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Full Idea
Empiricists have always been suspicious of modal notions: the world is an on-or-off matter - either something happens or it does not. ..Empiricists, in so far as they have been able to make sense of modality, have tended to see it as a form of regularity.
Gist of Idea
Empiricists suspect modal notions: either it happens or it doesn't; it is just regularities.
Source
Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p. 1)
Book Ref
Fine,Kit: 'Modality and Tense' [OUP 2005], p.1
A Reaction
Fine is discussing the two extreme views of Quine and Lewis. It is one thing to have views about what is possible, and another to include possibilities 'in your ontology'. Our imagination competes with our extrapolations from actuality.
| 9200 | Empiricists suspect modal notions: either it happens or it doesn't; it is just regularities. [Fine,K] |
| 9202 | Objects, as well as sentences, can have logical form [Fine,K] |
| 9205 | The three basic types of necessity are metaphysical, natural and normative [Fine,K] |
| 9206 | We must distinguish between the identity or essence of an object, and its necessary features [Fine,K] |
| 9208 | Philosophers with a new concept are like children with a new toy [Fine,K] |
| 9209 | Metaphysical necessity may be 'whatever the circumstance', or 'regardless of circumstances' [Fine,K] |
| 9207 | If sentence content is all worlds where it is true, all necessary truths have the same content! [Fine,K] |
| 9210 | Possible objects are abstract; actual concrete objects are possible; so abstract/concrete are compatible [Fine,K] |
| 9211 | A non-standard realism, with no privileged standpoint, might challenge its absoluteness or coherence [Fine,K] |