Metaphysical Necessity Research Articles

Necessary Laws and the Problem of Counterlegals

Substantive counterlegal discourse poses a problem for those according to whom the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. I discern two types of necessitarianism about laws: dispositional essentialism and modal necessitarianism. I argue that Toby Handfield’s response to the problem of counterlegals cannot help the modal necessitarian, according to whom all possible worlds are identical with respect to the laws. I thus propose a fictionalist treatment of counterlegals. Fictions are not limited by metaphysical possibility; hence, fictionalism affords the modal necessitarian the means to account for the apparent substance of counterlegals even granting the metaphysical necessity of the laws.

On metaphysically necessary laws from physics

How does metaphysical necessity relate to the modal force often associated with natural laws (natural necessity)? Fine (2002) argues that natural necessity can neither be obtained from metaphysical necessity via forms of restriction nor of relativization — and therefore pleads for modal pluralism concerning natural and metaphysical necessity. Wolff (Philosophy of Science, 80(5), 898–906, 2013) aims at providing illustrative examples in support of applying Fine’s view to the laws of nature with specific recourse to the laws of physics: On the one hand, Wolff takes it that equations of motion can count as examples of physical laws that are only naturally but not metaphysically necessary. On the other hand, Wolff argues that a certain conservation law obtainable via Noether’s second theorem is an instance of a metaphysically necessary physical law. I show how Wolff’s example for a putatively metaphysically necessary conservation law fails but argue that so-called topological currents can nevertheless count as metaphysically necessary conservation laws carrying physical content. I conclude with a remark on employing physics to answer questions in metaphysics.

Essays on Barbara Vetter’s Potentiality: Introduction

This focus of Philosophical Inquiries is devoted to Barbara Vetter’s Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality (Oxford University Press, 2015). In her book, Vetter offers an account of (certain) modalities in terms of the dispositions of certain entities; examples of these dispositions are a glass’ fragility, or a rubber band’s elasticity. More specifically, Vetter’s account aims to explain metaphysical possibility and necessity in terms of a generalized notion of dispositionality. She refers to such notion as potentiality.

How to Measure a Moment: Navya-nyāya Metaphysics of <i>kṣaṇa</i>

Raghunātha, a fifteenth-century Nyāya scholar, composed a short treatise called Padārthatattvanirūpaṇa, in which he criticized the Vaiśeṣika’s category system accepted at the time and claimed the necessity of radical revisions of the system. Among a number of targets of criticism stands the reductionism of “moment” of kṣaṇa. Traditionally, Vaiśeṣika holds that people refer to a motion of a substance when they delimit time and measure moments. Raghunātha, however, does not think that a motion of a substance helps us measure moments, and postulates the existence of kṣaṇa, which is a momentary entity and irreducible to any of the known categories. In this paper, I survey the history of the controversy between reductionism and anti-reductionism of kṣaṇa in Vaiśeṣika, focusing on Vallabha, Vardhamāna, and Raghunātha, and present the close relation of Ragunātha to Vardhamāna. Based on this historical survey, I further examine the philosophical significance of postulating kṣaṇa as a new category. The most significant point may be that the metaphysical necessity for postulating kṣaṇa is derived from the Vaiśeṣika’s popular theorem of causality that the diversity of causes prohibits the uniformity of results.

The Contingency of Physical Laws

The purpose of this paper is to explain the sense in which laws of physics are contingent. It argues, first, that contemporary Humean accounts cannot adequately explain the contingency of physical laws; and second, that Hume’s own arguments against the metaphysical necessity of causal connections are not applicable in this context. The paper concludes by arguing that contingency is an essentially emergent, macroscopic phenomenon: we can understand the contingency of fundamental physical laws only through their relation to the distribution of macroscopic modal properties in the manifest world.

Are the categorical laws of ontology metaphysically contingent?

