Whereas facts about what is actual are facts about how things are, facts about modality (i.e., what is possible, necessary, or impossible) are facts about how things could, must, or could not have been.
For example, while there are in fact eleven players on a soccer team, there could have been thirteen, though there couldn’t have been zero.
The first of these is a fact about what is actual; the second is a fact about what was possible, and the third is a fact about what is impossible.
Humans are often disposed to consider, make, and evaluate judgments about what is possible and necessary, such as when we are motivated to make things better and imagine how things might be. We judge that things could have been different than they actually are, while other things could not have been. These modal judgments and modal claims therefore play a central role in human decision-making and in philosophical argumentation
Philosophers have long been interested in how a modal claim can be known, justified, or understood. The philosophy of modality is the area in which one studies the metaphysics, semantics, epistemology, and logic of modal claims—that is, claims about what is necessary, possible, contingent, essential, and accidental.
Epistemology is the general area of philosophy in which one studies the nature of knowledge. The central questions of epistemology concern:
(i) what it is to know something,
(ii) what it is to be justified in believing something,
(iii) what it is to understand something,
and (iv) what are the means by which we can come to possess understanding, justification, or knowledge.
Within the philosophy of modality one finds the sub-discipline known as the epistemology of modality.
For example, while there are in fact eleven players on a soccer team, there could have been thirteen, though there couldn’t have been zero.
The first of these is a fact about what is actual; the second is a fact about what was possible, and the third is a fact about what is impossible.
Humans are often disposed to consider, make, and evaluate judgments about what is possible and necessary, such as when we are motivated to make things better and imagine how things might be. We judge that things could have been different than they actually are, while other things could not have been. These modal judgments and modal claims therefore play a central role in human decision-making and in philosophical argumentation
Philosophers have long been interested in how a modal claim can be known, justified, or understood. The philosophy of modality is the area in which one studies the metaphysics, semantics, epistemology, and logic of modal claims—that is, claims about what is necessary, possible, contingent, essential, and accidental.
Epistemology is the general area of philosophy in which one studies the nature of knowledge. The central questions of epistemology concern:
(i) what it is to know something,
(ii) what it is to be justified in believing something,
(iii) what it is to understand something,
and (iv) what are the means by which we can come to possess understanding, justification, or knowledge.
Within the philosophy of modality one finds the sub-discipline known as the epistemology of modality.
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