About this topic
Summary Modal conventionalism is the thesis that modal truths depend, wholly or in part, on conventions of talk or thought. This basic idea can be cashed out in a wide variety of ways: traditional conventionalism leans heavily on the notion of analyticity, while some modern versions are explicitly non-linguistic theses.
Key works Ayer 1936 presents a clear version of traditional modal conventionalism. The most prominent contemporary conventionalist proposal is defended by Sider 2011Sidelle 1989 provides a thorough discussion and defense of conventionalism about de re modality.
Introductions Sider 2003
Related

Contents
61 found
Order:
1 — 50 / 61
  1. Against Metaphysical Necessity. Alethic Modalities in Updated Logical Empiricism.Manuel Bremer - manuscript
    The paper argues against a commitment to metaphysical necessity, semantic modalities are enough. The best approaches to elucidate the semantic modalities are (still) versions of lingustic ersatzism and fictionalism, even if only developed in parts. Within these necessary properties and the difference between natural and semantic laws can be accounted for. The proper background theory for this is an updated version of Logical Empiricism, which is congenial to recent trends in Structural Realism. The anti-metaphysical attitude of Logical Empiricism deserves revitalization. (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. Logical Conventionalism.Jared Warren - unknown - In Filippo Ferrari, Elke Brendel, Massimiliano Carrara, Ole Hjortland, Gil Sagi, Gila Sher & Florian Steinberger (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Logic. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
    Once upon a time, logical conventionalism was the most popular philosophical theory of logic. It was heavily favored by empiricists, logical positivists, and naturalists. According to logical conventionalism, linguistic conventions explain logical truth, validity, and modality. And conventions themselves are merely syntactic rules of language use, including inference rules. Logical conventionalism promised to eliminate mystery from the philosophy of logic by showing that both the metaphysics and epistemology of logic fit into a scientific picture of reality. For naturalists of all (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  3. (A Little) Quantified Modal Logic for Normativists.Mark Povich - forthcoming - Analysis.
    Burgess (1997), building on Quine (1953), convincingly argued that claims in quantified modal logic cannot be understood as synonymous with or logically equivalent to claims about the analyticity of certain sentences. According to modal normativism, metaphysically necessary claims instead express or convey our actual semantic rules. In this paper, I show how the normativist can use Sidelle’s (1992a, 1995) neglected work on rigidity to account for two important phenomena in quantified modal logic: the necessity of identity and the substitutivity of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  4. Conventionalism.Jonathan Livingstone-Banks & Alan Sidelle - 2024 - In Kathrin Koslicki & Michael J. Raven (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Essence in Philosophy. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 437-454.
    Conventionalism about essence is the view that truths about what is (and isn’t) essential to things are based upon talk and thought about the world, rather than mind-independent facts. This chapter presents motivations for conventionalism, and explains how conventionalism can be (and has been) developed to accommodate essences that can only be discovered with the help of empirical investigation, like “water is H2O” or “Obama is human”. We examine a range of objections that have been raised against conventionalism—often presented dismissively (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. Modal normativism on semantic rules.Rohan Sud - 2024 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 67 (8):2361-2380.
    According to Amie Thomasson’s modal normativism, the function of modal discourse is to convey semantic rules. But what is a "semantic rule"? I raise three worries according to which there is no conception of a semantic rule that can serve the needs of a modal normativist. The first worry focuses on de re and a posteriori necessities. The second worry concerns Thomasson's inferential specification of the meaning of modal terms. The third worry asks about the normative status of semantic rules.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  6. Modal Normativism and Metasemantics.Theodore D. Locke - 2023 - In Miguel Garcia-Godinez (ed.), Thomasson on Ontology. Springer Verlag. pp. 109-136.
    I argue that we can accept modal normativism—a view that the function of modal claims is to express semantic rules—while also accepting possible worlds semantics. I argue that by keeping the metaphysical insights of normativism at the level of metasemantics—i.e., at the level of accounts of what metaphysically explains facts about the meaning of modal claims—it is open to the normativist to wholeheartedly accept possible worlds semantics.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  7. Modal Knowledge and Modal Methodology.Theodore Locke & Amie L. Thomasson - 2023 - In Duško Prelević & Anand Vaidya (eds.), Epistemology of Modality and Philosophical Methodology. New York, NY: Routledge.
