CHALLENGE THE INFINITE SPEAKERS

James Studd

James is an Associate Professor at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall.

He works primarily in logic, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mathematics.

His 2013 paper 'The Iterative Conception of Set' and his 2019 book 'Everything More or Less: a Defence of Generality Relativism' offer some of the most important defences of a particular kind of (bi-)Modal Potentialism.

Title: Contingentist Sets as Potentialist Properties

Abstract:

Philosophers who take being to be contingent face a problem involving sets of possibilia. Semantic reflection gives contingentists a powerful motivation to posit sets with non-actual members or even sets with incompossible members. On the other hand, good metaphysics assures us that there are no such sets. This talk outlines an interpretation of set theory based on a potentialist theory of properties that permits ‘sets’ with non-actual or incompossible members. This provides a way, I argue, for contingentists to meet the needs of semantics without resorting to bad metaphysics.