Modal Notions Research Articles

From modality to millianism

AbstractA new argument is offered which proceeds through epistemic possibility (for all S knows, p), cutting a trail from modality to Millianism, the controversial thesis that the semantic content of a proper name is simply its bearer. New definitions are provided for various epistemic modal notions. A surprising theorem about epistemic necessity is proved. A proposition p can be epistemically necessary for a knowing subject S even though p is a posteriori and S does not know p. The identity relation is well‐behaved in metaphysically possible worlds but can go rogue in epistemically possible worlds. Whereas it can be epistemically possible that Lewis Carroll is not Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, this is not epistemically possible in the manner that anti‐Millianism requires.

The Kantian Background of Frege’s Notion of Judgement

The paper gives, in the first place, a performative reading of Frege's account of non-alethic modalities. Second, it asks the question whether there is an influence of Kant's writings on Frege's notion of assertive force. It is generally acknowledged that the Neo-Kantian tradition has been essential to Frege's development. The paper shows that it can also be fruitful to look at more direct influences of Kant himself, especially on the early Frege. The paper shows that Kant's notion of assertoric modality must have been an inspiration for Frege to make the distinction between judgement, including the assertoric force, and judgeable content. Kant's logical I may also have played a role in Frege's account of judgement in terms of the judging agent, the first person. The conclusion of the paper, though, is that Frege is not a Kantian philosopher, as his idea of logic as providing a positive standard of objectivity is completely new.

Remote possibilities in branching time structures

To analyse contingent propositions, this paper investigates how branching time structures can be combined with probability theory. In particular, it considers assigning infinitesimal probabilities—available in non-Archimedean probability theory—to individual histories. This allows us to introduce the concept of ‘remote possibility’ as a new modal notion between ‘impossibility’ and ‘appreciable possibility’. The proposal is illustrated by applying it to a future contingent and a historical counterfactual concerning an infinite sequence of coin tosses. The latter is a toy model that is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposal to more realistic physical models.

The question in the comics discourse: linguistic and enunciative values

This article deals with the values of questioning in comics discourse. The term “value”, which has a linguistic character, manifests itself in the form of particular, linguistic and enunciative aspects, which gives to the said discourse a meaning and guides its interpreta-tion. In many cases relating to this type of discourse, linguistic processes support its content. In this respect, we evoke linguistic functioning where questioning is both a linguistic process and a marker of a dynamic situation which governs the understanding of the reactions and emotions of the characters. Just as the notion of subjectivity and modality is essential since it stimulates more reflection on the field of pragmatics, and in no way exempts the urgency of analyzing the questions as speech acts. This is why it is supposed to study the functions of questioning, which have gone beyond linguistics to arrive at the field of didactics, hence the need to stop at the means which govern the functioning of this type of speech.

Language, culture and society: Modality, face and societal logic

It is common to distinguish between individualistic cultures typically associated with Western countries and collectivistic cultures normally linked to Asian countries. Some countries are not easily characterized, because they are placed right in the middle of the continuum. This concerns, for instance, Russia. In this paper, I will attempt to demonstrate on the basis of the theory of communicative supertypes that the notion of individualism is intimately connected to the notion of alethic modality – concerned with laws of nature, i.e. what is possible, impossible, necessary and unnecessary – whereas the notion of collectivism is tied up with the notion of deontic modality having to do with laws of society, i.e. permission, prohibition, obligation and non-obligation. Specifically, the British-English speaking speech community is based on the alethic notion of possibility and guided by the hearer's face, i.e. second person, in contrast to the Mandarin-Chinese-speaking community which is based on the deontic notion of obligation and guided by the speaker’s face, i.e. first person. Compared to this, the Russian-speaking community stands out as a third unnoticed variant that seems to differentiate nature and society by making a sharp distinction within their aspectually defined modality system, between alethic and deontic logic expressed by the perfective and the imperfective aspect, respectively. That Russian culture must be a third variant is confirmed by their understanding of face as being defined in relation to the situation itself, i.e. third person.

