Blackwell Reference Online

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M etaphysics, philosophy of action, ethics Actualism has several senses. First, it is the actual idealism of the Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile . This theory claims that the pure act of spirit (that is, the transcendent subject as opposed to the empirical subject) is the only real thing in the dialectical process. Such acts are acts of self-affirmation and constitute a synthesis of the self and the world. Secondly, actualism (also called factualism) is the view, proposed by Plantinga , Stalnaker , and Armstrong , that only the actual world exists. The world is wholly composed of actual entities, including concrete individuals and instantialized abstractions. All sorts of potentialities, tendencies, forces, and unexampled essences are not admitted. This view contests those theories of possible worlds that accept the existence of possible worlds and their contents as well as the existence of the actual world. Thirdly, actualism as a theory of choice claims that an agent should choose the best option that he or she will actually do, rather than the best option that he or she can do. This latter view is called possibilism . “I assume the truth of what may be called actualism. According to this view, we should not postulate any particular except actual particulars, nor any properties and relations (universals) save actual, or categorical, properties and relations.” ... log in or subscribe to read full text