A victory for modal metaphysics!

 13-year-old boy bitten by possible shark off Fire Island

By Aaron Katersky, Joyeeta Biswas, Jul 18, 2018, 1:29 PM ET

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No-one will now laugh at philosophers who spend sleepless nights worrying about the ontological status of possible objects.  As the above headline shows, possible objects are as real as the actual ones, and are capable of causing considerable harm to those who pay no attention to modal metaphysics.

I wonder if the metaphysical awakening initiated by ABC News will soon lead to Nobel Prizes for possible vaccines, long prison sentences for possible crimes, and a Netflix remake of Steven Spielberg's first blockbuster classic, albeit with this metaphysically updated title:

A very sad day for art music...

Oliver Knussen and Elliott Carter in 2008

Just found out that Oliver Knussen died yesterday aged 66.

No other conductor gave such lightness, sparkle, and forward momentum to the music of Elliott Carter; and these qualities also characterize Knussen's own delightfully playful compositions.

What a loss...

From the poster boys of the Wisdom Industry

[Those whose] work is the use of the body, and if this is the best that can come from them - are slaves by nature. For them it is better to be ruled...
ARISTOTLE, Politics

Wives, servants, and children are possessed in a way akin to our possession of objects. If they flee, they must be returned to the owner if he demands them, without regard for the cause that led them to flee.   ...
A child that comes into the world apart from marriage is born outside the law (for the law is marriage) and therefore outside the protection of the law. [The society] can ignore its existence (since it rightly should not have come to exist in this way), and can therefore also ignore its annihilation.
IMMANUEL KANT, The Metaphysics of Morals
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No wonder  it was such a happy day in Richard Feynman's life when his son Carl abandoned philosophy for computer science...