MODALITY AND ANTI-METAPHYSICS Modality and Anti-Metaphysics STEPHEN K. McLEOD University of Glasgow The Open University in Scotland Contents Preface vii Acknowledgements ix 1 The Elimination of Metaphysics 1 1.1 Empiricist Anti-Metaphysics 1 1.2 Wittgenstein, Metaphysics and Essentialism 17 2 Modal Primitivism 27 2.1 Primitivism, Eliminativism and Reductionism 27 2.2 Modal Epistemology 32 2.3 A Defence of Modal Primitivism 55 2.4 Conclusion 86 3 Modal Realism 87 3.1 Anti-Realism I: Against Projectivism 87 3.2 Realism 91 3.3 Anti-Realism II: Against Anti-Realist Conceptualism 107 4 Modality and Anti-Metaphysics 115 4.1 De Re and De Dicto 115 4.2 Empiricism, Verifiability, Modality 122 4.3 Logical Possibility as Typically De Dicto 138 4.4 Logical Possibility: Its Nature and Value 154 4.5 Closing Remark: Empiricism and Essentialism 160 Bibliography 163 Name Index 177 Subject Index 181 v Preface This book has two principal aims. Firstly, it aims to defend metaphysics, chiefly against the logical positivists. Secondly, it aims to defend objective non-logical necessity and possibility against empiricist views which hold that the very notions are unintelligible and which reject the view that there is ontologically grounded modality. As an adjunct, I defend a conception of the tasks of ontology against the objectual conception adopted in some contemporary discussions. Chapter 1 concerns philosophies which have been thought to seek the elimination of metaphysics. I argue that the common view that Hume considered all metaphysics meaningless and sought its elimination is the misguided result of the positivist appropriation of Hume. I suggest that Carnap’s revisionary view of meaning, in accordance with his notion of logical syntax, poses no serious threat to metaphysics. I set out the logical problems associated with Ayer’s notion of indirect verifiability and the well-beaten dispute about the status of the verification principle itself. I indicate my intention to study the modality involved in verifiability and my view that, setting aside the aforementioned logical problems, the classification of cognitively meaningful statements as either analytic or empirical is inadequate. I discuss a modal argument against metaphysics offered by N.R. Hanson, my criticism of which serves to illustrate a broad form of essentialist argument, common to much essentialist work, which might justifiably be attributed to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Given the case for saying that the Tractatus is in fact committed to realism about a (very restricted) class of modality de re, it should not be regarded as anti-metaphysical in the manner of the positivists. I suggest that: Wittgenstein’s attitude to metaphysics was more subtle and more tolerant than that of the positivists; contrary to the views of some commentators, his Philosophical Investigations neither establishes nor seeks to establish anti-essentialism. In Chapter 2, informed by developments in contemporary anti-realism (with which I am not allied), I set out my argument so that the initial issue is not that of realism/anti-realism about modality, but that of primitivism/anti- primitivism. I argue that modal discourse is primitive, i.e. neither eliminable nor reducible to non-modal discourse. I endorse a strict distinction between eliminativism and reductionism. After McGinn, I outline epistemological motivations behind such anti-realist positions. In order to assuage these I provide some modal epistemology. I adopt a broadly Kripkean account of de re modal knowledge while disputing the famous Kripkean tenet that there are necessary truths typically discoverable a posteriori. I take it, after Wiggins, that it rests upon a misconception about the form of essentialistic attributions. I illustrate the distinction between necessary truths and true statements of de re necessity using the necessity of identity as a key example. I try to improve on the epistemology viii Modality and Anti-Metaphysics offered by Kripke and largely subscribed to by McGinn. Taking Quinean empiricism as a paradigm, I argue, after Pap, Wright and McFetridge, that the modal eliminativist’s position is untenable due to its own incoherence. I argue that, beside other problems, modal reductionists such as David Lewis and D.M. Armstrong face difficulties in respect of purging the appeal to primitive modality from their own theses. