John Divers

  The modal primitivist who takes a sentential possibility operator as her only modal resource can provide adequate representations of the familiar concepts of weak, strong and global supervenience. The primitivist representations of these concepts can be applied to provide adequate interpretations of speciflc supervenience theses which will be considered. Moreover the modal primitivist is no better and no worse placed than the genuine modal realist to present supervenience as a simple and unifled notion. Therefore, Lewis is unjustified in claiming that a genuine modal realist approach to the analysis of the concept of supervenience is superior to a modal primitivist approach

Colin McGinn proposes that acceptance of the supervenience of the modal on the actual is the natural form of expression of a non-objectual realism about modality. Here, some of the difficulties that arise in applying theses of supervenience to the modal-actual case are discussed. It is then argued: 1)that the truth of many such theses is determined on uncontroversial modal logical and conceptual grounds, and 2) that this and other independent considerations render it highly implausible that the affirmation of modal-actual supervenience amounts to a modal realism

At the core of the concept of supervenience are certain general maxims— notably, that there can be no A-differences without B-differences and that Bindiscernibility must bring A-discernibility. Supervenience is thus conceived as a matter of modal covariance between two sets of things in a given category, usually properties. The perennial issues surrounding supervenience concern: (a) the variety of specifically formulated theses that serve the core maxims and the patterns of entailment that obtain among these theses, and (b) the relations that obtain between supervenience theses and such salient concepts of metaphysics as reduction, dependence and determination. The regions of philosophical inquiry that gave rise to contemporary analytic philosophical interest in supervenience, and in which the notion is still most prominently applied are, famously, meta-ethics and the philosophy of mind. In the former case the history of supervenience can be traced back through Hare to Moore; in the latter case the line can be traced back from the pathfinding work of Kim through the famous resurrection of the notion of supervenience in Davidson’s work to the emergentist theorists of mind in the early part of this century.1 Publication on the topic of supervenience has exploded so that a brief treatment of recent work could provide an even remotely comprehensive survey only by degenerating into a list.2 So I shall settle for concentrating on the two groups of issues that were identified above, that is those concerning the logical character and metaphysical significance of supervenience theses, interposing some comments on the specific topic of supervenience in the philosophy of mind. I will emphasise and sympathise with that deflationary strand of recent work that invites soberand cautious re-appraisal of the role of supervenience theses in philosophical enquiry

The modal antirealist, as presented here, aims to secure at least some of the benefits associated with talking in genuine modal realist terms while avoiding commitment to a plurality of Lewisian (or ersatz) worlds. The antirealist stance of agnosticism about other worlds combines acceptance of Lewis's account of what world‐talk means with refusal to assert, or believe in, the existence of other worlds. Agnosticism about other worlds does not entail a comprehensive agnosticism about modality, but where such agnosticism about modality is enforced, the aim of the agnostic programme is to show that it is not detrimental to our modal practices. The agnostic programme consists in an attempt to demonstrate the rational dispensability of that disputed class of modal beliefs which the agnostic eschews, but which are held by the realist and the folk. Here I attempt to motivate, describe, and illustrate such an agnostic antirealist programme in modal philosophy.

This chapter has three principal aims. Firstly, to promote interest in the question of the function, or utility, of judgements of modality. Secondly, to endorse an alternative to orthodox contemporary methodology, advocating that we prioritize the question of function in modal philosophy. Thirdly, to consider among our modal judgements exactly which are the proper and exact source of various different kinds of substantial philosophical commitments in ontology, epistemology, and elsewhere. An illustration is offered, in the de dicto case, of how minimal a philosophical theory of modality might be if constructed properly, and carefully, according to functional methodology.