ABSTRACT
Realists sometimes respond in a somewhat exasperated manner on being asked what exactly they mean by “reality”. Actualists are likely to conceive of the relation of modal to nonmodal logics differently to the way that this has come to be conceived from the dominant point of view. “Actualism” is often discussed as a metaphysical theory in contemporary analytic metaphysics, in which it is set in opposition to its antagonist, “possibilism”, in much the same way that traditionally opposed metaphysical theories such as realism and nominalism, materialism and idealism and so forth, are opposed. The version of modal actualism that the author have sketched here fits poorly into a position within the metaphysical debate as traditionally understood: it is probably better understood as a “meta-metaphysical” stance that foregoes the intelligibility of the traditional project of metaphysics as out of step with the finitistic, anti-supernatural view that has become predominant within “enlightened” and generally liberal thought in the modern West.
