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Single Idea 4718
[filed under theme 10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity
]
Full Idea
Putnam endorses the view that necessity is relative to a description, so there is only necessity 'de dicto': relative to language, not to reality.
Clarification
'De dicto' means concerning the words (not the things)
Gist of Idea
If necessity is always relative to a description in a language, then there is only 'de dicto' necessity
Source
report of Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.3
Book Ref
O'Grady,Paul: 'Relativism' [Acumen 2002], p.83
A Reaction
Even a realist must take this proposal seriously. The facts may contain de re necessities, but we could be very sceptical about our capacity to know them. Personally I enjoy speculating about de re necessities. They can't stop you.
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
|
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]
|
14919
|
Empiricists deny what is unobservable, and reject objective modality
[Fraassen]
|
19284
|
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]
|
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]
|