Notion Of Necessity Research Articles

John Stuart Mill, Determinism, and the Problem of Induction

Auguste Comte's doctrine of the three phases through which sciences pass (the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive) allows us to explain what John Stuart Mill was attempting in his magnum opus, the System of Logic: namely, to move the science of logic to its terminal and ‘positive’ stage. Both Mill's startling account of deduction and his unremarked solution to the Humean problem of induction eliminate the notions of necessity or force—in this case, the ‘logical must’—characteristic of a science's metaphysical stage. Mill's treatment had a further surprising payoff: his solution to the Problem of Necessity (what today we call the problem of determinism and freedom of the will).

The Contours of the Right to Self-Defence: Is the Requirement of Imminence Merely a Translator for the Concept of Necessity?

The right to self-defence has lately been subjected to intense academic controversy, both at the domestic and international level. The debate is focused on the question of whether or not the requirement of imminence is merely a translator for the notion of necessity. At the domestic level, the debate has mainly been kindled by feminist scholars, who, in the context of the ‘battered woman’, argue that the requirement of imminence should be discarded from the contours of the self-defence doctrine. The purpose of this article is to prove the necessity of the imminence requirement as a litmus test to detect possible abuses of the self-defence doctrine.

Reference, Contingency, and the Two-Dimensional Framework

I review and reconsider some of the themes of 'Two notions of necessity' (Davies and Humberstone, 1980) and attempt to reach a deeper understanding and appreciation of Gareth Evans's reflections (in 'Reference and contingency', 1979) on both modality and reference. My aim is to plot the rela- tionships between the notions of necessity that Humberstone and I characterised in terms of operators in two-dimensional modal logic, the notions of superficial and deep necessity that Evans himself described, and the epistemic notion of a priority. Near the beginning of 'Reference and contingency', Gareth Evans says (1979, p. 178): This paper is an attempt to (use) a puzzle about the contingent ap riorito test and explore certain theories of reference and modality. No one could claim that the puzzle is of any great philosophical importance by itself, but to understand it, one has to get clear about certain aspects of the theory of reference; and to solve it, one has to think a little more deeply than one is perhaps accustomed about what it means to say that a statement is contingent or necessary. The most familiar examples of the puzzle of the contingent a priori and the mirror-image puzzle of the necessary a posteriori involve what appear to be referring expressions: ordinary proper names, names of natural kinds, names with their reference fixed by description. So an account of the puzzles can scarcely avoid involvement with the theory of reference. But, as Evans stresses, there are other examples of the contingent ap rioriand the necessary a posteriori that do not involve referring expressions at all. So no thesis about reference can suffice, by itself, for a complete solution to the puzzles. Rather, Evans proposes, a solution must be provided by reflection on the modal notions of contingency and necessity. Evans's response to the puzzle about the contingent ap riori makes use of a distinction between 'superficial' and 'deep' notions of necessity. In 'Two notions of necessity', Lloyd Humberstone and

Comment on `Two Notions of Necessity'

Comment on `Two Notions of Necessity'

Explaining ‘The Hardness of the Logical Must’: Wittgenstein on Grammar, Arbitrariness and Logical Necessity

This paper explains (in Part A) Wittegnstein’s understanding of the ‘grammar’ of our (or any) language, tracing its origins in the Tractatus’s concept of logical syntax, and then examining the senses in which Wittegnstein, in his later work, viewed grammar as being ‘arbitrary’. Then, armed with this understanding, it moves on (in Part B) to the task of examining how, within the framework of a Wittegnsteinian view of language, we should understand the inescapable ‘compellingness’ of logical necessity – what Wittegnstein calls the “hardness of the logical must”. Whereas it is often thought that Wittegnstein’s views on the nature of the ‘grammar’ of our concpets leads him towards a vitiatingly conventionalist or anti‐realist understanding of necessity, in which its logical ‘superhardness’ becomes problematic, this paper will argue that there is actually no such tension in Wittegnstein’s thought. In fact, it will be argued, an understanding of the ways in which our conceptual grammar is arbitrary casts a great deal of light on how it is that our concepts can nevertheless support a logically superhard, and normatively commanding, notion of necessity. In support of this view, I distinguish Wittegnstein’s views on necessity from the ‘classical’ conventionalism of the Vienna Circle, and from the radical conventionalism of Michael Dummett, and defend Wittegnstein’s view from a powerful recent attack from Quassim Cassam.

