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Full Idea
There are 'transcendental' arguments saying that modal thought is unavoidable - recognition, a priori, of the necessarily truth-preserving character of some forms of inference is a precondition for rational thought in general, and scientific theorizing.
Gist of Idea
Maybe modal thought is unavoidable, as a priori recognition of necessary truth-preservation in reasoning
Source
Bob Hale/ Aviv Hoffmann (Introduction to 'Modality' [2010], 1)
Book Ref
'Modality', ed/tr. Hale,B/Hoffman,A [OUP 2010], p.4
A Reaction
So the debate about the status of logical truths and valid inference, are partly debates about whether out thought has to involve modality, or whether it could just be about the actual world. I take possibilities and necssities to be features of nature.
| 18797 | Modalities do not augment our concepts; they express their relation to cognition [Kant] |
| 12205 | There are two families of modal notions, metaphysical and epistemic, of equal strength [Edgington] |
| 14625 | Necessity is counterfactually implied by its negation; possibility does not counterfactually imply its negation [Williamson] |
| 10709 | Priority is a modality, arising from collections and members [Potter] |
| 14528 | Maybe modal thought is unavoidable, as a priori recognition of necessary truth-preservation in reasoning [Hale/Hoffmann,A] |
| 17535 | Dispositionality has its own distinctive type of modality [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14579 | Dispositionality is the core modality, with possibility and necessity as its extreme cases [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14580 | Dispositions may suggest modality to us - as what might not have been, and what could have been [Mumford/Anjum] |