On Some Arguments for the Necessity and Irreducibility of Necessity

Hale (2013) constructs and defends a conception of absolute modality as metaphysically fundamental. Part of this defense is an attack on alternative positions. One such position is a kind of modal skepticism that permits our declining to accept that any proposition is absolutely necessary. Another such position is a kind of modal reductionism that attempts to secure (non-trivial) modal truths via analysis that does not terminate in modal primitives of any kind. This chapter resists Hale on both fronts, arguing that the significance of the anti-skepticism established is variously limited and that the charge of question-begging against the reductionist(s) is not proven.

Moderate Modal Skepticism

This chapter examines moderate modal skepticism, a form of skepticism about metaphysical modality defended by Peter van Inwagen in order to blunt the force of certain modal arguments in the philosophy of religion. Van Inwagen’s argument for moderate modal skepticism assumes Yablo’s (1993) influential world-based epistemology of possibility. This chapter raises two problems for this epistemology of possibility, which undermine van Inwagen’s argument. It then considers how one might motivate moderate modal skepticism by relying on a different epistemology of possibility, which does not face these problems: Williamson’s (2007) counterfactual-based epistemology. Two ways of motivating moderate modal skepticism within that framework are found unpromising. Nevertheless, the chapter also finds a way of vindicating an epistemological thesis that, while weaker than moderate modal skepticism, is strong enough to support the methodological moral van Inwagen wishes to draw.

Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds

In Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds, Edouard Machery argues that resolving many traditional and contemporary philosophical issues is beyond our epistemic reach and that philosophy should reorient itself toward more humble, but ultimately more important intellectual endeavors. Attempts to resolve such issues are modally immodest: Any resolution would require an epistemic access to metaphysical possibilities and necessities, which, Edouard Machery argues, we do not have. In effect, then, Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds defends a form of modal skepticism. The book assesses the main philosophical method for acquiring the modal knowledge that the resolution of modally immodest philosophical issues turns on: the method of cases, that is, the consideration of actual or hypothetical situations (which cases or thought experiments describe) in order to determine what facts hold in these situations. Canvassing the extensive work done by experimental philosophers over the last fifteen years, Edouard Machery shows that the method of cases is unreliable and should be rejected. Importantly, the dismissal of modally immodest philosophical issues is no cause for despair: Many important philosophical issues remain within our epistemic reach. In particular, reorienting the course of philosophy would free time and resources for bringing back to prominence a once-central intellectual endeavor: conceptual analysis.