Russell’s Modal Logic?

Reviews 165 RUSSELrs MODAL LOGIC? GARY OSTERTAG Philosophy I New York U. New York, NY 10003, USA G02@NYU.EDU Jan Dejnofka, Bertrand Russell on Modality and Logical Relevance. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 1999. Pp. ix, 241. £37.50; US$65.95 (cloth). Russell's discussions of modality hardly form a centrepiece of his philosophical logic. He published no articles on this topic,I nor do any of his books devote even a single chapter to. it. Nonetheless, remarks on modality appear-although with no great frequency-scattered throughout his writings, spanning the entire period in which he was seriously engaged in logical matters. I "Non-Euclidean Geometry" (Papers 4: 482-5), first published in 19°4, is arguably an exception. r66 Reviews In a 1905 manuscript only recently published, he argues that modal predicates are correctly applied not to propositions bur to propositional functions.2 Moreover , in a roughly coeval review of Meinong, serialized in Mind, he expresses scepticism towards the view that "it is possible to distinguish, among true propositions , some which are necessary from others which are mere facts" (Papers 4: 435). His views on modality receive further clarification in his 1913 Aristotelian Society lecture, "On the Notion of Cause"; but a more fully developed picture does not emerge until 1918-19. Two writings of that period, "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism" and Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, state Russell's most considered thoughts on this topic. Even here, Russell does not devote an extensive amount of space to the subject. But their individual brevity notwithstanding , Russell's remarks, collectively, form a view of modality that is worth considering in detail, since it not only sheds light on his conceptions of logic and logical truth, but also provides an interesting, if incomplete, reworking of the traditional approach. Jan Dejnoika's new book attempts to provide an interpretation ofthese remarks. While Dejnofka is not the first Russell scholar to address them, his book is by far the most comprehensive discussion yet published ) Moreover, his interpretation of Russell, if correct, would require a radical reconception of the logic of Principia Mathematica. As I shall argue, Dejnoika's book falls far short ofestablishing anything so revolutionary. As early as 1905, Russell has settled into what becomes his official view, that "there is no such comparative and superlative of truth as is implied by the notions ofcontingency and necessity" (Papers 4: 520). Later, in "On the Notion of Cause", he considers the doctrine that "That is necessary which is not only true, but would be true under all circumstances."4 His response is definitive: A proposition is simply true or false, and that ends the matter: there can be no question of "circumstances." "Charles I's head was cut off' is just as true in summer as in winter, on Sundays as on Mondays. (Papers 6: 194) The notions of necessity, possibility, etc., are therefore correctly applied to propositional functions, not to propositions. In particular, a propositional function f(x) is necessary just in case it determines a true proposition for each value of x, possible just in case it determines a true proposition for at least one value of x, and impossible just in case there is no value of x for which it determines a true proposition. Brief reflection will reveal that the property of being 1 "Necessity and Possibility" (Papers 4: 5°7-20). The suggestion also occurs in Russell's review of Meinong; see Papers 4: 436, 450, . 3 Which is not to imply that there are not striking omissions; see note 8. 4 Taken from Baldwin's Dictionary ofPhilosophy and Psychology. Reviews r67 necessary, understood in the above sense, is precisely what the universal quantifier expresses, whereas the property of being possible is what existential quantification expresses. (Being impossible is expressed by the existential quantifier prefixed by the negation sign.) Most readers pause, however briefly, at these definitions..What recommends the use of "possible" as applying to a function that is, in Russell's words, "sometimes true"? One suspects that Russell is using the expression in a way that deviates from its standard use in philosophy . The suspicion is confirmed in "The Philosophy ofLogical Atomism": When I...

Fundamental and accidental symmetries

The Standard Model of elementary particle physics distinguishes between fundamental and accidental symmetries. The distinction is not based on empirical features of the symmetry, nor on a metaphysical notion of necessity. A symmetry is fundamental to the extent that other aspects of nature depend on it, and it is recognized as fundamental by its being theoretically well-connected. This paper clarifies the concept of what it is to be fundamental in this sense, and suggests broader implications for the analysis of scientific knowledge.

