THE SOURCE OF NECESSITY

Bob Hale
University of Glasgow
A little more than four decades ago, Michael Dummett gave what I have
always found a compelling statement of the central philosophical problem about
necessity: The philosophical problem of necessity is twofold: what is its source,
and how do we recognise it.
1
I shall take it that the kind of necessity in ques-
tion here is what is sometimes called absolute necessity, where to say that an
operator

expresses a kind of absoluteas opposed to merely relative

necessity means, approximately, that it is true that

p only if there is no sense
of possible in which it is possible that not-p.
2
In this paper, I shall be mainly
indeed, almost entirelyconcerned with the first part of this problem. In my
final section, I shall canvass and offer some defence of a quite simple sugges-
tion about how Dummetts first question may be accepted at face value and
directly answered. But before we can usefully and sympathetically consider that
suggestion, a good deal needs to be done to prepare the ground. In contrast
with Dummetts second question, which merely demands what any credible phi-
losophy of necessity clearly owesan account of our knowledge of itand so
cannot be refused,
3
it is far less clear what the demand for the source of neces-
sity is after and, in consequence, less clear that, or in what sense, it must be
accepted. In particular, it might be heard as calling for a reductive explanation
of necessityan explanation, in terms whose modal status is itself unproblem-
atic (and so without appeal to any supposed necessities), of necessity in gen-
eral, or how there can be such a thing as necessity at all. If the demand is
understood this way, it isfor reasons which some of what I shall be arguing
should help to bring outat least very doubtful that it can be met; but it is, I
shall suggest, equally doubtful that we must then accept it. But if, as I think,
there is some other way in which the demand for the source of necessity can be
understoodand perhaps, when so understood, cannot be refusedit is far from
obvious what it is. The difficulty here arises, in part, because whilesubtle
and sophisticated philosophical disputes about the nature of scientific explana-
tion notwithstandingwe have a reasonable working grip on what, at least in
simple and straightforward cases, constitutes an explanation, when the explanan-
Philosophical Perspectives, 16, Language and Mind, 2002
dum is some particular or general contingency, it is much less clear what should
count as explaining what could not but be (or have been) as it is. This in turn is
partly because there is no non-trivial counterfactual dependence of any neces-
sity on anything else. But as we shall see in the next section, there are further
considerations which might lead us to suppose that any attempt to explain ne-
cessity in general is doomed to failure. So at least part of my preparatory dis-
cussion will be taken up with arguing that we need not embrace that pessimistic
conclusion.
Blackburns Dilemma
Simon Blackburn gives a more elaborate but, even if less pithy, equally
forceful formulation of Dummetts problem in a relatively recent article. Elab-
orating what he calls the truth-conditions approach to necessity, he writes:
By making judgements of necessity we say things, and these things are true or
false. Perplexity arises because we think there must therefore be something which
makes them so, but we cannot quite imagine or understand what this is. Nor do we
understand how we know about whatever this is: we do not understand our own
must-detecting faculty. Elucidating the truth-condition, and our access to it, is the
goal of philosophy, ... The problem is that of the fugitive fact, and the solution is to
capture the nature of the fact in an intelligible way. This answer would tell us what
such truths consist in: the answer would be obtained by establishing the truth-
conditions for such judgements. It would give us an account of the states of af-
fairs in which their truth consists, or of what it is that makes them true. The account
would have an explanatory role as well: fully established, it would explain why it
is necessary that twice two are four, ...
4
In contrast with Dummett, however, Blackburn is not here speaking for him-
self. He is, rather, seeking to capture the essence of the problem of necessity as
other philosophers standardly conceive it. But so to conceive it is, in Black-
burns view, fatally to misconceive it. He proceeds to pose what he takes to be
a lethal dilemma confronting any attempt at a direct solution of the sort de-
scribed in the passage quotedthat is, roughly, one which takes Dummetts
questions at face-value and accepts their evident presuppositions that there is
such a thing as necessity (i.e. there are some statements which hold true of
necessity) and that it is indeed a possible object of knowledge.
If we ask what makes it so that A must be the case, we may be given a local proof,
a proof of A from B. This is satisfactory if we already understand why B must be
so, ...but if our concern is with the whole area, then we then turn to scrutinize that
understanding. Attention just shifts to why B must be the case, for our philosophi-
cal concern is with necessity in general, not with A in particular. Suppose an even-
tual answer cites some truth F, and so takes the form:

