display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 18797 | Modalities do not augment our concepts; they express their relation to cognition [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The categories of modality have this peculiarity: as a determination of the object they do not augment the concept to which they are ascribed in the least, but rather express only the relation to the faculty of cognition. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B266/A219) | |
| A reaction: A nice summary of Kant's view of modality. It does not arise out of reality, or even out of the nature of our concepts, but out of the relations which our concepts enter into, in the processes of understanding. (Do I understand that?) |
| 15162 | We understand metaphysical necessity intuitively, from ordinary life [Soames] |
| Full Idea: Our understanding of metaphysical necessity is intuitive - drawn from our ordinary thought and talk. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: This, of course, is a good reason for analytic philosophers to dislike metaphysical necessity. |
| 15161 | There are more metaphysically than logically necessary truths [Soames] |
| Full Idea: The set of metaphysically necessary truths is larger than the set of logically necessary truths. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: Likewise, the set of logically possible truths is much larger than the set of metaphysically possible truths. If a truth is logically necessary, it will clearly be metaphysically necessary. Er, unless it is necessitated by daft logic... |
| 5594 | Natural necessity is the unconditioned necessity of appearances [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The unconditioned necessity of appearances can be called natural necessity. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B447/A419) | |
| A reaction: Kant can call it what he likes, but this isn't what we mean by 'natural necessity'. We mean a feature of reality, even if we can only use appearances to infer that feature. As usual, they can't tell their ontology from their epistemology. |