Modality

Why Plantinga's updated (2009) version of the Free Will Defense does not work, and consequently the Logical Argument From Evil against the God of Theism is undefeated.

Was bisexuality a widespread feature of ancient Greek society? This question is an instance of cross-cultural projection -- of taking the means through which people are categorized in one culture and applying it to members of another. It’s widely held by those who think that sexual orientation is socially constructed that its projection poses a problem. In this paper, I offer a more careful analysis of this alleged problem. To analyze projection, I adapt Iris Einheuser’s substratum-carving model of conventionalism to (...) fit the specific needs of social construction. Using this model, I show that projection is conceptually coherent, and so does not for that reason pose any problem. Along the way, I identify some of the epistemic difficulties facing projection. While these difficulties are formidable, they are not substantially affected by the constructivist claim. I therefore conclude that there is no unique problem facing the projection of a socially constructed sexual orientation. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz argumentiere ich für eine teleologische Fähigkeitstheorie, derzufolge Fähigkeiten Dispositionen zu zweckmäßigem Handeln sind.

This article builds on C. S. Peirce’s suggestive blueprint for an inclusive outlook that grants reality to his three categories. Moving away from the usual focus on (contentious) cosmological forces, I use a modal principle to partition various ontological layers: regular sign-action (like coded language) subsumes actual sign-action (like here-and-now events) which in turn subsumes possible sign-action (like qualities related to whatever would be similar to them). Once we realize that the triadic sign’s components are each answerable to this asymmetric (...) subsumption, we obtain the means to track at which level of complexity semiosis finds itself, in a given case. Since the bulk of such a “trinitarian” metaphysics would be devoted to countenancing uninterpreted phenomena, I argue that current misgivings about sign-based ontologies are largely misplaced. (shrink)

The Principle of Sufficient Reason says that all contingent facts must have explanation. In this 2006 volume, which was the first on the topic in the English language in nearly half a century, Alexander Pruss examines the substantive philosophical issues raised by the Principle Reason. Discussing various forms of the PSR and selected historical episodes, from Parmenides, Leibnez, and Hume, Pruss defends the claim that every true contingent proposition must have an explanation against major objections, including Hume's imaginability argument and (...) Peter van Inwagen's argument that the PSR entails modal fatalism. Pruss also provides a number of positive arguments for the PSR, based on considerations as different as the metaphysics of existence, counterfactuals and modality, negative explanations, and the everyday applicability of the PSR. Moreover, Pruss shows how the PSR would advance the discussion in a number of disparate fields, including meta-ethics and the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

The aim of Modality and Explanatory Reasoning (MER) is to shed light on metaphysical necessity and the broader class of modal properties to which it belongs. This topic is approached with two goals: to develop a new and reductive analysis of modality, and to understand the purpose and origin of modal thought. I argue that a proper understanding of modality requires us to reconceptualize its relationship to causation and other forms of explanation such as grounding, a relation that connects metaphysically (...) fundamental facts to non-fundamental ones. While many philosophers have tried to give modal analyses of causation and explanation, often in counterfactual terms, I argue that we obtain a more plausible, explanatorily powerful and unified theory if we regard explanation as more fundamental than modality. The function of modal thought is to facilitate a common type of thought experiment—counterfactual reasoning—that allows us to investigate explanatory connections and which is closely related to the controlled experiments of empirical science. Necessity is defined in terms of explanation, and modal facts often reflect underlying facts about explanatory relationships. The study of modal facts is important for philosophy not because these facts are of much metaphysical interest in their own right, but largely because they provide evidence about explanatory connections. (shrink)

Causal structuralism is the view that, for each natural, non-mathematical, non-Cambridge property, there is a causal profile that exhausts its individual essence. On this view, having a property’s causal profile is both necessary and sufficient for being that property. It is generally contrasted with the Humean or quidditistic view of properties, which states that having a property’s causal profile is neither necessary nor sufficient for being that property, and with the double-aspect view, which states that causal profile is necessary but (...) not sufficient. Shoemaker’s (1998) and Hawthorne’s (2001) arguments in favor of causal structuralism primarily focus on problematic consequences of the other two views. I argue, however, that causation does not provide an appropriate framework within which to characterize all physical properties for two main reasons. First, there are physical properties that do not have causal profiles and properties whose causal profiles do not exhaust their essences. Second, there is no unified notion of causation across the sciences. After distinguishing between the causal and the nomological, I suggest that what is needed is a structuralist view of properties that is not merely causal but that incorporates a physical property’s higher-order mathematical and nomological properties into its identity conditions. Such a view retains the naturalistic motivations for causal structuralism while avoiding the problems it faces. (shrink)

Review of Necessary Beings: An Essay on Ontology, Modality, & the Relations Between Them. By Bob Hale. Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 320, £40. ISBN: 978-0-19-966957-8.