A because F. ...
Now either F will claim just that something is so, or it will claim that some-
thing must be so. If the latter, there is no problem about the form of the explana-
tion, for one necessity can explain another. But as we have seen there will be the
300 / Bob Hale
same bad residual must: the advance will be representable as if we see why this
must be so, we can now see why that must be as well And there is no escape
from the overall problem that way. Suppose instead that F just cites that some-
thing is so. If whatever it is does not have to be so, then there is strong pressure
to feel that the original necessity has not been explained or identified, so much as
undermined.
5
We can put the intended dilemma like this: To give the ultimate source of any
necessity, we must either appeal to something which could not have been other-
wise (i.e. is itself necessary) or advert to something which could have been
otherwise (i.e. is itself merely contingent). But any appeal to another necessity
must fail to provide the desired explanation, since it merely shifts the question;
while adverting to a contingency is equally hopeless, because, by resting the
supposed necessity on a mere contingency, we deprive it of the very necessity
we sought to explain.
How should we respond to this dilemma? Blackburns own view is that we
should do so by scrapping altogether the approach to modality which leads us
into it, in favour of the kind of quasi-realist alternative he has sought to pro-
mote in other areas, and especially in moralsmodal statements should be seen,
not as attempts to capture the denizens of some special realm of modal facts,
but as expressions or projections of our own attitudes or, perhaps, of our imag-
inative capacities and incapacities. I am not going to discuss here whether, if
the dilemma is good, this would be the best response to it. Since I dont think
the dilemma is good, and can think of no other good reason why we should not
take modal statements at face-value, as articulating distinctively modal facts or
falsehoods, I dont think we should abandon the truth-conditions approach. Of
course sticking to that approach requires finding a positive solution to Dum-
metts problem. I shall try to show that seeing why Blackburns dilemma is less
compelling than it may at first appear puts us on the right track. More pre-
cisely, I shall try to show that the firstnecessityhorn of his dilemma cru-
cially overlooks the possibility of a certain kind of explanation. But it will be
both instructive, and useful for my purposes, to begin by scrutinizing the
othercontingencyhorn.
Conventions and Contingency
Onesometime very popularproposed answer to Dummetts first ques-
tion tries to locate the source of necessity in linguistic conventions. Elaborating
his dilemma, Blackburn contends that this kind of account must impale itself
on its second horn.
... suppose a theorist claims that twice two must be four because of a linguistic
convention ...Suppose it is denied that there is any residual necessity, that we have
to make just those conventions, ... . Then ...there is a principled difficulty about
seeing how the kind of fact cited could institute or be responsible for the necessity.
The Source of Necessity / 301
This is because, if good, the explanation would undermine the original modal sta-
tus: if thats all there is to it, then twice two does not have to be four ...
6
Ifthe thought goesthe alleged or supposed necessity, e.g. that 224, re-
ally does depend upon a convention governing the use of the words in which
we state it, and the existence of that convention is a merely contingent matter,
then it cant after all be necessary that 224; had there been no such conven-
tion, it would not have been necessary, and might not even have been true, that
224.
Prescinding, for the time being, from some difficult but ultimately crucial
questions about what kind of explanation we may properly and sensibly de-
mand, either of specific necessities or, more problematically, of necessity in
general, it is hard to see how this objection could dislodge a determined con-
ventionalist. Let us suppose, as the conventionalist will surely grant, that it is a
contingent matter what conventions are in force. I shall assume
7
that the con-
ventionalists position is not intended to be deflationaryso that her claim is
that it really is necessary that twice two is four, say, but that it is so simply
because we subscribe to certain conventions. But how, on these assumptions, is
the conventionalist supposed to wind up committed to undermining the neces-
sity, rather than explaining it? Let

