Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Necessity, philosophy: different kinds of necessity are distinguished, differing in their strength. For example, physical, logical or metaphysical necessity. See also necessity de dicto, necessity de re._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Robert Stalnaker on Necessity - Dictionary of Arguments
I 18 Necessary a posteriori/Jackson: thesis: necessity is a result of relatively superficial linguistic facts. It results from optional descriptive semantics that happens to characterize natural languages: a mechanism of establishing references. >Necessity a posteriori, >Reference. StalnakerVsJackson: the reference-defining mechanisms are not optional as part of meta-semantics. They are part of the presentation of why internal states can be representational at all. >Representation, >Mental states. I 53 Necessary proposition/Lewis/Stalnaker: according to Lewis, there is only one necessary proposition: the set of all possible worlds. >Necessity/Lewis. In order to know that it is true, i.e. that the real world is within this set. For this, you do not need to know any facts about the modal reality. Necessary truth is not made true by the facts. >Facts, >Truthmakers, >Actual world/Lewis. I 64 Metaphysical necessity/metaphysical possibility/Lewis/Louis/Stalnaker: it means: if you have a range of all possibilities, you can quantify with them. The modal operators are then just the quantifiers. >Metaphysical possibility. Error: one can then still be wrong, but only about how one has to understand a sentence - not about how a possible situation would have to be. >Understanding, >Situations. I 189 Necessary a posteriori/contingent a priori/Stalnaker: assuming the inventor’s name was Judson - then both sentences, both "Judson invented the zipper" and "Julius invented ...", are necessary and both are contingent. >Reference/Stalnaker. Contingent: both are contingent because the statement about Judson is a priori equivalent to the one about Julius. Necessary: both are necessary because the statement "Julius is Judson" is a statement with two rigid designators - although the reference is determined by various causal chains. >Proper names, >Rigidity, >Descriptions, >Contingency. I 201 Necessity/N/Quine/Kripke/Stalnaker: before Quine and Kripke, all N were considered to be verbal or conceptual. >de dicto, >Necessity/Kripke, >Necessity/Quine, >de re. Quine: one must always be skeptical about N, analyticity and a priori. Kripke: he was the first to move empiricism and terminology apart - by finding examples for contingent a priori and necessary a posteriori. Thereby, the separatation epistemic/metaphysical arose. >Epistemic/ontologic, >Metaphysics. I 202 Def nomologically necessary/Stalnaker: (in possible worlds x): nomologically necessary means true in all possible worlds that have the same laws as the possible world x ((s) relative to possible world x). Natural Laws/laws of nature/LoN/Stalnaker: thesis: laws of nature are contingent. They do not apply to possible worlds. >Natural laws, >Possible worlds. Some authors: laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. Logic/Stalnaker/(s): logic cannot show what is metaphysically possible. I 204 Necessity/conceptual/metaphysics/Stalnaker: the entire distinction is based on a confusion of a property of propositions with a property of linguistic and mental representations. Proposition: their contingency or necessity has nothing to do with our terms and their meanings. >Concepts, >Possibility. Possibilities: possibilities would be the same, even if we had never thought of them. >Conceivability/Chalmers. Conceptually possible: simple metaphysical possibilities that we can imagine are conceptually possible. >Metaphysical possibility. I 205 Necessary a posteriori/Kripke/Stalnaker: the need stems from the fact that the secondary intension is necessary - the a posteriori character stems from the fact that the primary intension is a contingent proposition. >Intensions/Stalnaker._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
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Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-19