Against a necessary singularity
This post is the first in my larger project of showing that nowadays philosophers do not understand the concept of necessary existence. It's more akin to a contingent entity that just happens to have necessary existence due to a unique feature it possesses, be it the first in time or the fundamental ontological level. But being unique in some sense is insufficient. Unless we can see how its uniqueness follows from its nature, we can't rationally affirm the necessity of the one arbitrarily limited thing just on the basis that it exists and the others do not. Note that the initial singularity as the starting point for modality won't help here. The reason why is that the worlds are derivative and thus have existence de dicto . This can also be leveled at the starting point though, for the simple reason that the necessity, as mentioned above, can't be ascribed just because it's the first and the fact that it actually exists. It's important to distinguish between an ...