Are the categorical laws of ontology metaphysically contingent? I do not intend to give a full answer to this question in this paper. But I shall give a partial answer to it. In particular, Gideon Rosen, in his article “The Limits of Contingency” (2006), has distinguished a certain conception of metaphysical necessity, which he calls the Non-Standard conception, which, together with the assumption that all natures or essences are Kantian, is supposed to entail that many laws of ontology are metaphysically contingent (Rosen 2006: 20, 27). Now, the argument Rosen gives supports the conclusion that all categorical laws of ontology are contingent. I shall argue that the Non-Standard conception and the thesis that all natures are Kantian are incompatible with each other and that, if the Non-Standard conception is true, there must be at least one metaphysically necessary categorical law of ontology, and I shall identify such a law. Thus my contribution to the question of the title of the paper will be that not all categorical ontological laws can be contingent if the Non-Standard conception is true.

Gamwell, Franklin I. Existence and the Good: Metaphysical Necessity in Morals and Politics. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2011. x+209 pp. $75.00 (cloth).

Gamwell, Franklin I. <i>Existence and the Good: Metaphysical Necessity in Morals and Politics</i>. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2011. x+209 pp. $75.00 (cloth).

Can Essence Provide Knowledge of Metaphysical Necessity? A Reply to Jago

In this paper I argue against Mark Jago’s recent suggestion that ordinary knowers can move from knowledge of essence to knowledge of metaphysical necessity.

The Reduction of Necessity to Essence

Abstract In ‘Essence and Modality’, Kit Fine (1994) proposes that for a proposition to be metaphysically necessary is for it to be true in virtue of the nature of all objects. Call this view Fine’s Thesis. This paper is a study of Fine’s Thesis in the context of Fine’s logic of essence (LE). Fine himself has offered his most elaborate defence of the thesis in the context of LE. His defence rests on the widely shared assumption that metaphysical necessity obeys the laws of the modal logic S5. In order to get S5 for metaphysical necessity, he assumes a controversial principle about the nature of all objects. I will show that the addition of this principle to his original system E5 leads to inconsistency with an independently plausible principle about essence. In response, I develop a theory that avoids this inconsistency while allowing us to maintain S5 for metaphysical necessity. However, I conclude that our investigation of Fine’s Thesis in the context of LE motivates the revisionary conclusion that metaphysical necessity obeys the principles of the modal logic S4, but not those of S5. I argue that this constitutes a distinctively essentialist challenge to the received view that the logic of metaphysical necessity is S5.

Counterpossibles for modal normativists

Counterpossibles are counterfactuals that involve some metaphysical impossibility. Modal normativism is a non-descriptivist account of metaphysical necessity and possibility according to which modal claims, e.g. ‘necessarily, all bachelors are unmarried’, do not function as descriptive claims about the modal nature of reality but function as normative illustrations of constitutive rules and permissions that govern the use of ordinary non-modal vocabulary, e.g. ‘bachelor’. In this paper, I assume modal normativism and develop a novel account of counterpossibles and claims about metaphysical similarity between possible and impossible worlds. I argue that considerations of metaphysical similarity between various impossible worlds and the actual world only require us to tacitly consider how the actual constitutive rules that govern the use of our terms change in order to accommodate the description of some hypothetical impossible scenario. I then argue for my account by raising worries for alternative epistemic and realist accounts of counterpossibles and showing how my account avoids those worries.

Metaphysical and absolute possibility

It is widely alleged that metaphysical possibility is “absolute” possibility (Kripke in Naming and necessity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1980; Lewis in On the plurality of worlds, Blackwell, Oxford, 1986; van Inwagen in Philos Stud 92:68–84, 1997; Rosen, in: Gendler and Hawthorne (eds) Conceivability and possibility, Clarendon, Oxford, 2002, p 16; Stalnaker, in: Stalnaker (ed) Ways a world might be: metaphysical and anti-metaphysical essays, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003, pp 201–215; Williamson in Can J Philos 46:453–492, 2016). Kripke calls metaphysical necessity “necessity in the highest degree” (1980, p. 99). Van Inwagen claims that if P is metaphysically possible, then it is possible “tout court. Possible simpliciter. Possible period…. possib(le) without qualification (1997, p. 72).” And Stalnaker writes, “we can agree with Frank Jackson, David Chalmers, Saul Kripke, David Lewis, and most others who allow themselves to talk about possible worlds at all, that metaphysical necessity is necessity in the widest sense (2003, p. 203).” What exactly does the thesis that metaphysical possibility is absolute amount to? Is it true? In this article, I argue that, assuming that the thesis is not merely terminological, and lacking in any metaphysical interest, it is an article of faith. I conclude with the suggestion that metaphysical possibility may lack the metaphysical significance that is widely attributed to it.

