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Single Idea 14629

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

Full Idea

If we ask why A must be the case, and A is then proved from B, that explains it if B must be so. If the eventual source cites some truth F, then if F just is so, there is strong pressure to feel that the original necessity has not been explained.

Gist of Idea

If we are told the source of necessity, this seems to be a regress if the source is not already necessary

Source

Simon Blackburn (Morals and Modals [1987], 1)

Book Ref

'Metaphysics - An Anthology', ed/tr. Sosa,E. /Kim,J. [Blackwell 1999], p.635

A Reaction

[compressed] Ross Cameron wrote a reply to this which I like. I'm fishing for the idea that essence is the source of necessity (as Kit Fine says), but that essence itself is not necessary (as only I say, apparently!).

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

4822 Divine nature makes all existence and operations necessary, and nothing is contingent [Spinoza]
6181 Necessity cannot be extracted from an empirical proposition [Kant]
4192 All necessity arises from causation, which is conditioned; there is no absolute or unconditioned necessity [Schopenhauer]
4743 The truth-maker for a truth must necessitate that truth [Armstrong]
12687 Metaphysical necessities are those depending on the essential nature of things [Ellis]
16984 I don't think possible worlds reductively reveal the natures of modal operators etc. [Kripke]
3867 De re necessity arises from the way the world is [Newton-Smith]
14629 If we are told the source of necessity, this seems to be a regress if the source is not already necessary [Blackburn]
14529 If something underlies a necessity, is that underlying thing necessary or contingent? [Blackburn, by Hale/Hoffmann,A]
12187 Objectual modal realists believe in possible worlds; non-objectual ones rest it on the actual world [McFetridge]
13374 To analyse modality, we must give accounts of objects, properties and relations [Jubien]
13391 Modality concerns relations among platonic properties [Jubien]
11166 The subject of a proposition need not be the source of its necessity [Fine,K]
17273 Each basic modality has its 'own' explanatory relation [Fine,K]
17289 Every necessary truth is grounded in the nature of something [Fine,K]
14530 The role of semantic necessity in semantics is like metaphysical necessity in metaphysics [Fine,K, by Hale/Hoffmann,A]
9216 Each area of enquiry, and its source, has its own distinctive type of necessity [Fine,K]
14531 Rather than define counterfactuals using necessity, maybe necessity is a special case of counterfactuals [Williamson, by Hale/Hoffmann,A]
19282 It seems that we cannot show that modal facts depend on non-modal facts [Hale]
12432 Explanation of necessity must rest on something necessary or something contingent [Hale]
12434 Why is this necessary, and what is necessity in general; why is this necessary truth true, and why necessary? [Hale]
12435 The explanation of a necessity can be by a truth (which may only happen to be a necessary truth) [Hale]
15030 Humeans say that we decide what is necessary [Sider]
15031 Modal terms in English are entirely contextual, with no modality outside the language [Sider]
14101 Are necessary truths rooted in essences, or also in basic grounding laws? [Rosen]
15103 Blackburn fails to show that the necessary cannot be grounded in the contingent [Cameron]
14372 Possible worlds are just not suitable truthmakers for modality [Jacobs]
14549 Maybe truths are necessitated by the facts which are their truthmakers [Mumford/Anjum]