La lutte des classes n'est plus ce qu'elle était

Michel Kail, The Class Struggle Is Not What it It Used to Be ; Economic determinism must no longer be analyzed as ideology ; it has become the dominant mode of socialization. There is such an amalgam between assumption and reality within the economistic orientation that it renders the marxist type of critique powerless. The critique of determinism (or the notion of necessity) becomes therefore the premise of all criticism. But such a critique can only be carried out in conjunction with a philosophy of consciousness.

Responsibility and Necessity

It is widely assumed that there is some form of logical tension between the idea that everything that happens happens of necessity and the idea that people are sometimes responsible for what they do. If there is such a tension it ought to be possible to characterize the notions of necessity and responsibility in a way such that the incompatibility is transparent.

L’influence de la Convention européenne des droits de I’homme sur le droit de propriété

Abstract. Up to the present time, the European Court of Human Rights has handed down 18 interesting judgments on Article 1 of Additional Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. As interpreted by the Court, this provision authorises three types of restrictions to the right to property which it lays down, but in contrast to the other provisions which permit restrictions (in particular Articles 8–11 of the Convention) it makes no mention of what is necessary in a democratic society. What is proposed here is a global reading of the case law of the Court in this field in order to demonstrate the logic lying behind the system of control set up by the Court, which is essentially based on the notion of porportionality, with the Court determining the correct balance to be set between considerations of the public interest, as put forward by the States, which might justify interferences (the purpose and utility of the restriction with recognition of a sphere of discretion for the State), and the rights of the individual (the right to property, and also the other rights guaranteed under the system of the Convention). Certain general principles are emerging which make it possible to evaluate the influence of the case law of the Court on the right to property. Although the number of violations which the Court has found appears to be very small, it is significant that those which it has found are essentially based on the failure to respect other rights under the Convention which restrictions upon the right to property affect indirectly, and the reference to the notion of necessity in a democratic society introduced by the Court has tended rather to increase the scope of discretion accorded to the States with regard to the general interest, instead of limiting it which is the case in relation to the other rights which are guaranteed with the exception of restrictions which are necessary in a democratic society.

Authority and Necessity in the Law of Agency

The rules relating to agency of necessity are culled from so many disparate sources that it has proved consistently impossible to forge the law into one coherent body of doctrine. ' The origins of this agency are found in the authority of the shipmaster to act in emergencies as agent of the shipowner in order to preserve the ship and her cargo, and the acceptor of a bill of exchange for the honour of the drawer who has an entitlement to be reimbursed by the person for whom he pays. The rules have been extended to encompass carriers of goods by land faced with crises and also apply, but with less certainty, to other bailees. The deserted wife's right to pledge her husband's credit for necessaries was, formerly, drawn within agency of necessity and, currently, agency arising from cohabitation is within this category. Finally, clinging most precariously to the rules of necessity is the troublesome area corresponding to the Roman law classifilcation of negotiorum gestio.2 This unwieldy conglomerate has little in common, ranging as it does from commercial agency relationships rooted in formal contracts between principal and agent, to negotiorum gestio where strangers intervene on behalf of others without even the latters' consent. It is oiEten assurhed that it is an emergency affecting the principal which provides the lowest common denominator of these situations, but even this notion is not comprehensive as, in the deserted wife's agency, the necessity is patently her own, not that of her principal. Not surprisingly, agency of necessity remains fragmented and bound loosely by the practical conditions which render it operative, viz there must be a necessitous situation, communication with the principal must be impracticable and the agent must act bonafide in his principal's best interests. Overall, there has been a marked reluctance to extend the notion of necessity beyond the recognised categories.3 It would thus seem to be a reasonable assumption, at least in situations where there is an explicit pre-existing agency relationship, that this apparently immutable doctrine would have substantial theoretical foundations. In fact, even within a contractual agency the juridical basis of agency of necessity remains indistinct. Unfortunately, whilst the recent litigation in Industrie Chimiche Italia Centrale and Cerealfin SA v Alexander G. Tsavliris & Sons Maritime Co (The Choko Star)4 settles a practical

Partial Types and Intervals

The main idea of this paper is to develop an inference system to assign partial types to terms of the untyped lambda calculus. A term can either be necessarily or possibly of a certain type; these notions of necessity and possibility are incorporated into the type inference system as modalities. A subclass of types are the total types, for which necessity and possibility are equivalent. In the semantics the meaning of a total type is a set of values in the domain, the meaning of a type being, in general, an interval (a set of sets of values). This is a generalization of Cartwright’s semantics [Conference Record of the 12th Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, 1984, pp. 22–36]. The main results are the soundness and completeness of the type inference system with respect to interval semantics.

