On Kripke's Intuitive Anti-Quinean Defence of De Re Modality

This is the second post in a series on de re modality and quantification into modal contexts. The first is here.

Immediately after the passage quoted at the beginning of the last post where Kripke introduces the problem of de re modality, he goes on to argue that de re subjunctive modal ascriptions, and the notion of necessary and contingent properties, have intuitive content. I will quote this influential passage in full, and make a criticism of it. I will then suggest a weaker argument from analogy which could be given in its stead, and finally indicate my own view on the matter.

Here is the passage:

It is even suggested in the literature, that though a notion of necessity may have some sort of intuition behind it (we do think some things could have been otherwise; other things we don't think could have been otherwise), this notion [of a distinction between necessary and contingent properties] is just a doctrine made up by some bad philosopher, who (I guess) didn't realize that there are several ways of referring to the same thing. I don't know if some philosophers have not realized this; but at any rate it is very far from being true that this idea [that a property can meaningfully be held to be essential or accidental to an object independently of its description] is a notion which has no intuitive content, which means nothing to the ordinary man. Suppose that someone said, pointing to Nixon, 'That's the guy who might have lost'. Someone else says 'Oh no, if you describe him as "Nixon", then he might have lost; but, of course, describing him as the winner, then it is not true that he might have lost'. Now which one is being the philosopher, here, the unintuitive man? It seems to me obviously to be the second. The second man has a philosophical theory. The first man would say, and with great conviction 'Well, of course, the winner of the election might have been someone else. The actual winner, had the course of the campaign been different, might have been the loser, and someone else the winner; or there might have been no election at all. So such terms as "the winner" and "the loser" don't designate the same objects in all possible worlds. On the other hand, the term "Nixon" is just a name of this man.' [Presumably the quote from the imagined "first" man should have ended one sentence ago, but this is how it is in the text. -TH] When you ask whether it is necessary or contingent that Nixon won the election, you are asking the intuitive question whether in some counterfactual situation, this man would in fact have lost the election. If someone thinks that the notion of a necessary or contingent property (forget whether there are any nontrivial necessary properties [and consider] just the meaningfulness of the notion) is a philosopher's notion with no intuitive content, he is wrong.

I do not want to be dogmatic about this, but I suspect that there may be a bit of a bait-and-switch going on here. Certainly, it seems everyday and intuitive for someone to point at Nixon and say 'That's the guy who might have lost'. But then what this 'first man' says in response to the 'unintuitive man' (the philosopher), is beginning to sound pretty philosophical itself, albeit sounder. It is true that what he says, especially if you're trained in philosophy, seems intuitively compelling. But I think it's quite arguably out of character for the first man.

One way of making good on this suspicion is to reflect that forms like 'could have' and 'might have' do not just signal talk about counterfactual scenarios and counterfactual possibility. They also commonly find a retrospective epistemic modal use. And it seems to me that this is the most natural way to interpret the everyday, non-philosophical remark of the 'first man' above, 'That's the guy who might have lost'. To say that Nixon might have lost, on this suggestion, means something like: at some former stage, things could have gone either way – it would have been unreasonable then to be convinced that he would win.

This seems to me like a fairly everyday thing to say. The meaning Kripke intends – where what is asserted means something like (ignoring the later Finean distinction between essential and necessary properties): it's not part of Nixon's essence that he won the election – seems less so.

We can also argue along Gricean lines that the first interpretation yields something which it might actually be good to say in the sort of conversation about contemporary events Kripke has in mind. But saying this thing about – speaking loosely – Nixon's essence seems pragmatically odd; if you know that, then presumably you know something stronger from which it follows (such as that winning some election can't be an essential property of anyone), rather than making it sound as if there's something special about Nixon here. (Consider an obscure bystander around Nixon's age: it seems, from an unabashedly philosophical point of view now, implausible that it is part of this bystander's essence that he didn't go into politics, get to run for Presidential office in the election in question, and lose. So it seems you could say of that guy too that he might have lost the election, in the sense in which Kripke has in mind.)

