{"id":11632,"date":"2010-05-03T07:58:15","date_gmt":"2010-05-03T07:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/05\/03\/contingent-necessary-impossible-a-note-on-nicolai-hartmann\/"},"modified":"2010-05-03T07:58:15","modified_gmt":"2010-05-03T07:58:15","slug":"contingent-necessary-impossible-a-note-on-nicolai-hartmann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/05\/03\/contingent-necessary-impossible-a-note-on-nicolai-hartmann\/","title":{"rendered":"Contingent, Necessary, Impossible: A Note on Nicolai Hartmann"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hartmann\"<\/a> Nicolai Hartmann, Moeglichkeit und Wirklichkeit<\/strong>, p. 29:  . . . denn das Zufaellige ist immerhim wirklich, und nur die Notwendigkeit negiert.<\/em>  Hartmann is saying in effect that everything contingent is actual, and that the contingent and the necessary are polar opposites:  what is contingent is not necessary, and what is not necessary is contingent.<\/font><\/p>\n

I beg to differ.  First of all, not everything contingent is actual.  My being asleep now and my being awake (= not asleep) now are both possible states of affairs.  The second  is actual, the first  is not.  But both are contingent.  So not everything contingent is actual.  The imagery of possible worlds ought to make this graphic for the modally challenged.  A contingent state of affairs is one that obtains in some but not all possible worlds.  Now my being asleep now obtains in some but not all possible worlds.  Therefore, my being asleep now is contingent though not actual.  So not everything contingent is actual.<\/font><\/p>\n

Second, it is not the case that x is contingent if and only if x is not necessary.  For there are states of affairs that are not necessary but also not contingent.  My being both awake and not awake now is an impossible state of affairs.  It is neither necessary nor contingent.  Not necessary, because it does not obtain in every possible world.  Not contingent, because it it does not obtain in some (but not all) possible worlds.  <\/font><\/p>\n

The polar opposite of the contingent is not the necessary but the the noncontingent.  The noncontingent   embraces both the the necessary and the impossible, that which exists\/obtains in all worlds, and that which exists\/obtains in no world.  Reality, then, is modally tripartite:<\/font><\/p>\n

The necessary: that which exists\/obtains in all possible worlds.  The contingent: that which exists\/obtains in some but not all possible worlds.  The impossible: that which exists\/obtains in no possible world.<\/font><\/p>\n

You say you are uncomfortable with the patois of possible worlds?  The distinctions can be sliced without this jargon.  The necessary is that which cannot not be.  The contingent is that which is possible to be and possible not to be. The impossible is that which cannot be.<\/font><\/p>\n

And that's all she wrote, modally speaking.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nicolai Hartmann, Moeglichkeit und Wirklichkeit, p. 29:  . . . denn das Zufaellige ist immerhim wirklich, und nur die Notwendigkeit negiert.  Hartmann is saying in effect that everything contingent is actual, and that the contingent and the necessary are polar opposites:  what is contingent is not necessary, and what is not necessary is contingent. I beg … Continue reading “Contingent, Necessary, Impossible: A Note on Nicolai Hartmann”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[411,235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hartmann-nicolai","category-modal-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}