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Non-Descriptivism About Modality. a Brief History and Revival Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication Volume 4 200 YEARS OF ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY Article 8 2008 Non-Descriptivism About Modality. A Brief History And Revival Amie Thomasson University of Miami, US Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/biyclc This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Thomasson, Amie (2008) "Non-Descriptivism About Modality. A Brief History And Revival," Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication: Vol. 4. https://doi.org/10.4148/ biyclc.v4i0.132 This Proceeding of the Symposium for Cognition, Logic and Communication is brought to you for free and open access by the Conferences at New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Non-descriptivism About Modality 2 The Baltic International Yearbook of world. The pressure to do so comes from the perceived need to find Cognition, Logic and Communication truthmakers for modal propositions; in fact, it is widely assumed that “the problem of modality is a problem about truthmakers for modal August 2009 Volume 4: 200 Years of Analytical Philosophy propositions” (Roy 2000, 56). The obvious truthmakers to posit are pages 1-26 DOI: 10.4148/biyclc.v4i0.132 modal facts or properties. The Lewisian reductive alternative enables us to avoid positing modal facts or properties, but only at the cost of accepting a multitude of possible worlds causally and spatio-temporally AMIE L. THOMASSON isolated from our world.1 University of Miami, U.S.A. But both of these views sit uncomfortably with the otherwise dom- inant trends in metaphysics towards naturalism and physicalism. For neither modal properties and facts nor Lewisian possible worlds are NON-DESCRIPTIVISM ABOUT MODALITY easy to reconcile with a naturalistic ontology. And prospects are even A Brief History and Revival worse for providing any plausible epistemological story of how we could come to acquire knowledge of such non-empirical modal features of the actual world, or of (non-modal) features of causally isolated possible ABSTRACT: Despite the otherwise-dominant trends towards phys- worlds. icalism and naturalism in philosophy, it has become increasingly The point of this paper, however, is not to criticize these views, but common for metaphysicians to accept the existence either of modal rather to raise a historical question: How did we get here? How did facts and properties, or of Lewisian possible worlds. This paper views like these come to be so dominant, despite their tension with the raises the historical question: why did these heavyweight realist otherwise prevalent physicalist and naturalist trends in metaphysics?2 If views come into prominence? The answer is that they have arisen we think of the problem of modality as the problem of finding truthmak- in response to the demand to find truthmakers for our modal state- ers for modal propositions, then it is, to say the least, a very tough nut ments. But this demand presupposes that modal statements are to crack. But if we examine the history of treatments of modality over descriptive claims in need of truthmakers. This presupposition was, however, rejected by many earlier analytic philosophers, in- the past century, it becomes clear that this is not the only and so not an cluding the logical positivists, Wittgenstein, Ryle and Sellars, all of inevitable way of viewing the problem of modality. whom denied that (at least certain kinds of) modal statement were In the early days of analytic philosophy, a more deflationary ap- descriptive at all. Yet the non-descriptivist approach has largely proach to modality held sway: one that denied that modal statements fallen out of discussion and out of philosophical consciousness. In are descriptive at all. The approach was suggested by early convention- this paper I examine why non-descriptivist views first came into alists like Schlick3 (1918), and developed in a new way by Wittgenstein and then fell out of favor, and consider what the prospects are for in the Tractatus, which in turn influenced the later modal convention- reviving this more deflationary approach to modality. alism of the logical positivists. The approach reappeared in a more sophisticated version in the work of the later Wittgenstein, and then INTRODUCTION resurfaced in the work of Ryle (1950/1971) and Sellars (1958). But despite this august list of defenders, the view has largely been aban- You may find yourself living with modal realism. You may find yourself doned and forgotten.4 with a lot of possible worlds. You may ask yourself, how did I get here? This paper is an exercise in philosophical archeology. I will first trace It has become increasingly common for metaphysicians to accept the the roots of this alternative approach to modality, examining why it was existence either of other possible worlds or of modal properties in this Vol. 4: 200 Years of Analytical Philosophy 3 Amie L. Thomasson Non-descriptivism About Modality 4 originally found attractive and why it later fell out of favor. I will go on there are no ‘truths of reason’ which refer to matters of fact. to argue that its rejection was unwarranted. I will ultimately suggest (1936/1952, 72-3) that the currently dominant approaches to modality are the product of a historical wrong turn, and that by looking back to these earlier stages Mill took the first route, treating even the axioms of logic and math- of history we might hope to find the basis for a better understanding of ematics as merely well-confirmed observational hypotheses—empirical 5 modality. generalizations, not necessary truths (cf. Baker 1988, 173). But Ayer rejects this first route, denying that the validity of the statements of 1. EARLY NON-DESCRIPTIVISM logic and mathematics is determined in the same way as that of empir- ical generalizations. His reason for this is that we don’t take purported Analytic philosophy generally traces its roots back to British empiricism, counterexamples to these statements to provide evidence, for example, and more immediately to the empiricism of the logical positivists. The that two plus two really is not four, or that the angles of a Euclidean challenges of giving an acceptable account of modality were amply rec- triangle really don’t add up to 180 degrees. As Ayer puts the matter, ognized by thinkers in both traditions. For modal features of the world “Whatever instance we care to take, we shall always find that the sit- do not seem to be empirically detectable. As Hume argued, we cannot uations in which a logical or mathematical principle might appear to be thought to know necessary matters of fact (or rather: to know that be confuted are accounted for in such a way as to leave the princi- any matter of fact holds necessarily) on the basis of experience—for ple unassailed” (Ayer 1936/1952, 77). Thus, since principles of logic however well a statement may be confirmed through experience, that and mathematics cannot be confuted by experience, this should give us only shows that it does (so far) hold, not that it must hold (cf. Ayer pause in maintaining that experience is the source of their justification. 1936/1952, 72). The second option for the empiricist is to deny that the necessary In the face of this, one might retreat to holding that the laws of the truths of logic or mathematics are factual claims at all; in effect, to deny natural sciences are only statements of highly well-confirmed proposi- that they aim to describe features of the world and instead view them as tions—not of any that are necessary. But this seems less acceptable for non-descriptive statements. The basic statement of the positivist view of the apparently necessary truths of mathematics, logic, and metaphysics. necessity, and often the only one passed down to us, is that “the truths Thus Ayer summarizes the options for the empiricist as follows: of logic and mathematics are analytic propositions or tautologies” (Ayer 1936/1952, 77)—statements which thus say nothing about the world. if empiricism is correct no proposition which has a fac- This sort of non-descriptivism arose with Schlick’s (1918) thesis (devel- tual content can be necessary or certain. Accordingly the oped by generalizing Hilbert’s approach to geometry) that the necessary empiricist must deal with the truths of logic and mathe- statements of mathematics and logic are not descriptive statements say- matics in one of the two following ways: he must say ei- ing something about the world precisely because they say nothing at all. ther that they are not necessary truths, in which case he On Schlick’s view, necessary truths are simply the result of implicit defi- must account for the universal conviction that they are; or nitions of concepts. Since definitions are conventional, they then might he must say that they have no factual content, and then also be said to be ‘conventions of symbolism’, which themselves say he must explain how a proposition which is empty of all nothing about the world (Baker 1988, 199), even though they enable factual content can be true and useful and surprising. us to use these symbols to say things about the world.6 if we can show either that the truths in question are not Two central problems arose for Schlick’s initial formulation of con- necessary or that they are not ‘truths about the world’, we ventionalism (Baker 1988, 215). First, it seems to involve treating the shall be taking away the support on which rationalism rests.
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