    The problem of how we could come to know modal facts has been notorious for centuries. In this paper, Theodore Locke and Amie Thomasson defend a ‘modal normativist’ approach to understanding claims about metaphysical necessity and possibility—a view that claims to be able to demystify metaphysical modal knowledge, by showing how modal knowledge may be acquired through conceptual mastery, reasoning abilities, and empirical knowledge. Antonella Mallozzi (this volume) argues that normativists cannot deflate modal knowledge in that way, for they must (...)
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. Neutral Monism Beyond Russell.Michael Schon - 2023 - Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison
    The dissertation begins with a question: Are the mind and brain the same or different? -/- I spend Chapter 1 showing how this simple question leads to a philosophical puzzle known as the mind-body problem. By way of explaining the puzzle, I show that there are two demands that a satisfactory solution to the puzzle must meet – what I call the Ontological and Explanatory Demands. I also explain why ontological idealism is not an attractive solution to the problem. Along (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  9. Modal Normativism and De Re Modality.Tom Donaldson & Jennifer Wang - 2022 - Argumenta 7 (2):293-307.
    In the middle of the last century, it was common to explain the notion of necessity in linguistic terms. A necessary truth, it was said, is a sentence whose truth is guaranteed by linguistic rules. Quine famously argued that, on this view, de re modal claims do not make sense. “Porcupettes are porcupines” is necessarily true, but it would be a mistake to say of a particular porcupette that it is necessarily a porcupine, or that it is possibly purple. Linguistic (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  10. A Posteriori Necessity as Restricted Necessity.Bin Liu - 2022 - Philosophia 50 (4):1955-1976.
    I argue that conventionalists should construe a posteriori necessity as restricted necessity. I take Sidelle’s defence of the conventionalist explanation of a posteriori necessity against the contingency problem as the starting point. Sidelle construes a posteriori necessity as unrestricted necessity and then argues that a posteriori necessity is to be considered under a fixed convention and is thus irrelevant to the contingent nature of our linguistic conventions. I offer a different solution to the contingency problem. I argue that conventionalists should (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  11. Inferentialism, Conventionalism, and A Posteriori Necessity.Jared Warren - 2022 - Journal of Philosophy 119 (10):517-541.
    In the mid twentieth century, logical positivists and many other philosophers endorsed a simple equation: something was necessary just in case it was analytic just in case it was a priori. Kripke’s examples of a posteriori necessary truths showed that the simple equation is false. But while positivist-style inferentialist approaches to logic and mathematics remain popular, there is no inferentialist account of necessity a posteriori. I give such an account. This sounds like an anti-Kripkean project, but it is not. Some (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  12. Metaphysical Explanations for Modal Normativists.Theodore Locke - 2020 - Metaphysics 3 (1):33-54.
    I expand modal normativism, a theory of metaphysical modality, to give a normativist account of metaphysical explanation. According to modal normativism, basic modal claims do not have a descriptive function, but instead have the normative function of enabling language users to express semantic rules that govern the use of ordinary non-modal vocabulary. However, a worry for modal normativism is that it doesn’t keep up with all of the important and interesting metaphysics we can do by giving and evaluating metaphysical explanations. (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  13. Shadows of Syntax: Revitalizing Logical and Mathematical Conventionalism.Jared Warren - 2020 - New York, USA: Oxford University Press.
    What is the source of logical and mathematical truth? This book revitalizes conventionalism as an answer to this question. Conventionalism takes logical and mathematical truth to have their source in linguistic conventions. This was an extremely popular view in the early 20th century, but it was never worked out in detail and is now almost universally rejected in mainstream philosophical circles. Shadows of Syntax is the first book-length treatment and defense of a combined conventionalist theory of logic and mathematics. It (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   37 citations  
  14. Hyperlogic: A System for Talking about Logics.Alexander W. Kocurek - 2019 - Proceedings for the 22nd Amsterdam Colloquium.
