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Single Idea 18797

[filed under theme 10. Modality / A. Necessity / 1. Types of Modality ]

Full Idea

The categories of modality have this peculiarity: as a determination of the object they do not augment the concept to which they are ascribed in the least, but rather express only the relation to the faculty of cognition.

Gist of Idea

Modalities do not augment our concepts; they express their relation to cognition

Source

Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B266/A219)

Book Ref

Kant,Immanuel: 'Critique of Pure Reason', ed/tr. Guyer,P /Wood,A W [CUO 1998], p.322


A Reaction

A nice summary of Kant's view of modality. It does not arise out of reality, or even out of the nature of our concepts, but out of the relations which our concepts enter into, in the processes of understanding. (Do I understand that?)


The 8 ideas with the same theme [family of modalities that includes necessity and possibility]:

Modalities do not augment our concepts; they express their relation to cognition [Kant]
There are two families of modal notions, metaphysical and epistemic, of equal strength [Edgington]
Necessity is counterfactually implied by its negation; possibility does not counterfactually imply its negation [Williamson]
Priority is a modality, arising from collections and members [Potter]
Maybe modal thought is unavoidable, as a priori recognition of necessary truth-preservation in reasoning [Hale/Hoffmann,A]
Dispositionality has its own distinctive type of modality [Mumford/Anjum]
Dispositionality is the core modality, with possibility and necessity as its extreme cases [Mumford/Anjum]
Dispositions may suggest modality to us - as what might not have been, and what could have been [Mumford/Anjum]