So, I find Kripke's story about the first man and the unintuitive, philosophical man unconvincing: if the first man were really not a philosopher, I'm inclined to think that his intuitive-sounding utterance of 'That's the guy who might have lost' is far more plausibly interpreted along epistemic lines. This is somewhat ironic, given Kripke's seminal insistence on carefully distinguishing epistemic modality and a priority on the one hand from subjunctive modality on the other.

We can get a better idea of how it might have happened by recalling the grammatical devices Kripke uses to isolate subjunctive modality: what could be the case for all we know a priori is to be distinguished from what could have been the case (given various things we know, and not always a priori). This may lead to an overconfidence in the subjunctive mood (or whatever you want to call it) as a signal of subjunctive modality proper, a signal of the thing Kripke isolated.

Still, this criticism doesn't imply that there is nothing in what Kripke says in this influential passage. Two things can be gleaned from the passage which do militate in favour of his main conclusion, which is that the notion of necessary and contingent properties makes sense.

One is a kind of argument from analogy: even when you interpret the first man's initial, everyday-sounding utterance along more appropriate, epistemic lines, it is clear that what is under discussion is not a statement: that is, de re epistemic modality makes sense. (For a recent study of that topic cf. Seth Yalcin's work.) And so, putting this consideration together with Kripke's compelling isolation of a concept of necessity applying to propositions which is distinct (intensionally and extensionally) from those of a priority and analyticity, we might naturally expect de re modal constructions where the modality is of this broad sort, having to do with alternative ways the world could have been in some non-epistemic sense, to be possible too.

Another is a direct philosophical appeal to our intelligence: forget guys on the street, forget questions about what they may or may not say without thereby becoming philosophers, and just think about it. What the first man is made to say in response to the unintuitive man, even though it just sounds like Kripke doing philosophy, seems awfully compelling. To quote it again: 'the actual winner, had the course of the campaign been different, might have been the loser, and someone else the winner; or there might have been no election at all. So such terms as "the winner" and "the loser" don't designate the same objects in all possible worlds'.

The situation, as I see it, is something like this: Kripke has clarified and isolated notions of necessity, contingency etc., which in the first instance apply to propositions and perhaps states of affairs. Now, by analogy with other expressions in our language, we are led to consider forms like 'a is necessarily F' and 'There is an x which is necessarily F' (or 'There is an x such that it is necessary that x is F'), where we have a vague idea that the terms 'necessarily' and 'necessary' here are, in some way, to express this same notion, which we know in the first instance in application to specific propositions. Consider the syntax of quantified modal logic, where modal operators are combined with first-order logic, in advance of any definite understanding of what these formulas are to mean.

Philosophers often behave like little children who scribble some marks on a piece of paper at random and then ask the grown-up "What's that?" — It happened like this: the grown-up had drawn pictures for the child several times and said "this is a man," "this is a house," etc. And then the child makes some marks too and asks: what's this then? C&V 17e

Our problem is, in a way, similar to that of making a game which is like an existing game, but different in some respects – but where the required similarities and differences are not completely spelt out (and how could they be, without thereby completing the task already?). For example, chess for three players, or with no queens.

In the present case, the task draws us in, since we feel we can already make some dim sense of these constructions. The question of whether this can be spelt out clearly, and the spelling out of it should this be possible, is of logico-philosophical interest. Furthermore, the issue is connected in many people's minds with difficult philosophical topics – with Aristotelian essentialism, with metaphysics, and with confused issues to do with whether modality is 'located' or 'grounded' in language and thought, or in other things.

