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3 ideas
19008 | The modern revival of necessity and possibility treated them as special cases of quantification [Vetter] |
Full Idea: Necessity and possibility had a revival with the development of modal logic, treating them as special cases of the existential and universal quantifiers, ranging over an infinity of possible worlds. | |
From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.1) | |
A reaction: The problem seems to be that possible worlds offer a very useful and interesting 'model' of modality, but say nothing at all about its nature. Any more than a weather map will show you what weather is. |
19029 | It is necessary that p means that nothing has the potentiality for not-p [Vetter] |
Full Idea: Necessities mark the limits of the potentialities that objects have. More precisely, it is necessary that p just in case nothing has, or had, or will have a potentiality to be such that not-p. | |
From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 6.2) | |
A reaction: [See Vetter's other ideas for her potentiality account of modality] If we wish to build a naturalistic account of modality (and if you don't want that then your untethered metaphysics will drift away in logical space) then this is the way to go. |
3016 | 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 |