    Sentences about logic are often used to show that certain embedding expressions, including attitude verbs, conditionals, and epistemic modals, are hyperintensional. Yet it not clear how to regiment “logic talk” in the object language so that it can be compositionally embedded under such expressions. This paper does two things. First, it argues against a standard account of logic talk, viz., the impossible worlds semantics. It is shown that this semantics does not easily extend to a language with propositional quantifiers, which (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  15. Modal conventionalism.Ross Cameron - 2018 - In Otávio Bueno & Scott A. Shalkowski (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Modality. New York: Routledge.
  16. Conceivability and Possibility.Joshua Spencer - 2018 - In Graham Oppy (ed.), The Ontological Argument (Cambridge Classic Philosophical Arguments Series). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 214-237.
    Some people might be tempted by modal ontological arguments from the possibility that God exists to the conclusion that God in fact exists. They might also be tempted to support the claim that possibly God exists by appealing to the conceivability of God’s existence. In this chapter, I introduce three constraints on an adequate theory of philosophical conceivability. I then consider and develop both imagination-based accounts of conceivability and conceptual coherence-based accounts of conceivability. Finally, I return to the modal ontological (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  17. The Facts in Logical Space. [REVIEW]Alessandro Torza - 2018 - Philosophical Review 127 (2):273-277.
  18. The Contingency Problem for Neo-Conventionalism.Jonathan Livingstone-Banks - 2017 - Erkenntnis 82 (3):653-671.
    Traditional conventionalism about modality claims that a proposition is necessarily true iff it is true by convention. In the wake of the widespread repudiation of truth-byconvention, traditional conventionalism has fallen out of favour. However, a family of theories of modality have arisen that, whilst abandoning truth-by-convention, retain the spirit of traditional conventionalism. These ‘neo-conventionalist’ theories surpass their forebears and don’t fall victim to the criticisms inherited through truth-by-convention. However, not all criticisms levelled at traditional conventionalism target truth-by-convention. Any conventional theory (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  19. Indexicals and Sider's Neo-Linguistic Account of Necessity.Gillian Russell - 2017 - Res Philosophica 94 (3):385-397.
    Sider offers a new take on a linguistic account of necessity. In this paper, I assess his view’s vulnerability to objections made against more traditional linguistic accounts, especially an argument I call the “indexical problem.” I conclude that the indexical problem has no force against Sider’s approach because the view is able to attribute modal properties directly to propositions, rather than indirectly via analytic sentences that express them. However, Sider also argues that traditional linguistic accounts fail because of two well-known (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  20. Reply to Sider.Timothy Williamson - 2016 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (4-5):699-708.
  21. Antirealist Essentialism.Jonathan Livingstone-Banks - 2014 - Dissertation, University of Leeds
    This project is an investigation into the prospects for an antirealist theory of essence. Essentialism is the claim that at least some things have some of their properties essentially. Essentialist discourse includes claims such as “Socrates is essentially human”, and “Socrates is accidentally bearded”. Historically, there are two ways of interpreting essentialist discourse. I call these positions ‘modal essentialism’ and ‘neo-Aristotelian essentialism’. According to modal essentialism, for Socrates to be essentially human is for it to be necessary that he be (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  22. Truthmaking for Modal Skeptics.Jamin Asay - 2013 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 2 (4):303-312.
    Standard truthmaker theory has generally assumed a realist account of de re modality and essences. But there are reasons to be skeptical about such a view, and for considering antirealist alternatives. Can truthmaker theory survive in the face of such skepticism? I argue that it can, but that only certain antirealist perspectives on de re modality are acceptable for truthmaker theory. In particular, either a quasi-realist or conventionalist account of de re modality is needed to provide the best account of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  23. Caution and necessity.José Edgar González Varela - 2013 - Manuscrito 36 (2):229-261.
