display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
12 ideas
| 15086 | Absolute necessity might be achievable either logically or metaphysically [Hale] |
| Full Idea: Maybe peaceful co-existence between absolute logical necessity and absolute metaphysical necessity can be secured, ..and absolute necessity is their union. ...However, a truth would then qualify as absolutely necessary in two quite different ways. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Absolute Necessities [1996], 4) | |
| A reaction: Hale is addressing a really big question for metaphysic (absolute necessity) which others avoid. In the end he votes for rejecting 'metaphysical' necessity. I am tempted to vote for rejecting logical necessity (as being relative). 'Absolute' is an ideal. |
| 19290 | Absolute necessities are necessarily necessary [Hale] |
| Full Idea: I argue that any absolute necessity is necessarily necessary. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Necessary Beings [2013], 05.5.2) | |
| A reaction: This requires the principle of S4 modal logic, that necessity implies necessary necessity. He argues that S5 is the logical of absolute necessity. |
| 8261 | Maybe not-p is logically possible, but p is metaphysically necessary, so the latter is not absolute [Hale] |
| Full Idea: It might be metaphysically necessary that p but logically possible that not-p, so that metaphysical necessity is not, after all, absolute. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Absolute Necessities [1996]), quoted by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 1.5 | |
| A reaction: Lowe presents this as dilemma, but it sounds fine to me. Flying pigs etc. have no apparent logical problems, but I can't conceive of a possible world where pigs like ours fly in a world like ours. Earthbound pigs may be metaphysically necessary. |
| 15081 | A strong necessity entails a weaker one, but not conversely; possibilities go the other way [Hale] |
| Full Idea: One type of necessity may be said to be 'stronger' than another when the first always entails the second, but not conversely. This will obtain only if the possibility of the first is weaker than the possibility of the second. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Absolute Necessities [1996], 1) | |
| A reaction: Thus we would normally say that if something is logically necessary (a very strong claim) then it will have to be naturally necessary. If something is naturally possible, then clearly it will have to be logically possible. Sounds OK. |
| 15080 | 'Relative' necessity is just a logical consequence of some statements ('strong' if they are all true) [Hale] |
| Full Idea: Necessity is 'relative' if a claim of φ-necessary that p just claims that it is a logical consequence of some statements Φ that p. We have a 'strong' version if we add that the statements in Φ are all true, and a 'weak' version if not. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Absolute Necessities [1996], 1) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure about 'logical' consequence here. It may be necessary that a thing be a certain way in order to qualify for some category (which would be 'relative'), but that seems like 'sortal' necessity rather than logical. |
| 19286 | 'Absolute necessity' is when there is no restriction on the things which necessitate p [Hale] |
| Full Idea: The strength of the claim that p is 'absolutely necessary' derives from the fact that in its expression as a universally quantified counterfactual ('everything will necessitate p'), the quantifier ranges over all propositions whatever. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Necessary Beings [2013], 04.1) | |
| A reaction: Other philosophers don't seem to use the term 'absolute necessity', but it seems a useful concept, in contrast to conditional or local necessities. You can't buy chocolate on the sun. |
| 19288 | Logical and metaphysical necessities differ in their vocabulary, and their underlying entities [Hale] |
| Full Idea: The difference between logical and metaphysical necessities lies, not in the range of possibilities for which they hold, but - at the linguistic level - in the kind of vocabulary essential to their expression, and the kinds of entities that explain them. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Necessary Beings [2013], 04.5) | |
| A reaction: I don't think much of the idea that the difference is just linguistic, and I don't like the idea of 'entities' as grounding them. I see logical necessities as arising from natural deduction rules, and metaphysical ones coming from the nature of reality. |
| 15082 | Metaphysical necessity says there is no possibility of falsehood [Hale] |
| Full Idea: Friends of metaphysical necessity would want to hold that when it is metaphysically necessary that p, there is no good sense of 'possible' (except, perhaps, an epistemic one) in which it is possible that not-p. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Absolute Necessities [1996], 2) | |
| A reaction: We might want to say which possible worlds this refers to (and presumably it won't just be in the actual world). The normal claim would refer to all possible worlds. Adding a '...provided that' clause moves it from absolute to relative necessity. |
| 15085 | 'Broadly' logical necessities are derived (in a structure) entirely from the concepts [Hale] |
| Full Idea: 'Broadly' logical necessities are propositions whose truth derives entirely from the concepts involved in them (together, of course, with relevant structure). | |
| From: Bob Hale (Absolute Necessities [1996], 3) | |
| A reaction: Is the 'logical' part of this necessity bestowed by the concepts, or by the 'structure' (which I take to be a logical structure)? |
| 15088 | Logical necessities are true in virtue of the nature of all logical concepts [Hale] |
| Full Idea: The logical necessities can be taken to be the propositions which are true in virtue of the nature of all logical concepts. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Absolute Necessities [1996], p.10) | |
| A reaction: This is part of his story of essences giving rise to necessities. His proposal sounds narrow, but logical concepts may have the highest degree of generality which it is possible to have. It must be how the concepts connect that causes the necessities. |
| 19285 | Logical necessity is something which is true, no matter what else is the case [Hale] |
| Full Idea: We can identify the belief that the proposition that p is logically necessary, where p may be of any logical form, with the belief that, no matter what else was the case, it would be true that p. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Necessary Beings [2013], 04.1) | |
| A reaction: I find this surprising. I take it that logical necessity must be the consequence of logic. That all squares have corners doesn't seem to be a matter of logic. But then he seems to expand logical necessity to include conceptual necessity. Why? |
| 19287 | Maybe each type of logic has its own necessity, gradually becoming broader [Hale] |
| Full Idea: We can distinguish between narrower and broader kinds of logical necessity. There are, for example, the logical necessities of propostional logic, those of first-order logic, and so on. Maybe they are necessities expressed using logical vocabulary. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Necessary Beings [2013], 04.5) | |
| A reaction: Hale goes on to prefer a view that embraces conceptual necessities. I think in philosophy we should designate the necessities according to their sources. This might clarify a currently rather confused situation. First-order includes propositional logic. |