Accordingly, in the next post in this series I will take up the challenge of de re modality, trying to adapt my account of necessity as an attribute of propositions so that it can be applied to de re modality. My main assumption in taking up this challenge is: there must be a connection here, and a tight one (e.g. not something you would have to describe using words like 'sometimes' or 'usually'), and we now have to make this clear. This will also take heat off the idea that de re modality makes no sense, but perhaps in a way which might look strange from the point of view of certain ways of thinking about analysis: the right hand sides of my analyses will in many ways be less simple, more problematic and more difficult than the left hand sides, the things to be analysed. But the problems are not the same ones as affect the left hand sides, and that is important. Roughly, I want to show that de re modal talk is not left hanging by itself, when we have a notion of necessity which applies to propositions. It may in a sense be more intelligible left as it is than when analysed along the lines I propose. But we must distinguish between the first-order intelligibility of a linguistic form on the one hand, and our philosophical conception of how that form works and what it does on the other. Connecting de re modal talk to de dicto can, I think, help a lot with the latter.

(Contrast, for example, Kit Fine's approach of taking essence as something basic – I get the sense of a wall having been erected to keep out trouble, but which also leaves us hapless and isolated. It is similar with his metametaphysical ideas: we must distinguish how things really or metaphysically are from how they are simpliciter, or something like that – and if you don't understand that, too bad: we're up against a wall. The difference, I think, is that in the first case the talk (essence talk) does make some sense, but has been walled off from things which may shed light on it in a way that can make this hard to believe, and hard to grasp, whereas in the second case, you have at most a degenerate, affect-charged sense, and the walls are merely there in a vain attempt to stop this from becoming glaringly apparent.)

De Re Modality and Quantifying In

This is the first in a series of posts about these issues, the plan for which is given below.

Followup posts

On Kripke's Intuitive Anti-Quinean Defence of De Re Modality

Toward an Account of De Re Modal Ascriptions

An Interpretation of Quantified Modal Logic Formulae

My account of subjunctive necessity treats subjunctive necessity, in the first instance, as an attribute of propositions. That is, it is in the first instance an account of de dicto subjunctive necessity, in the sense that it applies to attributions of necessity and other definable modal properties to propositions (dicta).

As it stands, this account does not apply to propositions which say, of some object, that it necessarily has some property. For example, 'John is necessarily not a number'. That is, the account does not deal with de re subjunctive necessity (assuming such a thing is to be recognized at all).

Now, 'John is necessarily not a number' may look like just another way of saying '“John is not a number” is necessary'. Of course, nothing is stopping us stipulating that it is to be read that way. But furthermore, it might seem to already, naturally, say something equivalent to that. Or it might not. This issue will be seen below to turn on the issue of whether extensionally identical atomic propositions can differ in counterfactual invariance, and in turn modal, status – or more strictly speaking, it will be seen to turn on that given a certain natural approach to the interpretation of de re modal ascriptions.

Unlike '”John is not a number” is necessary', which refers to a proposition and predicates necessity of it, 'John is necessarily not a number' refers to John, and seems to be open to quantification in a way that the de dicto attribution is not: we can seemingly infer from it that something is necessarily not a number, whereas existential generalization on the de dicto attribution yields only 'Something is necessary'. This suggests that de re modal attributions like 'John is necessarily not a number', at least on one natural reading, do not have corresponding de dicto attributions which say exactly the same thing (even if they are equivalent in some sense). It also raises the issue of the interpretation of quantification into modal contexts.

I will begin in this post with some further consideration of what the problems of de re modality and quantifying in amount to. 

In the next post in the series, I will discuss Kripke's criticism in Naming and Necessity of Quine's attempts to make genuine de re modal attributions look bizarre or unintelligible, including the discussion of Nixon, where Kripke argues that de re modal attributions make good intuitive sense.

In the next post after that, I will go in search of an account of de re modal attribution given in terms of de dicto modality, eventually lighting on one, but leaving certain complications undiscussed for the time being.

In the next post after that, I will address the problem of quantification into modal contexts by giving an interpretation of the formulae of quantified modal logic (in the form of a method of translation into natural language).

