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Full Idea
Modality has a special ontological category: it consists neither in objects (possible worlds theory) nor in properties (predicate modifier view), but items I have called 'modes', ..which can be hard/soft/rigid/pliable binding of objects to properties.
Clarification
'Modality' concerns what is necessary or possible
Gist of Idea
Modality is not objects or properties, but the type of binding of objects to properties
Source
Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.4)
Book Ref
McGinn,Colin: 'Logical Properties' [OUP 2003], p.83
A Reaction
As so often, McGinn is very persuasive. Essentially he is proposing that modality is adverbial. He associates the middle view with David Wiggins.
| 3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 12978 | A perfect idea of an object shows that the object is possible [Leibniz] |
| 5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
| 16436 | Modal concepts are central to the actual world, and shouldn't need extravagant metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
| 17572 | Actuality proves possibility, but that doesn't explain how it is possible [Inwagen] |
| 12186 | Modal realists hold that necessities and possibilities are part of the totality of facts [McFetridge] |
| 6080 | Modality is not objects or properties, but the type of binding of objects to properties [McGinn] |
| 14689 | Necessity and possibility are not just necessity and possibility according to the actual world [Salmon,N] |
| 11108 | Your properties, not some other world, decide your possibilities [Jubien] |
| 11111 | Modal truths are facts about parts of this world, not about remote maximal entities [Jubien] |
| 11118 | Modal propositions transcend the concrete, but not the actual [Jubien] |
| 10745 | Science is modally committed, to disposition, causation and law [Oliver] |
| 15025 | The world does not contain necessity and possibility - merely how things are [Sider] |
| 12468 | A state of affairs is only possible if there has been an actual substance to initiate it [Pruss] |
| 12466 | All modality is in the properties and relations of the actual world [Jacobs] |