structure for 'Modality'    |     alphabetical list of themes    |     unexpand these ideas

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 8. Transcendental Necessity

[preconditions necessary for knowing the world]

6 ideas
Even the gods cannot strive against necessity [Pittacus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Even the gods cannot strive against necessity.
     From: report of Pittacus (reports [c.610 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 01.5.4
Necessity sets limits on being, in order to give it identity [Parmenides]
     Full Idea: Powerful necessity holds Being in the bonds of a limit, which constrains it round about, because divine law decrees that Being shall not be without boundary. For it is not lacking, but if it were spatially infinite, it would lack everything.
     From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1-
Everything happens by reason and necessity [Leucippus]
     Full Idea: Nothing happens at random; everything happens out of reason and by necessity.
     From: Leucippus (fragments/reports [c.435 BCE], B002), quoted by (who?) - where?
Transcendental necessity is conditions of a world required for a rational being to know its nature [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: When the conditions for a rational being having knowledge of the nature of a world are offered as the grounds for the judgement that such a world must have certain characteristics, we have transcendental necessity.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.V.B)
     A reaction: It seems like a rather hard call to decide whether such characteristics pertain to the world, or to the mind of the rational being. Kant is obviously behind this one. You must read his first Critique at least four times to evaluate it.
There is a transcendental necessity for each logical necessity, but the transcendental extends further [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Whatever is logically necessary must be reflected in a corresponding transcendental necessity. But there are a great range of transcendental necessities which are not reflected in any logical necessity.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.V.C)
     A reaction: That is, the world would be unknowable if any of the logical necessities failed to apply to it. I hope that doesn't mean that we are supposed to intuitively know all the logical necessities. Nowadays we are famous for being bad at that.
Proper necessary truths hold whatever the circumstances; transcendent truths regardless of circumstances [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: We distinguish between the necessary truths proper, those that hold whatever the circumstances, and the transcendent truths, those that hold regardless of the circumstances.
     From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], Intro)
     A reaction: Fine's project seems to be dividing the necessities which derive from essence from the necessities which tended to be branded in essentialist discussions as 'trivial'.