{"id":2571,"date":"2021-05-28T13:42:17","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T13:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/05\/28\/it-aint-necessarily-so-on-not-confusing-the-modal-with-the-temporal\/"},"modified":"2021-05-28T13:42:17","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T13:42:17","slug":"it-aint-necessarily-so-on-not-confusing-the-modal-with-the-temporal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/05\/28\/it-aint-necessarily-so-on-not-confusing-the-modal-with-the-temporal\/","title":{"rendered":"It Ain’t Necessarily So: On Not Confusing the Modal with the Temporal"},"content":{"rendered":"

If someone says, \u2018Houses sell above the asking price around here,\u2019 it is idiomatically correct, if not quite grammatical, to respond, \u2018Not necessarily\u2019 or 'It ain't necessarily so.' \u2018Not necessarily\u2019 in this context means not always<\/em>. Its meaning is not modal, but temporal: there are times when the houses sell above asking price, and times when they do not.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In ordinary English, the confusion of the temporal \u2018always\u2019 with the modal \u2018necessarily\u2019 is not often a problem. But in more abstruse contexts, the distinction must be made. Suppose A asks, \u2018Why does the universe exist?\u2019 and receives the reply from B, \u2018Because it always existed.\u2019 This does not constitute a good reply even if it is true that the universe always existed. The reason is because a thing\u2019s having existed at every past time gives no good answer to the question as to why it exists at all. Even if the past is infinite, the reply is defective. For even if (i) there is no past time at which the universe does not exist, and (ii) no metrically first moment of time, one can still reasonably ask: \u2018But why does the universe exist at all?\u2019 \u2018Why not no universe?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

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If, however, it were said that the universe necessarily exists (cannot not exist), then (assuming the truth of the universe\u2019s necessary existence) that would amount to a good reply to the question as to why it exists. For if X cannot fail to exist, then it makes no clear sense to ask why it exists if one expects an explanans<\/em> distinct from the explanandum<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some atheists think themselves quite clever in objecting to theists as follows. \u2018You say that God is needed to explain the existence of the universe; but then what explains the existence of God?' The short answer is that God is a necessary being, one that cannot not exist, and that to ask for the explanation of a necessary being makes no sense. This does not end the debate, of course, but it moves it from the sophomoric level up a notch to the \u2018junior\u2019 level.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If someone says, \u2018Houses sell above the asking price around here,\u2019 it is idiomatically correct, if not quite grammatical, to respond, \u2018Not necessarily\u2019 or 'It ain't necessarily so.' \u2018Not necessarily\u2019 in this context means not always. Its meaning is not modal, but temporal: there are times when the houses sell above asking price, and times … Continue reading “It Ain’t Necessarily So: On Not Confusing the Modal with the Temporal”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[113,235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-logica-utens","category-modal-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571","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=2571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}