more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
'Necessarily 9>7' may be true while the sentence 'necessarily the number of planets < 7' is false, even though it is obtained by substituting a coreferential term. So quantification in these contexts is unintelligible, without a clear object.
Gist of Idea
We can't quantify in modal contexts, because the modality depends on descriptions, not objects
Source
report of Willard Quine (Reference and Modality [1953]) by Kit Fine - Intro to 'Modality and Tense' p. 4
Book Ref
Fine,Kit: 'Modality and Tense' [OUP 2005], p.4
A Reaction
This is Quine's second argument against modality. See Idea 9201 for his first. Fine attempts to refute it. The standard reply seems to be to insist that 9 must therefore be an object, which pushes materialist philosophers into reluctant platonism.
Related Idea
Idea 9201 Whether 9 is necessarily greater than 7 depends on how '9' is described [Quine, by Fine,K]
| 9201 | Whether 9 is necessarily greater than 7 depends on how '9' is described [Quine, by Fine,K] |
| 9203 | We can't quantify in modal contexts, because the modality depends on descriptions, not objects [Quine, by Fine,K] |
| 10925 | Failure of substitutivity shows that a personal name is not purely referential [Quine] |
| 10926 | Quantifying into referentially opaque contexts often produces nonsense [Quine] |
| 14645 | To be necessarily greater than 7 is not a trait of 7, but depends on how 7 is referred to [Quine] |
| 10928 | Maybe we can quantify modally if the objects are intensional, but it seems unlikely [Quine] |
| 10930 | Quantification into modal contexts requires objects to have an essence [Quine] |
| 10927 | Necessity only applies to objects if they are distinctively specified [Quine] |
| 10931 | We can't say 'necessarily if x is in water then x dissolves' if we can't quantify modally [Quine] |