This edited volume of articles provides a state-of-the-art description of research in logic-based approaches to knowledge representation which combines approaches to reasoning with incomplete information that include partial, modal, and nonmonotonic logics. The collection contains two parts: foundations and case studies. The foundations section provides a general overview of partiality, multi-valued logics, use of modal logic to model partiality and resource-limited inference, and an integration of partial and modal logics. The case studies section provides specific studies of issues raised in (...) the foundations section. Several of the case studies integrate modal and partial modal logics with nonmonotonic logics. Both theoretical and practical aspects of such integration are considered. Knowledge representation issues such as default reasoning, theories of action and change, reason maintenance, awareness, and automation of nonmonotonic reasoning are covered. (shrink)

Modal logic is the study of modalities - expressions that qualify assertions about the truth of statements - like the ordinary language phrases necessarily, possibly, it is known/believed/ought to be, etc., and computationally or mathematically motivated expressions like provably, at the next state, or after the computation terminates. The study of modalities dates from antiquity, but has been most actively pursued in the last three decades, since the introduction of the methods of Kripke semantics, and now impacts on a wide (...) range of disciplines, including the philosophy of language and linguistics, constructive mathematics, theoretical computer science, and category theory. This volume collects together a number of the author's papers on modal logic, beginning with his work on the duality between algebraic and set-theoretic modals, and including two new articles, one on infinitary rules of inference, and the other about recent results on the relationship between modal logic and first-order logic. Another paper on the 'Henkin method' in completeness proofs has been substantially extended to give new applications. Additional articles are concerned with quantum logic, provability logic, the temporal logic of relativistic spacetime, modalities in topos theory, and the logic of programs. (shrink)

According to the hypothesis a modal qualification is essentially context-relative to kinds of factors which pertain to a speaker's right to say something. This idea is used to explain the distinctive communicative utility of our modal idiom. Furthermore, it is the basis of an explanation of the referential opacity of alethic modality. Opacity is a manifestation of the operation of two kinds of discursive principles which figure prominently in the correctness of a modal judgement, according to our account of the (...) semantic function of it. A modal qualification orients speaker and interlocutor to a relevant argumentative text. There are discursive principles which govern the formulation of such a text. Opacity results when imposing a correct interpretation on certain modal judgements requires that principles of the latter kind are violated. ;Our alternative account of the semantic role of a modal qualification shifts the explanatory burden from a truth predicate to a notion of speaker commitment. Our working hypothesis suggests what is qualified and how: an apodictic modal qualification is non-deviant only if the element modified serves, in the context, to express a claim whose assertion may or may not satisfy a demand for adequate warrant. More generally, a modal qualification is a propos when the inferential status of a certain claim is in question. An apodictic utterance is correctly made when an assertion of the associated claim in the context is sufficiently warrented, the kind of warrant and standards of adequacy being indicated by the utterance along with the context. ;The logical form of an alethic modal judgement is given in part by a characterization of the semantic role of a modal qualification. Otherwise, a "formal" account of modality lacks the requisite degree of explanatory power. Explaining generally the semantic role of a modal qualification is significantly different from giving a truth theory for constructions of a standard logical grammar of truth functions and first-order quantification. For the purpose of explaining distinctive logical traits of our modal idiom, it is not enough to generalize familiar model-theoretic methods of defining a truth predicate for intensional languages. That semantic strategy abstracts from the operation of certain communicative constraints on the interaction of verbal forms and semantic values which is characteristic of modal talk. Our intuitive assessments of modal judgements do not make sense when that aspect is ignored. (shrink)

The token identity theory, the claim that each mental event is identical to some physical event, remains a popular view in the philosophy of mind. However, it has been the target of a number of interesting and important criticisms, and broadly physicalist alternatives to the token identity theory are on the rise. I defend the token identity theory against these recent 'token dualist' challenges. ;I begin by clarifying the token identity and token dualist theses. What does it mean to claim---or (...) to deny---that all mental events are identical to physical events? An important aspect of that question concerns how to classify events as mental or physical. I suggest several principles that could be used, in search of one that will be amenable to both parties. Discussion of these principles involves, among other things, an extended discussion of how to best characterize physicalism. ;I then consider several arguments against the version of the token identity theory that emerges, and conclude that many of them fail. The only fruitful way to argue against token identity is to argue that mental and physical events differ in their essential properties. This is a familiar and forceful line of argument; it parallels the one standardly used to show that objects are distinct from the matter that constitutes them. However, it should be challenged, for at least two reasons. First, I argue that token dualists cannot account for the non-overdeterministic causal efficacy of mental events, and that the recently popular 'non-competition' solution will not help them. Second, I provide a general argument against the claim that there can be distinct colocated things that differ only in their modal properties. The existence of such things would mean that there is no way to make sense of modal properties in the first place. ;Consequently, there is strong reason to look for a way to understand de re modal claims that does not entail the existence of things that differ only modally. In the final chapter, I discuss the available options, several of which allow the token identity theory to withstand the essentialist arguments that threaten it. (shrink)

Philosophy, according to a prominent conception of its nature and method, consists primarily of conceptual or linguistic analysis. Because the relations between concepts are logical, and because the propositions which express them are necessary, philosophy is taken to be an a priori activity.