The Nature of the Problem of De Re Modality

Here is Kripke introducing the problem of de re modality in Naming and Necessity (first lecture):

There is one more question I want to go into in a preliminary way. Some philosophers have distinguished between essentialism, the belief in modality de re, and a mere advocacy of necessity, the belief in modality de dicto. Now, some people say: Let's give you the concept of necessity. A much worse thing, something creating great additional problems, is whether we can say of any particular that it has necessary or contingent properties, even make the distinction between necessary and contingent properties. Look, it's only a statement or a state of affairs that can be either necessary or contingent! Whether a particular necessarily or contingently has a certain property depends on the way it's described. This is perhaps closely related to the view that the way we refer to particular things is by a description.

It is important to separate three parts of what Kripke says 'some people say' here:

1. Given an understanding of de dicto necessity, the issue of de re modal attribution remains, and creates additional problems.
2. It's only a statement or state of affairs that can be necessary or contingent.
3. Whether a particular necessarily or contingently has a certain property depends on the way it is described.

I fully endorse (1), as the existence of this section would suggest. But that does not mean I endorse (2) or (3), both of which are curious and not altogether clear. I do not want to be overly pedantic about something which was said, in a fairly preliminary way, in a lecture delivered without notes, but separating these things and considering what (2) and (3) might mean will help us get clearer about the issue of de re modality. It will also help when we consider, in the next post, Kripke's intuitive defence of de re modality (which he gives right after the above quoted passage).

(2) needs finessing if it is not to be a trivial point of language. Someone – say, an Aristotelian essentialist, or Kit Fine – can hold that de re modal attribution makes perfect sense, and fully reject any (3)-like suggestions that the truth of these attributions is somehow description-dependent, and still agree with (2) as stated. They are not saying that an object (one which isn't a statement) can 'be necessary or contingent', but that it can have properties and stand in relations necessarily or contingently.

The real suggestion behind (2), I suggest, is that the notions of necessity and contingency – the notions of subjunctive or metaphysical modality clearly isolated by Kripke – only apply to statements (propositions) or states of affairs. And 'apply' here is understood in such a way that these notions are not automatically precluded from appearing in some other way than in predications of the form 'x is necessary', for example adverbially ('x is necessarily F').

(2), so understood, is not something I want to endorse. While I accept that de re modal attribution poses difficulties over and above de dicto, I think it may be possible to meet these difficulties. However, the meeting of these difficulties will be attempted here by accounting for de re modal attributions (and quantification into modal contexts) in terms of de dicto attributions. (But that doesn't mean there is no other way – I am giving an account, not the account.)

There is something potentially misleading about this talk of difficulties which may perhaps be met (rather than just cleared away, for instance) – as though there is some reason for us to hope that they may be. But that is not how I see the matter. This has to do with my doubts about whether there is any pre-existing intuitive understanding of de re modal attribution and quantifying-in, which I will elaborate in the next post.

So much for (2). What about (3): 'Whether a particular necessarily or contingently has a certain property depends on the way it's described'? This is very curious in a way. Far from being part and parcel of some attitude one might have on these questions consonant with (1) and (2), (3) seems incompatible with what we understood (2) to be getting at; if the relevant modal notions only apply to propositions or states of affairs, then, it would seem, we cannot speak of particulars necessarily or contingently having a certain property, and so we cannot say that their doing so depends on anything.

There is perhaps a way of interpreting what some skeptic about de re modality might mean by this, but there are also good reasons for them not to say it (not least of all that it is highly ambiguous and confusing).

There suggests that there is a danger that (3) is playing a straw man role, or a more subtle bait-and-switch role, in Kripke's influential arguments for the intuitive intelligibility of de re subjunctive modal attributions: trading on a charitable interpretation to make it a plausible attribution to philosophers (the bait), and then switching to an interpretation on which it couldn't possibly be right or even coherent (the straw man).

In light of this, I will now go into (3) at some length. I will do my best to make it easy to keep track of the argument, and its place in the bigger picture.

Something someone could say while maintaining (2) (as we have understood it) is this: the only clear, philosophically hygienic thing it could mean to say 'Nine is necessarily odd' is '”Nine is odd” is necessary', and all it could mean to say that 'The number of planets is necessarily odd' is '”The number of planets is odd” is necessary'. (Note however that I will not be advancing this view.)

