Logical Modalities and Modes of Existence

Abstract

The notion of mode of existence has recently experienced a great diffusion in the critical humanities and social sciences associated with the ‘ontological turn’. However, not much attention has been paid to the concept of mode of existence itself. By way of Souriau’s The Different Modes of Existence, the aim here is to make some forays into a relatively new branch of modal metaphysics, or rather modal ontology, that seeks to clarify and develop the use of such a concept – a project that contributes to what I call ‘continental modal metaphysics.’ First, I sketch two problems in the dominant form of modal metaphysics: the problems of the indeterminacy of the possible and its exhaustion by the actual. Second, I argue that the shift in emphasis from identity to difference requires us to revisit the ontological tension in Aristotle between the unity of being-qua-being and the multiplicity of ways of existence. Third, I follow a lead from Leibniz, who sways between an ontic pluralism and an existential pluralism. Fourth, by tracing Souriau’s problematization of the cogito, I unpack his understanding of the concept of mode of existence, and fifth, I show how it culminates in a theory of transmodal individuation that Souriau calls ‘surexistence’.