Корпусный анализ модальных слов со значением неуверенности в английском языке

The work aims to identify the semantic features of English modal words with the meaning of uncertainty: ‘probably’, ‘perhaps’, ‘possibly’, ‘maybe’. The study was carried out using the material of The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The scientific novelty lies in clarifying the semantics of modal words based on the analysis of their collocates identified using corpus data. The paper provides a general description of the modality category, specifies the notion of epistemic modality and gives a classification of modal words. Following that, a corpus analysis of modal words with the meaning of uncertainty is carried out to clarify their semantics and usage features. As a result of the study, it has been determined that the modal words ‘probably’ and ‘perhaps’ are used with nouns with the semantics of assumption, unreality, reference to the past, with adjectives with positive evaluative connotations. The modal word ‘possibly’ is accompanied by lexical units with negative evaluative connotations. The modal words ‘perhaps’ and ‘maybe’ are used with verbs expressing obligation, recommendation and mental actions. The modal words ‘probably’, ‘maybe’ are accompanied by adverbs with the semantics of uncertainty.

Sidestepping the Frege–Geach Problem

AbstractHybrid expressivists claim to solve the Frege–Geach problem by offloading the explanation of the logico-semantic properties of moral sentences onto the belief-components of hybrid states they express. We argue that this strategy is undermined by one of hybrid expressivism's own commitments: That the truth of the belief-component is neither necessary nor sufficient for the truth of the hybrid state it composes. We articulate a new approach. Instead of explaining head-on what it is for, say, a pair of moral sentences to be inconsistent, expressivists should ‘sidestep’ and explain what it is to think that a pair of moral sentences is inconsistent. To think so is to think they cannot both be true—a modal notion. Since expressivists have given accounts of such modals, we illustrate how sentences like ‘‘‘lying is wrong’’ and ‘‘lying is not wrong’’ are inconsistent’ express sensible—and rationally compelling—states of mind.

A contrastive analysis of modality between english and behdini-kurdish

The current study intends to conduct a comparative analysis of modality in English and Behdini-Kurdish. Modality is a linguistic category pertaining to expressing possibility and necessity, among other meanings. The paper’s central problem is that Behdini-Kurdish learners face difficulty in comprehending the notion of modality in English, precisely of modal auxiliary verbs. The primary goals of this investigation are to define epistemic and deontic modalities in the two languages in order to illustrate the similarities and dissimilarities between them. The results reveal that modals in English are predominantly grammatical auxiliaries. In contrast, in Kurdish, they are mainly lexical items, many of which are used to represent a single English modal auxiliary. The findings of the study are summarized in a number of conclusions.

Grammar and analyticity: Wittgenstein and the logical positivists on logical and conceptual truth

AbstractWittgenstein's conception of logical and conceptual truth is often thought to rival that of the logical positivists. This paper argues that there are important respects in which these conceptions complement each other. Analyticity, in the positivists' sense, coincides, not with Wittgenstein's notion of a grammatical proposition, but rather with his notion of a tautology. Grammatical propositions can usually be construed as analyticity postulates in Carnap's sense of the term. This account of grammatical and analytic propositions will be illustrated by appeal to logical, conceptual and arithmetic truths. Its consequences for an analysis of corresponding modal notions will be indicated.

The Persistent Interlocutor

A Persistent Interlocutor (PI) is someone who, in argumentative contexts, does not cease to question her opponent’s premises. The epistemic relevance of the PI has been debated throughout the history of philosophy. Pyrrhonians famously claim that our inability to dialectically vindicate our claims against a PI implies scepticism. Adam Leite disagrees (2005). Michael Resorla argues that the debate is based on a false premise (2009). In this paper, I argue that these views all fail to accurately account for the epistemic relevance of the PI. I then briefly present an account that aims to do better in this regard, based on the modal notion of safety. On the account proposed, the PI does not violate epistemic or dialectical norms. Rather, her behaviour tends to be epistemically perverse in the sense that it wastes cognitive resources. Perhaps surprisingly, this defect turns out not to be unique to the PI.

Additive concessive conditionals

This paper develops an account of additive concessive conditionals, ACCs, such as the German Wir gehen wandern,auch wennes regnet ‘We will go walking even (lit. also) if it rains’. Concessivity is here understood as an essentially modal notion: the actual world does not conform to contextual assumptions, expectations or priorities (Müller 2016). I adopt a modal analysis of conditionals which interprets them relative to an ordering source (Kratzer, 1986). With ACCs, the concessive interpretation arises from the contradiction between the asserted conditional “if p then q” and the conditional perfection (CP) “if p then not q” of the conditional presupposed by the additive “if not p then q” (Pasch, 1995). This contradiction triggers the inference that the actual world does not conform to the ordering constraints that restrict the CP of the additive presupposition. This account predicts that additive conditionals should not receive a concessive interpretation in contexts that do not support conditional perfection. This prediction is borne out.