    In this paper I examine Crispin Wright's modal anti-realism as based on the availability of a certain attitude of Caution towards judgements of necessity. I think that Wright's account should be attractive in several ways for modal theorists with an anti-realist bend. However, the attitude of Caution to which it appeals has attracted some controversy. Wright himself has later come to doubt whether Caution is ultimately coherent. Here I first address Wright's worries concerning the coherence of Caution and show that (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  24. Modal Humeanism and Arguments from Possibility.Margot Strohminger - 2013 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 113 (3pt3):391-401.
    Sider (2011, 2013) proposes a reductive analysis of metaphysical modality—‘(modal) Humeanism’—and goes on to argue that it has interesting epistemological and methodological implications. In particular, Humeanism is supposed to undermine a class of ‘arguments from possibility’, which includes Sider's (1993) own argument against mereological nihilism and Chalmers's (1996) argument against physicalism. I argue that Sider's arguments do not go through, and moreover that we should instead expect Humeanism to be compatible with the practice of arguing from possibility in philosophy.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  25. Soames’s Deflationism About Modality.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (6):1367-1379.
    One type of deflationism about metaphysical modality suggests that it can be analysed strictly in terms of linguistic or conceptual content and that there is nothing particularly metaphysical about modality. Scott Soames is explicitly opposed to this trend. However, a detailed study of Soames’s own account of modality reveals that it has striking similarities with the deflationary account. In this paper I will compare Soames’s account of a posteriori necessities concerning natural kinds with the deflationary one, specifically Alan Sidelle’s account, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (10 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  26. Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology, Bob Hale and Aviv Hoffmann (eds). [REVIEW]Arif Ahmed - 2012 - Mind 121 (483):817-822.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  27. Lessons from the logic of demonstratives: what indexicality teaches us about logic and vice versa.G. Russell - 2012 - In Greg Restall & Gillian Kay Russell (eds.), New waves in philosophical logic. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
    This paper looks at what David Kaplan's work on indexicals can teach us about logic and the philosophy of logic, and also what Kaplan's logic (i.e. the Logic of Demonstratives) can teach us about indexicals. The lessons are i) that logical consequence is not necessary truth-preservation, ii) that that the linguistic doctrine of necessary truth (also called conventionalism about modality) fails, and iii) that there is a kind of barrier to entailment between non-context-sensitive and context-sensitive claims.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  28. The Grounds of Necessity.Ross P. Cameron - 2010 - Philosophy Compass 5 (4):348-358.
    Some truths are necessary, others could have been false. Why? What is the source of the distinction between the necessary and the contingent? What's so special about the necessary truths that account for their necessity? In this article, we look at some of the most promising accounts of the grounds of necessity: David Lewis' reduction of necessity to truth at all possible worlds; Kit Fine's reduction of necessity to essence; and accounts of necessity that take the distinction between the necessary (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   17 citations  
  29. Modality: metaphysics, logic, and epistemology.Bob Hale & Aviv Hoffmann (eds.) - 2010 - qnew York: Oxford University Press.
    The philosophy of modality investigates necessity and possibility, and related notions--are they objective features of mind-independent reality? If so, are they irreducible, or can modal facts be explained in other terms? This volume presents new work on modality by established leaders in the field and by up-and-coming philosophers. Between them, the papers address fundamental questions concerning realism and anti-realism about modality, the nature and basis of facts about what is possible and what is necessary, the nature of modal knowledge, modal (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  30. A new problem for the linguistic doctrine of necessary truth.Gillian Russell - 2010 - In Cory Wright & Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen (eds.), New Waves in Truth. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 267--281.
    My target in this paper is a view that has sometimes been called the ‘ Linguistic Doctrine of Necessary Truth ’ and sometimes ‘Conventionalism about Necessity’. It is the view that necessity is grounded in the meanings of our expressions—meanings which are sometimes identified with the conventions governing those expressions—and that our knowledge of that necessity is based on our knowledge of those meanings or conventions. In its simplest form the view states that a truth, if it is necessary, is (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  31. Modality and objects.Alan Sidelle - 2010 - Philosophical Quarterly 60 (238):109-125.
