A Refinement on The Contingent Symmetry Argument Against Existential Inertia

P1. If contingent entities have existential inertia, then the facts by which identity and individuation principles are grounded are intrinsic to contingent entities.

P2. If the facts by which identity and individuation principles are grounded are intrinsic to contingent entities, then contingency is not symmetrical.

P3. It is false that contingency is not symmetrical.

C1. If contingent entities have existential inertia, then contingency is not symmetrical. (P1, P2 HS)

C2. It is not the case that contingent entities have existential inertia. (P3, C1 MT)

Ad P1. Suppose that identity and individuation principles are not grounded by facts intrinsic to contingent entities. If so, it would seem that identity and individuation is ungrounded or extrinsically grounded. Ungrounded identity and individuation is metaphysically absurd, or at least an untoward position to adopt to salvage EI and contingent symmetry. If a contingent entity’s identity and individuation is grounded extrinsically, then there are external facts that must be the case for the contingent entity to be sustained in existence, but that would be incompatible with existential inertia. For, if an entity has existential inertia, its sustenance, or persistence, cannot be explained by external facts happening to obtain and not failing to obtain.

Ad P2. Contingency is typically defined as two-way possibility, i.e. x possibly exists and possibly does not exist. Now, one might say that x is contingent if it is actual and could fail to exist, but that is only because it seems reasonable to say that whatever is actual is possible. However, such a claim is not the same as the notion of symmetrical contingency, in which an entity that exists could cease to exist and in situations or worlds in which that entity has ceased to exist, it could come to be again. If an entity’s identity and individuation is groundless, it would be a groundless claim to say that it has symmetrical contingency, i.e. that it could come back into existence in situations where it is not. There would not be any facts by which principles of identity or individuation are grounded such that one could appeal to make the claim that it is the same individual. Likewise, if identity and individuation are intrinsic to an entity, the intrinsic facts that ground those principles would go out of existence in situations where the entity does not exist. Thus, from the perspective of those situations, a counterfactual claim that the same individual entity could come to be would be groundless, since the facts that could have grounded the coming-to-be of that same individual would have ceased to be along with the entity and all of its other intrinsic properties.

One possible response is that identity and individuation are grounded intrinsically when a contingent entity is existentially inert, but is somehow buffered to an extrinsic source so that when the entity goes out of existence, there are extrinsic grounds for its identity and individuation are preserved. This response seems rather complicated and an ad hoc rescue. Buffering grounding principles seems like a kind of overdetermination of identity and individuation and so metaphysically implausible. Moreover, it is not entirely clear how a different set of facts that ground identity and individuation could preserve the possibility of the same individual. A regress would have to form, i.e. there would have to be something the grounds the identity between the intrinsic facts and the buffered facts, and such a grounding would suggest that there ultimately is an extrinsic ground for a contingent entity’s identity and individuation, since its supposed intrinsic facts are, themselves, grounded extrinsically.

Ad P3. Typically, we think of two-way possibility, or contingency, as symmetrical. So if EI is true, we must drastically modify our modal intuitions to accommodate that fact. Contingency would be more like a fuse than a circuit breaker, i.e. the current flows in a fuse but once broken, a different fuse, which would be a counterpart to the first, is needed whereas the same circuit breaker can be flipped back to complete the circuit. When I consider myself as a contingent being, I think that I could blip in and out of existence, as a teleporter might be able to decompose me and bring me back into existence. Christian theists, in particular, should think that God has the omnipotence to bring the same individuals back into existence after they have ceased to exist. So, those committed to EI must suppose that individual entities are not symmetrically contingent, but only contingent in the sense that they actually exist and can cease to exist, but can never come back into existence again. If EI is metaphysically necessary, then it would be impossible for any individual to ever be resurrected, person or object.

Brass Tacks: it seems, if this argument is sound, that a commitment to EI will require one to abandon modal Axiom B. That is, if EI is necessarily true, φ → ☐♢φ fails as would systems of modal logic that depend on Axiom B, e.g. system B, which adds Axiom B to system M, S5 which adds Axiom B to system S4, among others.