Necessity, Cause and Blame: Perspectives on Aristotle's Theory

A discussion of Aristotle's thought on determinism and culpability, Necessity, Cause, and Blame also reveals Richard Sorabji's own philosophical commitments. He makes the original argument here that Aristotle separates the notions of necessity and cause, rejecting both the idea that all events are necessarily determined as well as the idea that a non-necessitated event must also be non-caused. In support of this argument, Sorabji engages in a wide-ranging discussion of explanation, time, free will, essence, and purpose in nature. He also provides historical perspective, arguing that these problems remain intimately bound up with modern controversies.'Original and important ... The book relates Aristotle's discussions to both the contemporary debates on determinism and causation and the ancient ones. It is especially detailed on Stoic arguments about necessity ... and on the social and legal background to Aristotle's thought.' Choice

Anselm's Background Metaphysics

In the background of Anselm's philosophical theology there appear a number of philosophical issues which have not received as much attention from philosophers as they deserve. Some of these issues are his view on the relation between language and reality; the way he handles the notion of being and its opposite, non-being; and his notions of necessity and eternity. Despite its title, this paper will not issue in a systematic and comprehensive reconstruction of the Anselmian metaphysics, since I doubt that that would be possible. Anselm's objectives were always ultimately theological in character, and he never purported to present a rounded metaphysical system. In his hands the basic notions mentioned were modified through their being employed by such an acute and subtle thinker to articulate and elucidate basic articles of Christian belief. But it is possible to discern a central unifying theme through which his views on metaphysical topics are connected. That theme is his interesting and quite novel account of truth. In this paper I will focus upon that theme for the light it sheds on these other issues.

Two notions of necessity

Two notions of necessity

Schopenhauer on the Principle of Sufficient Reason

‘The Principle of Sufficient Reason in all its forms is the sole principle and the sole support of all necessity. For necessity has no other true and distinct meaning than that of the infallibility of the consequence when the reason is posited. Accordingly every necessity is conditioned; absolute, i.e. unconditioned, necessity therefore is a contradicto in adjecto. For to be necessary can never mean anything but to result from a given reason.’ These words are taken from the beginning of section 49 of Schopenhauer's The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. They express sentiments with which I am to some extent in agreement, and it therefore seemed to me worth while to explore in some kind of detail Schopenhauer's treatment of the issues. It might, however, be asked why the view expressed by Schopenhauer should be of philosophical interest, what, if anything, turns on the rejection of the notion of absolute necessity. To this I can reply by saying only that apart from the intrinsic interest of the notion of necessity itself, an issue on which a philosopher ought to make himself clear, Schopenhauer himself points to some of the consequences of his doctrine - the impossiblity, for example, of an absolutely necessary being, and the similar impossibility of ontological or cosmological arguments

Schopenhauer on the Principle of Sufficient Reason

‘The Principle of Sufficient Reason in all its forms is the sole principle and the sole support of all necessity. For necessity has no other true and distinct meaning than that of the infallibility of the consequence when the reason is posited. Accordingly every necessity is conditioned; absolute, i.e. unconditioned, necessity therefore is a contradicto in adjecto. For to be necessary can never mean anything but to result from a given reason.’ These words are taken from the beginning of section 49 of Schopenhauer's The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. They express sentiments with which I am to some extent in agreement, and it therefore seemed to me worth while to explore in some kind of detail Schopenhauer's treatment of the issues. It might, however, be asked why the view expressed by Schopenhauer should be of philosophical interest, what, if anything, turns on the rejection of the notion of absolute necessity. To this I can reply by saying only that apart from the intrinsic interest of the notion of necessity itself, an issue on which a philosopher ought to make himself clear, Schopenhauer himself points to some of the consequences of his doctrine - the impossiblity, for example, of an absolutely necessary being, and the similar impossibility of ontological or cosmological arguments