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether a reductionist account of modality can succeed. In Chapter 3 I illustrate how modal projectivism is ill-placed to account for de re modality. I expand upon the distinction between logical and metaphysical modality. Having distinguished, under Hacking’s influence, between de re and de dicto modality, I argue for realism about a class of de re modality on the basis of work done by Wiggins. I charge that anti-realist conceptualism about modality and essence results in an untenable and epistemologically barren metaphysic. In addition, when the conceptualist realist dialectic developed by Wiggins is duly recognized, anti-realist conceptualism fails to get off the ground. That dialectic is ignored by Sidelle, yet it undercuts his attack on real essentialism. In Chapter 4 I expand upon the de re/de dicto distinction. I discuss the conceptions of the modality involved in the notion of verifiability in principle which can be extracted from the works of the logical positivists themselves. I claim that the logical positivists conflated logical possibility and substantive possibility despite their predominant intention to characterize verifiability in terms of logical possibility of verification. I argue, further to the discussion of modal epistemology in Chapter 2, that the classification of cognitively meaningful statements as either analytic or empirical is inadequate. I defend the allocation of de dicto status to constructions employing the logical modalities. I discuss the issue in relation to some revisionary accounts of logical possibility offered under the influence of essentialist thought. I reject these, seeking to maintain the distinction between logical and metaphysical modalities. My views are influenced by the writings of McFetridge and Wiggins. I conclude with a brief comment on empiricism and essentialism in relation to the conflation of logical possibility and substantive possibility de re. Acknowledgements This book is primarily a product of my years as a student of philosophy at the University of Glasgow. I am very grateful to those who encouraged me over those years, especially during my time as a graduate student. I am especially grateful to my former supervisor, Bob Hale, for providing me with advice and encouragement without which it is unlikely that I would have been able to complete the doctoral thesis upon which this book is very closely based. I am also grateful to Scott Meikle, who supervised my first year of graduate study and who remained a valued source of moral support thereafter. I thank Pat Shaw both for fulfilling his responsibility for philosophy postgraduates at Glasgow in a supportive manner and for his comments as internal examiner of my thesis. Thanks are also due to John Divers, an inspirational former tutor of mine, who introduced me to some of the issues with which this book is concerned and who provided me with valuable reading advice. I am very grateful to Jonathan Lowe, who, as external examiner, provided generous and useful comments on my thesis, some of which I have taken into account when making it into this book. I thank my colleague Bob Wilkinson of the Open University who, in providing me with advice that was crucial in stimulating me to publish, went beyond the call of duty as manager of my work as an Associate Lecturer. I am also grateful to my erstwhile Glasgow colleague Jon Pike (now of the Open University) for practical advice. I am grateful to Elizabeth Telfer, Head of the Department of Philosophy, and the Faculty of Arts at the University of Glasgow for arranging and granting me an Honorary Research Fellowship. I am grateful to Jamie Reid, who very generously provided me with an extended loan of some computing equipment which I used to produce the copy for this book. I am very grateful to my parents for their persistent support. ix Chapter One The Elimination of Metaphysics This chapter surveys philosophies which have been thought to advocate the elimination of metaphysics. A critique of metaphysics should not be confused with an anti-metaphysical philosophy, where the latter is understood to involve the advocacy of the elimination of metaphysics. Failure to recognize this results in a skewed vision of the history of philosophy. Zealous advocates of the elimination of metaphysics have tended to read any critique of metaphysics (and, worse, any critique of a species of metaphysics) as broadly participant in a common cause. This study is not concerned with philosophies such as that of Kant, who criticized a species of metaphysics and whose project was to reform, rather than to eradicate, metaphysics,1 and that of Heidegger, who criticized the history of metaphysics (i.e., the actual practice of metaphysicians since classical times) as a history of forgetting and as ‘ontical’, rather than ‘ontological’. For Heidegger, what had been forgotten was what he took to be the true crux of ontology, the question of the meaning of being. He regarded ontological inquiry as concerned with the meaning of being, in contrast to that which he accused metaphysicians through history of concentrating upon, namely the ontical, that is, concern with the existence of entities. Heidegger sought to reorient metaphysics to what he regarded as its primary task, not to bring about its death.2 1.1 Empiricist Anti-Metaphysics The Humean Background If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No.