Martha Kneale on Why Metaphysical Necessities Are NotA Priori

AbstractIn her 1938 paper ‘Logical and Metaphysical Necessity’, Martha Kneale introduces the necessarya posteriori. I present a critical summary of Kneale's argument that so-called ‘metaphysical propositions’ are necessary but nota priori. I argue that Kneale is well placed to offer a template for reconciling conceivability approaches to modal epistemology with the post-Kripkean trend for taking metaphysical necessities to have their source in mind-independent reality.

The Scholastic Logic of Statistical Hypotheses

Among the important conceptual innovations introduced in the second scholasticism era and motivated by theological debates following the Council of Trent were the theories of moral necessity and moral implication. As they were centred upon a view of moral necessity as a form of necessity weaker than physical (and, ipso facto, metaphysical and logical) necessity, and moral implication as weaker than physical (and, ipso facto, metaphysical and logical) implication, some interpretations of moral necessity encouraged the logic of statistical hypotheses and probability. Three branches of this debate are studied in this paper: the explanation of moral necessity in terms of suppositio (Vega, Molina, Hurtado, Sforza Pallavicino), the confrontation over the interpretation of moral necessity (Quirós, Herrera), and the theory of statistical quantification (Elizalde, Terill, de Benedictis).

Counterfactuals and Non-exceptionalism About Modal Knowledge

Since our capacities and methods of cognizing reality merely seem to tell us how things are but only within close limits how they could or must be, our claims to knowledge of mere possibilities and necessities raise the suspicion of exceptionalism: the capacities and methods used in developing these claims seem special compared to those involved in cognizing reality. One may be sceptical especially with regard to them, and there are doubts that they can be naturalistically explained. To avoid exceptionalism, Timothy Williamson has proposed to reduce the epistemology of modality to the epistemology of everyday counterfactuals. There are doubts that the proposal succeeds. One objection is that the counterfactual-based epistemology fails to account for metaphysical necessities like the necessity of origin. For the account to cover such necessities, constitutive facts like the origin of a living being would have to form implicit constraints built into the capacity for everyday counterfactual reasoning. But is counterfactual reasoning indeed so constrained? I answer this question in the affirmative, presenting an epistemology of counterfactuals for modal epistemology to build on. The constraints gradually emerge by a broadly abductive process, starting from within everyday counterfactual reasoning. The process does not presuppose any independent knowledge of the constitutive status of certain facts.

Between general and particular: Objections to the necessitarian theory of laws

In this paper, I analyze the conception of laws of nature known as DTA theory. According to the proposal advanced by Dretske (1977), Tooley (1977) and Armstrong (1983), laws of nature ought to be identified as necessitation relations between universals. My aim is to argue that this notion cannot provide an adequate response to two major difficulties that are presented to any realist account of laws: the identification problem and the inference problem. More precisely, I hold that both Tooley’s Platonist theory of universals and Armstrong’s Aristotelian theory of universals collapse in the face of the inference problem, even though they offer elegant solutions to the identification problem. Basically, this problem consists in explaining how it is possible for statements about abstract relations between universals to entail statements about concrete regularities. I also maintain that the root of the drawbacks faced by the DTA theory lies in the distinction between nomological and metaphysical necessity, as well as the dissociation between the nature of a property and its causal profile. Finally, I point out that these drawbacks must not prevent us from searching for a realist understanding of the laws of nature. Keywords: laws of nature, necessitation, inference problem, Tooley, Armstrong.