The dialectics of possibility and reality is an old philosophical theme. In contrast to empirical sciences that deal with reality, philosophy has sometimes been viewed as the science of the possible. That said, the modal concepts of possibility and necessity have proven to be ambiguous and recalcitrant to analysis, and their relation to the concept of reality remains problematic to the present day. From Aristotle to Russell, the belief that the "real" world by no means exhausts the "possible" worlds has (...) attracted serious thought. This work brings together a group of experts who are intent on transcending the worn-out dichotomy between analytic and continental philosophy. This collection takes a fresh look at the metaphysics and logic of possibility and reality, and illuminates them from a great variety of perspectives. Topics include the history of philosophy (from Greek antiquity to David Lewis) as well as the semantics of possible worlds; logic, mathematics, and computer science as well as literature and the new media; forms of scientific as well as fictional discourse. The basic position taken by many contributors is a commonsensical one. In ordinary language we do not seem to have any problem in making statements about future possibilities without establishing definitive claims to their truth. In other words,.one can speak of future contingencies without making claims for present-day truths. Moreover, the contributors hold that it seems quite feasible to talk of objective truth as a series of possibilities rather than empirical realities. All branches of philosophy seem to agree that to think about possibilities is an inclination of human nature. In short, the more we know about possibilities the better human beings and actions relate to reality. This is a serious effort that invokes a sense of intellectual history to explain issues that are vexing, but not insoluble. It will interest a variety of people from philosophers to social planners. Vtezslav Hork is director of the DFG-Project on Cultures of Lying. Both he and Hans Rott are affiliated with Universitt Regensburg Institut fr Philosophie, Regensburg, Germany. (shrink)

History of modal logic begins with Aristotle who devoted two chapters of On Interpretation to a study of logical connections between the necessary, the impossible, the possible, and the permitted. In the Prior Analytics Aristotle discusses modal syllogisms i.e. syllogisms with modalized premises and conclusion. In On Interpretation he argues that every single assertion, such as premise or conclusion in a syllogism, is either an affirmation or a denial of a single predicate of a single subject; according to Aristotle, modal (...) terms modify a given assertion or denial. The Megarians and Stoics developed various theories concerning modality, mostly in connection with propositional logic. According to them, modal terms modify propositions. Contemporary discussion of formal properties of modal terms begins with the work of C.I. Lewis Symbolic Logic and its Applications . Contemporary semantic analysis of modal terms, known as possible worlds semantics, initiated by S. Kripke , follows Leibniz suggestion that a sentence is necessarily true in this world if and only if that sentence is true in all worlds alternative to this world. The paper addresses several problems concerning the concepts of existence and possibility. Its aim is to show that contemporary analysis can capture some intuitions of Aristotle and his scholastic followers, especially those concerning the modalities de re. Key words LOGICAL ANALYSIS, EXISTENCE, NECESSITY. (shrink)

Boris Kment takes a new approach to the study of modality that emphasises the origin of modal notions in everyday thought. He argues that the concepts of necessity and possibility originate in counterfactual reasoning, which allows us to investigate explanatory connections. Contrary to accepted views, explanation is more fundamental than modality.

Our conception of logical space is the set of distinctions we use to navigate the world. Agustn Rayo argues that this is shaped by acceptance or rejection of 'just is'-statements: e.g. 'to be composed of water just is to be composed of H2O'. He offers a novel conception of metaphysical possibility, and a new trivialist philosophy of mathematics.

“Modality” refers to the concepts (and surrounding controversies) of “possibility” and “necessity.” Recently, a great deal of attention paid to these concepts in metaphysics. Not surprisingly, this literature has not been adopted in the field of philosophy of biology. In this work, I ague that there is a need to understand how modal concepts function in biology. Biologists already employ modal concepts in a variety of contexts. However, they do not explain how these concepts function or ought to function within (...) the biological domain. From a philosophical perspective, there is a framework for how modal concepts operate in physics. But this framework cannot be adopted by the biological sciences. Since work on modality is relatively new to philosophy of biology, I spend the first three chapters justifying, defining, and restricting the project of creating a modal framework in biology. In the penultimate chapter, I present and criticize the single account of “biological possibility” found in the literature, which is offered by Daniel Dennett. Finally, I provide a positive account of how we should apply modal concepts in the biological sciences. (shrink)