Now, such a person would then face the issue: where does that leave the question of whether the referent of 'nine' and 'the number of planets', that particular number, possesses the property of oddness necessarily or contingently? What, if anything, does that mean?

It seems to me that the most consistent course for this person would be to say: this question just amounts to whether the proposition:

'The referent of “nine” and “the number of planets”, that particular number, possesses the property of oddness'

is necessary or contingent. Either that, or it has no clear meaning.

But Kripke has this person say that this question somehow depends on how we describe that particular number. But note carefully that this question, interpreted in the way I suggested was most consistent for the hypothetical person we are imagining, concerns a particular proposition. If someone asks something, and what their question really asks is whether some particular proposition is necessary or contingent, you can't respond by saying 'Well, that depends on how you describe …'. The describing has already taken place, in the proposition in question, and it is now time to proceed to actually answering the question.

Another thing this person could say which is similar to (3), but clearer, is this: that the truth of propositions which, superficially, designate an object somehow and say that it has some property necessarily or contingently, depends on how that object gets designated. But in this case, if we say that, surely we should say that these propositions have a misleading form. We should not go along with this form and say, as a kind of explanation of it, that whether some object has a property necessarily or contingently depends on how it is described. (The most deserving meaning for this expression here may still not be deserving enough.)

This can perhaps be seen better by comparing our case with one in which we might genuinely say something like this – i.e. that whether an object is some way or other depends on how you describe it. Consider these propositions: 'The number of planets is, in the subject-term of this proposition, being described as the number of planets', 'Nine is, in the subject-term of this proposition, being described as the number of planets'. The truth of these propositions patently does depend on how the referent of the subject-term is described (or, we might say more neutrally, designated). And we can say that whether that referent, that particular number, has the property of being described in some given proposition as the number of planets depends on how it is described by that proposition. Indeed this seems like a tautology. Or consider an object which naturally, whenever it is described as red, turns red if it is not already red (i.e., irrespective of whether the description was true, it becomes true), but turns another colour if it is described as non-red. Of such an object, we could say: whether it is red or not depends on how it is described.

The modal case is plainly not like this at all. Saying that whether a particular has a property necessarily or contingently depends on how it is described is, at best, a clumsy way of saying that the truth of (what superficially look like) de re modal attributions depends on how the object in question is designated. At worst, it is a tortuously confused piece of nonsense.

Another, perhaps more Quinean, thing someone might say which is along the lines of (3) is: de re modal discourse is confused, incoherent – in part because the truth of its claims of necessary or contingent property possession for an object would have to depend on how that object is described. This isn't really clearer than saying that the truth of such claims actually does depend on how the object is described, but the unclarity is less objectionable, since it is being asserted that de re modal discourse is incoherent, and so the thing about description-dependence can be regarded as an incoherent, absurd consequence – where the whole point of bringing it in is to argue that we are not able to make real sense of it.

So, (3) itself seems in danger of being a bit of a straw man for Kripke – it has little to recommend it, and doesn't obviously belong to anyone.

So, we have separated and examined three things involved in the position of the skeptic of de re modality as characterized by Kripke. The first, that given an understanding of de dicto necessity, the issue of de re modal attribution remains, and creates additional problems, is important and endorsed by me. The second, the idea that it is only a statement of a state of affairs that can be necessary or contingent, is something which I hope to undermine in subsequent posts. The third, the idea that whether something has a property necessarily or contingently depends on how you describe it, I have tentatively suggested to be a straw man.

Stay tuned for the next post, on Kripke's intuitive anti-Quinean defence of de re modality.

Toward an Understanding of De Dicto Subjunctive Necessity (draft paper)

Here. UPDATE March 2013: This document has been completely superseded by An Account of Subjunctive Necessity.

UPDATE March 2014: This latter document will in turn be superseded soon by a forthcoming blog post which will fit together with other posts.