Full Idea
It is natural to suggest that to be a man is to have certain kind of temporal-modal profile. ...but it seems natural that being a man accounts for the profile, ...so one should not appeal to an object's modal features in stating what the object is.
Gist of Idea
Modal features are not part of entities, because they are accounted for by the entity
Source
Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 09)
Book Reference
Fine,Kit: 'Modality and Tense' [OUP 2005], p.348
A Reaction
This strikes me as a correct and very helpful point, as I am tempted to think that the modal dispositions of a thing are intrinsic to its identity. If we accept 'powers', must they be modal in character? Fine backs a sortal approach. That's ideology.
Related Idea
Idea 14481 Wherever an object exists, there are intrinsic properties instantiating every modal profile [Thomasson]