The Nature of Necessity.

PLANTINGA, Alvin.

$1,500.00

Item Number: 139212

Oxford: Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1974.

First edition of this classic work. Octavo, original cloth. Boldly signed by Alvin Plantinga on the front free endpaper. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket.

This book, one of the first full-length studies of the modalities to emerge from the debate to which Saul Kripke, David Lewis, Ruth Marcus, and others are contributing, is an exploration and defense of the notion of modality de re, the idea that objects have both essential and accidental properties. Plantinga develops his argument by means of the notion of possible worlds and ranges over such key problems as the nature of essence, transworld identity, negative existential propositions, and the existence of unactual objects in other possible worlds. He also applies his logical theories to the elucidation of two problems in the philosophy of religion: the problem of evil and the ontological argument.