Modality Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology

The philosophy of modality investigates necessity and possibility, and related notions--are they objective features of mind-independent reality? If so, are they irreducible, or can modal facts be explained in other terms? This volume presents new work on modality by established leaders in the field and by up-and-coming philosophers. Between them, the papers address fundamental questions concerning realism and anti-realism about modality, the nature and basis of facts about what is possible and what is necessary, the nature of modal knowledge, modal logic and its relations to necessary existence and to counterfactual reasoning. The general introduction locates the individual contributions in the wider context of the contemporary discussion of the metaphysics and epistemology of modality.

Introduction. Part I: METAPHYSICS and LOGIC. 1. Merely Possible Propositions. Response to Robert Stalnaker. 2. Logical Necessity. 3. Semantic Necessity. 4. Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic. 5. Is Timothy Williamson a Necessary Existent?. 6. Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction. 7. On the Source of Necessity. 8. The Reality of Modality. 9. IBE, GMR, and Metaphysical Projects. 10. Modal Commitments. Response to John Divers. Part II: EPISTEMOLOGY. 11. Permission and (So-Called Epistemic) Possibility. Response to Stephen Yablo. 12. Possible Worlds and the Necessary alt,iagt,A Posteriorialt,/iagt,. Response to Frank Jackson. 14. Apriorism about Modality. Response to Scott Sturgeon. 15. Conceivability and Apparent Possibility. Response to Dominic Gregory. 16. Concepts, Experience, and Modal Knowledge. Bibliography. Index.

Bob Hale is a professor of philosophy at Sheffield University. He was a British Academy Research Reader (1997-99), and will be a Leverhulme Senior Research Fellow (2009-11). He previously taught at the universities of Glasgow, St.Andrews, and Lancaster. He works mainly on the philosophy of mathematics and philosophical logic. Aviv Hoffmann is Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University of Israel.