 . 477 . January 2011

Hawthorne and Uzquiano 2011

How Many Angels?

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

The term was coined by David Lewis in Lewis 1991.

Mind, Vol. 120 . 477 . January 2011

Hawthorne and Uzquiano 2011

John Hawthorne and Gabriel Uzquiano

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

Mind, Vol. 120 . 477 . January 2011

Hawthorne and Uzquiano 2011

How Many Angels?

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

Mind, Vol. 120 . 477 . January 2011

Hawthorne and Uzquiano 2011

John Hawthorne and Gabriel Uzquiano

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

Mind, Vol. 120 . 477 . January 2011

Hawthorne and Uzquiano 2011

How Many Angels?

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

Mind, Vol. 120 . 477 . January 2011

Hawthorne and Uzquiano 2011

John Hawthorne and Gabriel Uzquiano

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

How Many Angels?

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

John Hawthorne and Gabriel Uzquiano

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

10. Trouble for modal realism

How Many Angels?

Downloaded from mind.oxfordjournals.org at Ebsco on September 12, 2011

Mind, Vol. 120 . 477 . January 2011