The Explanationist and the Modalist

AbstractRecent epistemology has witnessed a substantial opposition between two competing approaches to capturing the notion of non-accidentality in the analysis of knowledge: the explanationist and the modalist. According to the latest advocates of the former (e.g., Bogardus and Perrin 2020), S knows that p if and only if S believes that p because p is true. According to champions of the latter (e.g., safety and sensitivity theorists), S knows that p if and only if S's belief that p is true in a relevant set of possible worlds. Because Bogardus and Perrin's explanationism promises to deliver a plausible analysis of knowledge without any need for modal notions, it is an elegant proposal with prima facie appeal. However, such version of explanationism ultimately does not live up to its promises: in this paper, I raise some objections to their explanationist analysis of knowledge while showing that modalism is in much better shape than they think. In particular, I argue that their explanationist condition generates the wrong results in Gettier cases and fake-barn cases. I also offer and defend a novel version of modalism: I introduce a refined safety condition which is shown to successfully handle the same Gettier cases that beset Bogardus and Perrin's version of explanationism. The paper concludes with a reassessment of the explanationist's initial ambition to provide an analysis of knowledge without modal notions. The upshot will be that even if the prospects for such analysis remain dim, our money should be on the modalist, not the explanationist.

Causal fundamentality

I present an argument for causal fundamentality, understood as the thesis that the causal history of every being, whose existence has a causal explanation, includes some uncaused beings. I argue that this thesis is a consequence of an actualist account of metaphysical modality whose novelty lies in its hybrid dispositional-essentialist foundation. I argue that my modal theory is extensionally correct and minimalistic. Its range of metaphysical necessities and possibilities is just as wide as needed to capture the pre-theoretical notion of modality. Moreover, my theory is immune from the necessitism of standard essentialist accounts of modality and addresses the challenge of global possibilities facing dispositionalist modal theories thanks to its essentialist component.

Aquinas’s Third Way

Aquinas’s Five Ways are often presented as standard cosmological arguments for God’s existence. They tend to be anthologized and presented independently of the metaphysical thought that informs them. Thus, when Aquinas deploys technical metaphysical issues in his articulation of the ways, the contemporary reader may have trouble interpreting them correctly. This is particularly the case when Aquinas uses terminology familiar to a contemporary reader that nevertheless should be understood within the context of Aquinas’s own metaphysical thought. The Third Way is particularly challenging in this respect since it trades on modal notions that are familiar within a post-Leibnizian philosophical context but do not carry the same philosophical connotations. With that in mind, I propose to present a reading of the Third Way that is rooted within Aquinas’s own metaphysical thought and is defensible as an argument for God’s existence.

The Actuality of a World: What Ceases Not to Be Written

“There is no longer any world,” wrote the late philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy in 1993, and in this paper, the sense of this loss of world is analysed in terms of the modal notions of necessity, impossibility, and possibility. Modal differentiation can illuminate what constitutes the sense of actuality in a world, and hence, what it is that has been lost regarding this actuality of being in a world. Modal thinking does not rely on knowledge of the true state of affairs, nor on having a constant grasp on necessity: modal thinking enables us to discern the actual by way of the relations between necessity, possibility, and impossibility. It is on the basis of these relations that a mode of rethinking actuality is suggested. In order to pursue this line of thought, I rely on Jacques Lacan’s understanding of modalities as writing operations, concentrating mostly on certain sections from his Seminar XXI (1973–1974), wherein he refers to Aristotelian modal logic and mentions the analytic philosopher Jaakko Hintikka (as one of Aristotle’s commentators). This ternary relation between Aristotle, Hintikka, and Lacan suggests a different outlook on the actual being-such of a world. The being-such of a world, its actuality, is understood as a contingency (what ceases not to be written), a possibility emerging from the relation between what is declared necessary and what is impossible. The paper shows the implications of such a modal understanding of actuality, as demonstrated in Lacan’s view of human sexuality and sexual difference.