    A not-unpopular position in the metaphysics of material objects (Ted Sider's, for instance) combines realism about what objects there are and the conditions of objecthood with conventionalism about de re modality. I argue that this is not a coherent combination of views: one must go fully conventionalist, or fully realist. The central argument displays the difficulty for the modal conventionalist/object realist in specifying the object that satisfies de re modal predicates. I argue that if this is a mind-independent object, contradictions (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  32. Necessity, a priority and analyticity: a Wittgensteinian perspective.Hans-Johann Glock - 2009 - In Daniel Whiting (ed.), The later Wittgenstein on language. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
  33. Conventionalism and the contingency of conventions.Alan Sidelle - 2009 - Noûs 43 (2):224-241.
    One common objection to Conventionalism about modality is that since it is contingent what our conventions are, the modal facts themselves will thereby be contingent. A standard reply is that Conventionalists can accept this, if they reject the S4 axiom, that what is possibly possible is possible. I first argue that this reply is inadequate, but then continue to argue that it is not needed, because the Conventionalist need not concede that the contingency of our conventions has any bearing on (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  34. A dilemma about necessity.Peter W. Hanks - 2008 - Erkenntnis 68 (1):129 - 148.
    The problem of the source of necessity is the problem of explaining what makes necessary truths necessarily true. Simon Blackburn has presented a dilemma intended to show that any reductive, realist account of the source of necessity is bound to fail. Although Blackburn's dilemma faces serious problems, reflection on the form of explanations of necessities reveals that a revised dilemma succeeds in defeating any reductive account of the source of necessity. The lesson is that necessity is metaphysically primitive and irreducible.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  35. The Donkey Problem.Mark Heller - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 140 (1):83-101.
    The Donkey Problem (as I am calling it) concerns the relationship between more and less fundamental ontologies. I will claim that the moral to draw from the Donkey Problem is that the less fundamental objects are merely conventional. This conventionalism has consequences for the 3D/4D debate. Four-dimensionalism is motivated by a desire to avoid coinciding objects, but once we accept that the non-fundamental ontology is conventional there is no longer any reason to reject coincidence. I therefore encourage 4Dists to become (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  36. Necessity and language: The gap is still very real.Javier Kalhat - 2008 - Philosophical Investigations 31 (3):227–236.
    In my previous paper "Has the later Wittgenstein accounted for necessity?" I argued against the conventionalist account of necessity proposed by Wittgenstein and his followers. Glock has addressed some of my objections in his paper "Necessity and Language: In Defence of Conventionalism". This brief rejoinder considers Glock's replies to three of those objections. In the course of doing so, I revisit Wittgenstein's explanation of the special status of necessary propositions, the supposedly arbitrary nature of colour-grammatical propositions, and the relation between (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (7 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  37. Non-Descriptivism About Modality. A Brief History And Revival.Amie Thomasson - 2008 - The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 4:8.
    Despite the otherwise-dominant trends towards physicalism and naturalism in philosophy, it has become increasingly common for metaphysicians to accept the existence either of modal facts and properties, or of Lewisian possible worlds. This paper raises the historical question: why did these heavyweight realist views come into prominence? The answer is that they have arisen in response to the demand to find truthmakers for our modal statements. But this demand presupposes that modal statements are descriptive claims in need of truthmakers. This (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (7 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  38. The Interpretation of Necessity and the Necessity of Interpretation.Roberta Ballarin - 2004 - Journal of Philosophy 101 (12):609-638.
    Much has happened in modal logic since 1947. In particular, in regard to the problem of interpreting such logics. In that fateful year Quine published his seminal paper “The Problem of Interpreting Modal Logic” from which this work takes inspiration. Since then a certain kind of model theory – universally referred to as “possible worlds semantics” – has come to dominate both advanced research and introductory textbooks. Many would say that the problem of interpreting modal logic has been resolved. In (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  39. The linguistic doctrine revisited.Hans-Johann Glock - 2003 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 66 (1):143-170.
    At present, there is an almost universal consensus that the linguistic doctrine of logical necessity is grotesque. This paper explores avenues for rehabilitating a limited version of the doctrine, according to which the special status of analytic statements like 'All vixens are female' is to be explained by reference to language. Far from being grotesque, this appeal to language has a respectable philosophical pedigree and chimes with common sense, as Quine came to realize. The problem lies in developing it in (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  40. Reductive theories of modality.Theodore Sider - 2003 - In Michael J. Loux & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), The Oxford handbook of metaphysics. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 180-208.
