Single Idea 19284

[catalogued under 10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity]

Full Idea

To say that we dignify a truth as necessary we are expressing our own mental attitudes - our own inability to make anything of a possible way of thinking which denies it. It is this blank unimaginability which we voice when we use the modal vocabulary.

Gist of Idea

Asserting a necessity just expresses our inability to imagine it is false

Source

Simon Blackburn (Spreading the Word [1984], 6.5)

Book Reference

Blackburn,Simon: 'Spreading the Word' [OUP 1984], p.217


A Reaction

Yes, but why are we unable to imagine it? I accept that the truth or falsity of Goldbach's Conjecture may well be necessary, but I have no imagination one way or the other about it. Philosophers like Blackburn are very alien to me!