Logical Modalities from Aristotle to Carnap The Story of Necessity

Interest in the metaphysics and logic of possible worlds goes back at least as far as Aristotle, but few books address the history of these important concepts. This volume offers new essays on the theories about the logical modalities (necessity and possibility) held by leading philosophers from Aristotle in ancient Greece to Rudolf Carnap in the twentieth century. The story begins with an illuminating discussion of Aristotle's views on the connection between logic and metaphysics, continues through the Stoic and mediaeval (including Arabic) traditions, and then moves to the early modern period with particular attention to Locke and Leibniz. The views of Kant, Peirce, C. I. Lewis and Carnap complete the volume. Many of the essays illuminate the connection between the historical figures studied, and recent or current work in the philosophy of modality. The result is a rich and wide-ranging picture of the history of the logical modalities.

Introduction Max Cresswell, Edwin Mares and Adriane Rini; 1. Aristotle on the necessity of the consequent Adriane Rini; 2. Aristotle on one-sided possibility Marko Malink; 3. Why does Aristotle need a modal syllogistic? Robin Smith; 4. Necessity, possibility and determinism in Stoic thought Vanessa de Harven; 5. Necessity in Avicenna and the Arabic tradition Paul Thom; 6. Modality without the Prior Analytics: early twelfth-century accounts of modal propositions Chris Martin; 7. Ockham and the foundations of modal theory in the fourteenth century Calvin G. Normore; 8. Theological and scientific applications of the notion of necessity in the mediaeval and early modern periods Jack MacIntosh; 9. Locke and the problem of necessity in early modern philosophy Peter Anstey; 10. Leibniz's theories of necessity Brandon C. Look; 11. Leibniz and the lucky proof Jonathan Westphal; 12. Divine necessity and Kant's modal categories Nicholas Stang; 13. Charles Sanders Peirce on necessity Catherine Legg and Cheryl Misak; 14. The development of C. I. Lewis's philosophy of modal logic Edwin Mares; 15. Carnap's modal predicate logic Max Cresswell.

Max Cresswell taught philosophy at Victoria University of Wellington from 1963 to 1999, and has taught there again part-time since 2009. He has published over 150 articles and eleven books, including three widely used texts on modal logic with G. E. Hughes, and most recently, with Adriane Rini, The World-Time Parallel (Cambridge, 2012).
Edwin Mares is Professor of Philosophy at Victoria University of Wellington. His publications include Relevant Logic: A Philosophical Interpretation (Cambridge, 2004), A Priori (2011), and, with Stuart Brock, Realism and Anti-Realism (2007).
Adriane Rini is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Massey University, New Zealand. She is the author of Aristotle's Modal Proofs (2011) and, with Max Cresswell, The World-Time Parallel (Cambridge, 2012).