ON THE BI-MODAL SOLUTION TO THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM OF CHRISTOLOGY

In a recent paper, Jc Beall and A. J. Cotnoir proposed a bi-modal solution to the fundamental problem of Christology - the problem of reconciling the apparent contradiction implied by Christ’s divine and human natures. According to their solution, the contradiction could be resolved if one takes Christ’s dual nature as implying two different theological modal notions: one ranging over divine possibilities and the other over human possibilities. As a riposte, I argue that as novel and ingenious as Beall and Cotnoir’s solution may be, it still fails to account for the very crux of the fundamental problem, viz., the true (modal) proposition about Christ being God-incarnate.

EXPRESSION OF INDUCEMENT IN KOREAN AND BULGARIAN

This article attempts to present some means of expressing inducement in Korean and Bulgarian and to suggest some features discovered in the translation corpus, composed of five original Korean novels and their translations in Bulgarian. Unlike imperative mood, which is a grammatically concretized notion of deontic modality, inducement is a complex unity formed by various elements such as morphological, syntactic and lexical elements. Therefore, it can be realized both directly and indirectly through the means, which express / do not express inducement in its own form. As for the direct way, Bulgarian has a synthetic and an analytic form. Korean has only a synthetic form, but it has six imperative endings, differing in terms of formality and politeness. Regarding the indirect way, some means like interrogative sentences with the verb in indicative mood and declarative sentences with modal verb are actively used in both languages, while others are used only in Bulgarian. For example, the use of a declarative sentence with a future tense verb in the indicative mood for the purpose of expressing inducement is clearly confirmed in Bulgarian, but in Korean this kind of sentence does not perform the same function at all. From the studied translation materials five main asymmetric features have been found – in the person of the addressee, the voice of the sentence, the way of expressing the inducement, the sentence structure and the way of strengthening the persistence.

Humeanismo y leyes de la naturaleza: alcance y límites

Nomological Humeanism has developed into a research program encompassing several variations on a single theme, namely, the view that laws are statements about regularities that we find in nature. After briefly revisiting an early form of nomological Humeanism in Hume’s critique of the idea of necessary connection, this article critically examines Lewis’ two-fold approach based on Humean supervenience and the best system account. We shall point out three limits of nomological Humeanism, which are widely recognized in the literature: its inadequacy in view of physical theories, its explanatory circularity, and its purported anthropomorphism, all of which advocates of nomological Humeanism have attempted to overcome Humeanism (Jaag y Loew 2020, Loewer 2004 y Massimi 2018). Lastly, we will argue that nomological Humeanism fails to provide a suitable notion of modality for laws of nature. This latter issue continues to represent a live challenge for empiricism in the philosophy of physical laws.

Against modal dualism

AbstractModal dualism is the claim that there is a space of epistemically possible worlds that exceeds the space of metaphysically possible worlds. In the present paper, I argue that modal dualism is false. I do so via an argument that differs from most previous arguments against modal dualism in that it does not rely on controversial semantic or epistemological assumptions like descriptivism, internalism or modal rationalism. The point of my argument is, instead, that modal dualism is internally inconsistent because it is the result of the failure to draw the proper conclusions from the abandonment of these semantic and epistemological assumptions. The relevant inconsistency manifests itself in the modal dualist notion of epistemic modality. For this notion to play the explanatory roles assigned to it by modal dualists, it has to be a notion of a genuinely epistemic kind of modality. But the only way to make sense of such a notion is via just those semantic or epistemological assumptions that the modal dualist is keen to avoid. Anyone willing to abandon these assumptions has to go further and detach the epistemic from the modal altogether.

Kant on Touch, Embodied Activity, and the Perception of Causal Force

Abstract In the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, Kant claims that perception of force through touch is fundamental to our knowledge of substance in space. However, he also holds that perception cannot have modal content. Causation is a modal notion, so how can Kant allow perception of causal force? In response to this puzzle, I provide a new reading of Kant’s theory of touch. Touch does not involve perception of the necessity of a cause, but it does involve awareness of the activity of our body in relation to other bodies. Human embodied activity has a hitherto unrecognized central role in Kant’s accounts of empirical cognition of substance in space, the science of such a substance, and the irreducibility of its causal forces.