more from this thinker     |     more from this text


Single Idea 6181

[filed under theme 10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity ]

Full Idea

It is a clear contradiction to try to extract necessity from an empirical proposition.

Gist of Idea

Necessity cannot be extracted from an empirical proposition

Source

Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], Pref)

Book Ref

Kant,Immanuel: 'Critique of Practical Reason (Third edition)', ed/tr. Beck,Lewis White [Library of Liberal Arts 1993], p.12


A Reaction

This is precisely the idea which Kripke challenged, claiming that the necessary essences of natural kinds such as gold have to be discovered empirically. All my intuitions are with Kant (and Hume) on this, but it is a complex issue…


The 28 ideas with the same theme [general views on what gives rise to necessity]:

Divine nature makes all existence and operations necessary, and nothing is contingent [Spinoza]
Necessity cannot be extracted from an empirical proposition [Kant]
All necessity arises from causation, which is conditioned; there is no absolute or unconditioned necessity [Schopenhauer]
The truth-maker for a truth must necessitate that truth [Armstrong]
Metaphysical necessities are those depending on the essential nature of things [Ellis]
I don't think possible worlds reductively reveal the natures of modal operators etc. [Kripke]
De re necessity arises from the way the world is [Newton-Smith]
If we are told the source of necessity, this seems to be a regress if the source is not already necessary [Blackburn]
If something underlies a necessity, is that underlying thing necessary or contingent? [Blackburn, by Hale/Hoffmann,A]
Objectual modal realists believe in possible worlds; non-objectual ones rest it on the actual world [McFetridge]
To analyse modality, we must give accounts of objects, properties and relations [Jubien]
Modality concerns relations among platonic properties [Jubien]
The subject of a proposition need not be the source of its necessity [Fine,K]
Each basic modality has its 'own' explanatory relation [Fine,K]
Every necessary truth is grounded in the nature of something [Fine,K]
The role of semantic necessity in semantics is like metaphysical necessity in metaphysics [Fine,K, by Hale/Hoffmann,A]
Each area of enquiry, and its source, has its own distinctive type of necessity [Fine,K]
Rather than define counterfactuals using necessity, maybe necessity is a special case of counterfactuals [Williamson, by Hale/Hoffmann,A]
It seems that we cannot show that modal facts depend on non-modal facts [Hale]
Explanation of necessity must rest on something necessary or something contingent [Hale]
Why is this necessary, and what is necessity in general; why is this necessary truth true, and why necessary? [Hale]
The explanation of a necessity can be by a truth (which may only happen to be a necessary truth) [Hale]
Humeans say that we decide what is necessary [Sider]
Modal terms in English are entirely contextual, with no modality outside the language [Sider]
Are necessary truths rooted in essences, or also in basic grounding laws? [Rosen]
Blackburn fails to show that the necessary cannot be grounded in the contingent [Cameron]
Possible worlds are just not suitable truthmakers for modality [Jacobs]
Maybe truths are necessitated by the facts which are their truthmakers [Mumford/Anjum]