On the Proto-Theory of Musical Structure

JUST AS music history is a species of history, so no doubt is music theory a species of theory. Hence music theory should have some structure in common with other theories. The question is, then, what is this structure? And of what species of theory is music theory? To specify a theory in logically acceptable terms is usually no easy matter. Every theory involves an underlying logic, and many alternative logics clamor here for attention. Even after underlying logic has been agreed upon to be of such and such a kind, we then must worry about (i) special domain of objects allowed as values for variables and (ii) basic classes (or domains or sorts) into which these objects may be grouped as well as basic relations whereby they may be related. Item (i) has to do with choice of an ontology for theory and (ii) with choice of suitable non-logical predicate or relational constants as primitive or undefined. Only after (i) and (ii) have been well settled is it of any interest to start search for axioms. In process of getting a theory, gaining of axioms comes at very end.1 Let us begin then at beginning with (i) and (ii), ontology and primitive predicates. This much might be called the proto-theory of music. We should first note that proto-theory need not involve complexities exhibited by many scientific or philosophical theories. For example, music theory need not, it seems, involve modal logic, or threevalued logic. In modal logic, it will be recalled, notions of necessity and possibility play fundamental roles, and in three-valued logic a value intermediary between truth-values truth and falsehood is admitted. It is very doubtful that such notions need play any role in music theory. Nor for that matter need music theory assume such complicated mathematical axioms as axiom of choice, or, say, continuum hypothesis. In fact it is not clear that music theory need even

The Notion of Necessity in Mairet's “Sophonisbe”

The way in which a poetic drama grows in the poet's mind is a process shrouded in mystery. What it was that appealed to Mairet when he first read of Sophonisba is something upon which we can only speculate. Indeed, it is not certain where he first read the whole story. He tells us himself that Ie sujet de ceste Tragedie est dans Tite-Live, Polybe, et plus au long dans Apian Alexandrin.l The list could be extended, for others had felt the same attraction for Sophonisba, historians, moralists and dramatists alike: and the attraction does not end with Mairet, either in France or in England. The probability is that Mairet first came upon the story of Sophonisba in one of the classical writers whom he quotes, either in the original work or else in a translation, of which there were quite a number. Roman history already provided a rich seam which dramatists could exploit; but the object which a historian has in writing an account of some event will not necessarily be identical with that of a dramatist describing the same event. So it is with Livy: Sophonisba and Masinissa serve to underline virtues possessed not so much by themselves as by Scipio; for Livy is concerned with Rome, with the Roman character and the ideals which made Rome what it was. Mairet, on the other hand, seems to have built his tragedy around the brief moments of love granted to Sophonisba and Masinissa, a love which suddenly overtakes them, leaving Masinissa bewildered at the violence of its onslaught: o Dieux! que de merveilles, Enchantent a la fois mes yeux et mes oreilles!2

Prof. J. Chevalier

PROF. JACQUES CHEVALIER, dean of the Faculty of Letters and professor of philosophy in the University of Grenoble, is to deliver a series of lectures in London, Cambridge and the north of England. He will speak at the Aquinas Society (Lecture Hall, Inner Temple) on Tuesday, October 24, at 8 p.m. on the “Revival of Realism in French Philosophy”. On Wednesday, October 25, he will be the guest of honour at a luncheon given by the Philosophical Society at the Lyceum Club. On Thursday, October 26, at 5.30 p.m. he will lecture on “Descartes” at University College, Gower Street, London; and on the following Saturday at 3 p.m. he will speak on the “Problem of Survival” at the Institut Frangais (3 Cromwell Gardens, S.W.7). Prof. Chevalier has many friends in England where he has often been at the invitation of the Universities of Oxford and of London or as a delegate to learned congresses. His first visit in England was in 1904, when he came over to study, returning to France with a remarkable monograph on the religious revival in Wales. This brilliant work, with which he began his philosophical career, was soon followed by a penetrating study on the notion of necessity in Aristotle's philosophy. But he is better known in Great Britain by his three monographs on Descartes, Pascal and Bergson, which he has written since he has held the chair of philosophy in the University of Grenoble. He shows how their doctrines affect present-day problems, and gives an original interpretation of them.