    Logic begins but does not end with the study of truth and falsity. Within truth there are the modes of truth, ways of being true: necessary truth and contingent truth. When a proposition is true, we may ask whether it could have been false. If so, then it is contingently true. If not, then it is necessarily true; it must be true; it could not have been false. Falsity has modes as well: a false proposition that could not have been (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   91 citations  
  41. The inaugural address: Kantian modality: Tom Baldwin.Tom Baldwin - 2002 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 76 (1):1–24.
    Kant's claim that modality is a 'category' provides an approach to modality to be contrasted with Lewis's reductive analysis. Lewis's position is unsatisfactory, since it depends on an inherently modal conception of a world. This suggests that modality is 'primitive'; and the Kantian position is a prima facie plausible position of this kind, which is filled out by considering the relationship between modality and inference. This provides a context for comparing the Kantian position with Wright's non-cognitivist 'conventionalism'. Wright's position is (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  42. Modality and Anti-Metaphysics.Stephen K. McLeod - 2001 - Aldershot: Ashgate.
    Modality and Anti-Metaphysics critically examines the most prominent approaches to modality among analytic philosophers in the twentieth century, including essentialism. Defending both the project of metaphysics and the essentialist position that metaphysical modality is conceptually and ontologically primitive, Stephen McLeod argues that the logical positivists did not succeed in banishing metaphysical modality from their own theoretical apparatus and he offers an original defence of metaphysics against their advocacy of its elimination. -/- Seeking to assuage the sceptical worries which underlie modal (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  43. The worlds of possibility. [REVIEW]Theodore Sider - 2001 - Philosophical Review 110 (1):88-91.
    Possible worlds present a formidable challenge for the lover of desert landscapes. One cannot ignore their usefulness; they provide, as David Lewis puts it, “a philosophers’ paradise”.1 But to enter paradise possibilia must be fit into a believable ontology. Some follow Lewis and accept worlds at face value, but most prefer some other choice from the current menu. Part of Chihara’s book is a critical discussion of some of these menu options: Lewis’s modal realism, Alvin Plantinga’s abstract modal realism, Graeme (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (11 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   24 citations  
  44. Truth and Convention.Jody Azzouni - 1990 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 71 (2):81-102.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  45. The Truth and Falsity of Modal Propositions in Renaissance Nominalism.Jeffrey Scott Coombs - 1990 - Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin
    During a short-lived renaissance of medieval Nominalism lasting from approximately 1480 to 1530, many Renaissance Nominalist logicians devoted a great deal of attention to the task of developing an account of the truth and falsity of modal propositions. A modal proposition is any proposition containing one or more occurrences of the four modal terms: possible, necessary, impossible, and contingent. The Nominalist account follows the general procedure outlined in William of Ockham's Summa totius logicae, the goal of which is to translate (...)
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  46. Explaining necessity.Richard V. Mason - 1990 - Metaphilosophy 21 (4):382-390.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  47. Necessity, Essence, and Individuation: A Defense of Conventionalism.Alan Sidelle - 1989 - Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
    Alan Sidelle's Necessity, Essence, and Individuation is a sustained defense of empiricism—or, more generally, conventionalism—against recent attacks by realists. Sidelle focuses his attention on necessity a posteriori, a kind of necessity which contemporary realists have taken to support realism over empiricism. Turning the tables against the realists, Sidelle argues that if there are in fact truths necessary a posteriori, it is not realism, but rather empiricism which provides the best explanation for them.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   118 citations  
  48. Logical compulsion and necessity.Robert Wachbroit - 1987 - Erkenntnis 26 (1):45 - 56.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  49. Necessary truth as analyticity, and the eliminability of monadic de re formulas.Thomas Schwartz - 1979 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 20 (2):336-340.
  50. (5 other versions)A Theory of Possibility. [REVIEW]J. R. A. - 1977 - Review of Metaphysics 31 (2):329-330.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
1 — 50 / 61