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Single Idea 11119

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

Full Idea

I suggest that the de re is to be analyzed in terms of the de dicto. ...We have a case of modality de re when (and only when) the appropriate property in the de dicto formulation is an object-essence.

Gist of Idea

De re necessity is just de dicto necessity about object-essences

Source

Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 5)

Book Ref

'Oxford Studies in Metaphysics vol.3', ed/tr. Zimmerman,Dean W. [OUP 2007], p.124


The 20 ideas with the same theme [there is nothing necessary about the real world]:

Necessity only exists in the mind, and not in objects [Hume]
There are no necessary truths, but something must be held to be true [Nietzsche]
For me, a priori 'truths' are just provisional assumptions [Nietzsche]
Necessary truths are those we will maintain no matter what [Lewis,CI]
Necessity is relative to context; it is what is assumed in an inquiry [Quine]
Necessity is in the way in which we say things, and not things themselves [Quine]
Necessity could be just generalisation over classes, or (maybe) quantifying over possibilia [Quine]
There is no necessity higher than natural necessity, and that is just regularity [Quine]
Whether 9 is necessarily greater than 7 depends on how '9' is described [Quine, by Fine,K]
Necessity only applies to objects if they are distinctively specified [Quine]
Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction undermined necessary truths [Quine, by Shoemaker]
If necessity is always relative to a description in a language, then there is only 'de dicto' necessity [Putnam, by O'Grady]
Empiricists deny what is unobservable, and reject objective modality [Fraassen]
Asserting a necessity just expresses our inability to imagine it is false [Blackburn]
Maybe modal sentences cannot be true or false [Casullo]
De re necessity is just de dicto necessity about object-essences [Jubien]
Hume assumes that necessity can only be de dicto, not de re [Scruton]
Empiricists suspect modal notions: either it happens or it doesn't; it is just regularities. [Fine,K]
A modal can reverse meaning if the context is seen differently, so maybe context is all? [Hawthorne]
Abstracta imply non-logical brute necessities, so only nominalists can deny such things [Dorr]