Abstract
Hale (Metaphysics, 10, 93–117, 1996, 2013) has argued that logical necessities are absolute in the sense that there is no competing kind of modality under which they may be false. In this paper, I argue that there are competing kinds of modality, which I call “essentialist modalities,” under which logical necessities may be false. Since it is counter-intuitive to say that logical necessities are not absolute, my argument, if correct, shows that Hale’s characterization of absolute necessity does not adequately capture the intuitive notion of absolute necessity. Then, a qualified version of Hale’s characterization of absolute necessity is proposed. On the qualified version, the absoluteness of logical necessities is no longer defeated by essentialist possibilities.
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Notes
Here “compatible” and “incompatible” are not used in their logical sense.
One might ask: what makes a property of propositions a modality? It is usual to identify modalities by the pre-theoretical use of modal terms such as “must,” “might,” “can,” and “cannot”. Given the pre-theoretical use of modal terms in such sentences as “given Socrates’ identity, he must be human” and “given Socrates’ identity, he might not be a member of {Socrates},” it is plausible to say that there is a kind of modality here. Another (post-theoretical) common feature of modal notions is that each of them could be formalized as a sentential operator and a possible word semantics could be built for it, which correctly represents the logical relations between propositions involving that notion. This feature is also shared by essence. Thanks to Fine’s work on essence, we now know how to formalize essence as a sentential operator and what its possible world semantics is like (see Fine 1995b, c, 2000).
One might say that the logical necessity p V ¬ p is not required by the identity of Socrates only if it is not about Socrates. For on some semantics, at least, such singular propositions would be truth-valueless if Socrates didn’t exist. So, the truth of such propositions might be considered to be at least partially grounded in the existence of Socrates. To avoid the objection, let p V ¬ p be either universally quantified or a necessity of propositional logic. The point applies to other logical necessities which are said, in this paper, not to be required by the identity of Socrates. I appreciate Alessandro Torza for bringing the point to my attention.
By “logical entities” I mean entities designated by logical constants and by “non-logical entities” I mean entities which are not logical entities.
See footnote 4.
For any non-logical entity x, if it is necessary, relative to the essence of x, that A, then A is true, or equivalently if it is true that A, then for any non-logical entity x, it is possible, relative to the essence of x, that A.
As pointed out in an earlier footnote, one might say that the conditional is partially grounded in the existence of Socrates because it is about him. Even if we accept it, it is still true that the conditional is not true merely in virtue of the identity of Socrates. So it is still true to say that it is not true that □Socrates (Socrates is human → Socrates is human).
Cf. Hale 2013: 6.4.4
The main idea of the revision was suggested to me, in a generous correspondence, by Professor Hale.
References
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Fine, K. (1994). Essence and modality. Philosophical Perspectives, 8, 1–16.
Fine, K. (1995a). Ontological dependence. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, 95, 269–290.
Fine, K. (1995b). Senses of essence. In W. Sinnott-Armstrong (Ed.), Modality, morality, and belief (pp. 53–73). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Hamid Vahid, Mahmoud Morvarid, Mohsen Zamani, Alessandro Torza, Nathan Wildman, and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments on the previous versions of this paper. I am particularly grateful to Bob Hale for generous, insightful correspondence that helped me develop my ideas on the subject.
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Morvarid, H. Hale on the Absoluteness of Logical Necessity. Acta Anal 32, 1–11 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-016-0290-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-016-0290-3