Philosophy of Mathematics seminar

Alexander Roberts, Oxford

Modality and Modalities  

Philosophers often take for granted a certain conception of modalities on which there are many different modalities which stand in a complex, but fairly well understood network of connections. On this conception, there is a key distinction between the so-called ‘objective’ (or ‘circumstantial’) modalities and the ‘non-objective’ (or ‘non-circumstantial’) modalities. I shall argue that it is highly non-trivial to systematise this conception of modalities, and that one natural way of doing so is unstable. I’ll explore several ways to stabilise it, but they require departures from the conception which is often taken for granted.