Is necessitarianism true under idealism?
Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2021 8:50 pm
Necessitarianism is a metaphysical principle which essentially claims that everything is metaphysically necessary; there is exactly one way for the world to be. It’s the denial of brute and contingent facts.
It’s stronger than hard determinism in the sense that the determinist would still claim that the ‘causal chain’ as a whole could have been different, even if everything within it could not given their antecedent causes. The necessitarian, on the other hand, claims that there only ever was one outcome for everything, and this outcome itself is necessary.
MAL has a will, but this will (and what it wills) is part of MAL’s intrinsic nature that it cannot change. MAL is metaphysically necessary in the sense that it cannot fail to exist. So it seems as though everything MAL does is metaphysically necessary, given that MAL exists necessarily.
I’m wondering if I’ve missed something or am just flat out wrong about this.
It’s stronger than hard determinism in the sense that the determinist would still claim that the ‘causal chain’ as a whole could have been different, even if everything within it could not given their antecedent causes. The necessitarian, on the other hand, claims that there only ever was one outcome for everything, and this outcome itself is necessary.
MAL has a will, but this will (and what it wills) is part of MAL’s intrinsic nature that it cannot change. MAL is metaphysically necessary in the sense that it cannot fail to exist. So it seems as though everything MAL does is metaphysically necessary, given that MAL exists necessarily.
I’m wondering if I’ve missed something or am just flat out wrong about this.