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2 ideas
14223 | De dicto necessity has linguistic entities as their source, so it is a type of de re necessity [Shalkowski] |
Full Idea: De dicto necessity is a species of de re necessity. Anyone prone to countenance de dicto necessity must recognise mental and/or linguistic entities, thus counting each of them as a res to which necessity attaches. | |
From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Essent') | |
A reaction: This seems to rest on the Kit Fine thought that analytic necessities seem to derive from the essences of words such as 'bachelor'. I like this idea: all necessity is de re, but some of the 'things' are words. |
15568 | When we consider possibilities, there must be something we are considering [Polt] |
Full Idea: We would hardly want to say that a possibility is nothing, since surely we are considering something when we consider possibilities. | |
From: Richard Polt (Heidegger: an introduction [1999], 1) | |
A reaction: A nice contribution to the issue of whether modality is a feature of actuality. I would prefer to say that we can self-evidently utter truths and falsehoods about what is or is not possible, in nature, in logic, and maybe in metaphysics. |