Explaining the modal force of natural laws

In this paper, I will defend the thesis that fundamental natural laws are distinguished from accidental empirical generalizations neither by metaphysical necessity (e.g. Ellis 1999, 2001; Bird in Analysis, 65(2), 147–155, 2005, 2007) nor by contingent necessitation (Armstrong 1983). The only sort of modal force that distinguishes natural laws, I will argue, arises from the peculiar physical property of mutual independence of elementary interactions exemplifying the laws. Mutual independence of elementary interactions means that their existence and their nature do not depend in any way on which other interactions presently occur. It is exactly this general physical property of elementary interactions in the actual world that provides natural laws with their specific modal force and grounds the experience of nature’s ‘recalcitrance’. Thus, the modal force of natural laws is explained by contingent non-modal properties of nature. In the second part of the paper, I deal with some alleged counterexamples to my approach: constraint laws, compositional laws, symmetry principles and conservation laws. These sorts of laws turn out to be compatible with my approach: constraint laws and compositional laws do not represent the dynamics of interaction-types by themselves, but only as constitutive parts of a complete set of equations, whereas symmetry principles and conservation laws do not represent any specific dynamics, but only impose general constraints on possible interactions.

Does a Truly Ultimate God Need to Exist?

We explore a ‘Neo-Cartesian’ account of divine ultimacy that raises the concept of God to its ultimate level of abstraction so that we can do away with even the question of his existence. Our starting point is God’s relation to the logical and metaphysical order of reality and the views of Descartes and Leibniz on this topic. While Descartes held the seemingly bizarre view that the eternal truths are freely created by God, Leibniz stands for the mainstream view that the eternal truths are grounded in God’s nature. We argue that the implausibility of Descartes’ doctrine stems mainly from the assumption that there is a non-epistemic notion of absolute necessity (metaphysical necessity) that constitutes the ultimate court of appeal for all modal questions and that this assumption is questionable. We also question the assumption that God’s ultimacy merely requires that all reality be grounded in God in the sense of mere explanation, so that it suffices if the necessary truths are grounded in God’s nature but not in God’s will. This will lead us to a reassessment of Descartes’ position. In the final and main part of the paper, we push Descartes’ doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths to its ‘logical’ conclusion with the aim of getting to a novel conception of ‘God.’

Logicism and Formal Necessity: Reflections on Kant’s Modal Metaphysics

AbstractLogicism is Stang’s name for the Leibnizian doctrine that all necessary truths are derivable from identities and definitions. Stang shows that the early Kant opposed this doctrine because he thought the proposition God exists was a counterexample to it; I raise some non-theological counterexamples as well. Formal necessity is the necessity that attaches to a proposition when its truth is grounded in our categories and forms of intuition. Stang treats it as one of several sui generis kinds of necessity in Kant, all of them falling short of logical or metaphysical necessity. I raise several questions for Stang’s account, including the following: Can our having the forms we do really explain the necessity of geometry? Is our possession of those forms self-grounding in an objectionable way? How can our forms ground general truths without grounding particular instances of them?

Arguing about the world’s cardinality: Priority, existence, and metaphysical necessity

Metaphysicians still discuss about the number of things. According to monists, there is one thing, either fundamental (Priority Monism) or exclusionary (Existence Monism). According to pluralists, there are many things, either fundamental (Priority Pluralism) or exclusionary (Existence Pluralism). The claims of cardinality of these views are, presumably, metaphysical claims, which means, presumably, that they are necessarily true, if true at all. In this paper, I unravel a common pattern of some of the main arguments used by the parties involved and challenge their assumptions. By doing this, I intend to show that those arguments are all equally impotent to settle the question about the number of things because their conclusions are not necessary truths as they are meant to be. These views, at the very most, can be presented and defended as consistent ways of saying how many things, apparently, might be.Keywords: cardinality, fundamentality, existence, monism, pluralism, nihilism.

Metaphysical necessity: a skeptical perspective

Many people hold that there is a distinctive notion of metaphysical necessity. In this paper I explain why I am skeptical about the view. I examine the sorts of considerations that are adduced for it, and argue that they meet equal and opposite considerations.