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Single Idea 4577
[filed under theme 10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity
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Full Idea
In principle I see no higher or more austere necessity than natural necessity; and in natural necessity, or our attribution of it, I see only Hume's regularities
Clarification
'Natural necessity' is bound by the laws of nature
Gist of Idea
There is no necessity higher than natural necessity, and that is just regularity
Source
Willard Quine (Necessary Truth [1963], p.76)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ways of Paradox and other essays' [Harvard 1976], p.76
A Reaction
Presumably this allows logical necessity as a 'lower' necessity, but denies 'metaphysical' necessity, in line with Hume and other tough empiricists. Personally I adore metaphysical necessities, but they are a bit hard to establish conclusively.
The
20 ideas
with the same theme
[there is nothing necessary about the real world]:
4766
|
Necessity only exists in the mind, and not in objects
[Hume]
|
7186
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There are no necessary truths, but something must be held to be true
[Nietzsche]
|
4528
|
For me, a priori 'truths' are just provisional assumptions
[Nietzsche]
|
9362
|
Necessary truths are those we will maintain no matter what
[Lewis,CI]
|
8483
|
Necessity is relative to context; it is what is assumed in an inquiry
[Quine]
|
10924
|
Necessity is in the way in which we say things, and not things themselves
[Quine]
|
8206
|
Necessity could be just generalisation over classes, or (maybe) quantifying over possibilia
[Quine]
|
4577
|
There is no necessity higher than natural necessity, and that is just regularity
[Quine]
|
9201
|
Whether 9 is necessarily greater than 7 depends on how '9' is described
[Quine, by Fine,K]
|
10927
|
Necessity only applies to objects if they are distinctively specified
[Quine]
|
15090
|
Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction undermined necessary truths
[Quine, by Shoemaker]
|
4718
|
If necessity is always relative to a description in a language, then there is only 'de dicto' necessity
[Putnam, by O'Grady]
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14919
|
Empiricists deny what is unobservable, and reject objective modality
[Fraassen]
|
19284
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Asserting a necessity just expresses our inability to imagine it is false
[Blackburn]
|
20475
|
Maybe modal sentences cannot be true or false
[Casullo]
|
11119
|
De re necessity is just de dicto necessity about object-essences
[Jubien]
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3888
|
Hume assumes that necessity can only be de dicto, not de re
[Scruton]
|
9200
|
Empiricists suspect modal notions: either it happens or it doesn't; it is just regularities.
[Fine,K]
|
14589
|
A modal can reverse meaning if the context is seen differently, so maybe context is all?
[Hawthorne]
|
14598
|
Abstracta imply non-logical brute necessities, so only nominalists can deny such things
[Dorr]
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