What Is Metaphysically Necessary?

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter explores the extent to which the proposed account of metaphysical necessity can accommodate de re metaphysical necessity. It is argued that the conditions on objectivity, to which metaphysical modality is relative, are general, and that therefore they primarily give rise to de dicto metaphysical necessities. However, a notion of conditional metaphysical necessity which can be de re is introduced. Considerations of de re modality raise the spectre of Quine. Quine challenges the intelligibility of a combination of ordinary objectual quantification and logical modality operators. This combination is a feature of the proposed view. The chapter therefore also offers a response to Quine: we can make sense of conditions that apply to objects, independent of how we refer to those objects, due to the logical features of the conditions and without appeal to the idea of inherent modal properties of the objects. We can thus defend the intelligibility of de re modal predication without being drawn into the metaphysical jungle of Aristotelian essentialism.