p be the necessity to be accounted for, and
q a statement to the effect that the relevant convention is in force. The conven-
tionalist holds that

p because q, and agrees that it is merely contingently true
that q, i.e. that while q, q. Let us further suppose
8
that our conventionalist
holds not only that the fact that q is sufficient to ensure that

p, but that had it
not been the case that q, it would not have been necessary that p. Even so,
these premisses would commit her only to denying that it is necessarily neces-
sary that p (i.e. to

p).
9
It would follow from that that

p only on the
assumption of the characteristic S4 principle that what is necessary is necessar-
ily so. Since that is scarcely a principle which the conventionalist can be ex-
pected to accept, the objection pretty directly begs the question against her.
10
To be sure, the argument might still be effectivefor all that weve seen
thus faragainst anyone who opts for the contingency horn but, unlike the
conventionalist, grants that whatever is necessary is necessarily so. But there is
a further difficulty. We have so far let pass the assumption that one who ex-
plains why it is necessary that p by appeal to the contingent fact that q will be
thereby committed to endorsing the counterfactual: had it not been that q, it
would not have been necessary that p. But the assumption is in fact problem-
atic, at best, since there are plausible cases in which we explain why p, quite
correctly, by pointing to the fact that q, but in which it is false that, had it not
been that q, it would not have been that p, because even if it had not been that
q, it would, or might, still have been that r, which would have sufficed anyway
to ensure that p. The balloon burst because it was hit by my bullet, but even
had I missed, or not even fired, it would still have burst, since you also fired
and hit it and would still have fired and hit, had I not done so. So the general
principle on which the argument of this horn, as we have it, reliesthat ex-
302 / Bob Hale
plaining B because A commits one to endorsing the would-counterfactual;
A

r Bis very much open to question.
11
It might be suggested
12
that
it would suffice for the argument to appeal to a weaker and, to that extent,
more plausible principle, to the effect that explaining B because A does at
least commit one to endorsing the might-counterfactual: Had it not been that
B, it might not have been that A. It is true, of course, that B follows from
A and A r B,
13
( just) as well as fromA and A

r B. How-
ever, even if the more modest principle is right when we are concerned with
explanations of contingencies,
14
it cannot possibly govern explanations of ne-
cessities. For suppose

B. Then

B, whence it is (vacuously) true that A

r B, and hence false that (A

rB), for any A. That is, if

B, it is
false that A rB, whatever proposition A is taken to be. Soassuming, as
we may in this context, that

B entails

B

B entails that Ar

B is
false, for every A. Thus, if we explain

B because A, we cannot possibly be

committed to A r

B.
We should not over-estimate the significance of Blackburns failure to fur-
nish an effective objection against a specifically conventionalist opponent. For
whilst it is true enough that conventionalism is not only the most prominent,
but also the only obvious, way of trying to live on the contingency horn, there
are other, better-known and more effective, objections to the conventionalist
answer. Quine long ago made the point that word-sized conventions (of nota-
tional abbreviation) cannot create necessary truthor even truth simpliciter
but can at best provide for the transformation of given necessary truths into
others. Thus a convention to the effect that, say, bachelor means, or is to mean,
the same as unmarried man enables us to transform No bachelor is married
into No unmarried man is married. But it is simply a confusion to suppose
that the convention is what makes for the truth of the former statement. If the
former is, or expresses, a necessary truth, that it because it is a definitional
contraction of another necessary truththe logical truth that no unmarried man
is marriedthe necessity of which is not to be accounted for by reference to
that convention. Of coursesince there can be conventions of notational ab-
breviation relating to logical vocabularyconventions of this sort may enable
us to transform some logical truths into others. But the same point applies: the
source of the truth, or necessity, of any abbreviated logical truth must be the
same as that of the longer logical truth it abbreviates, and cannot be explained
by appeal to word-sized conventions. The upshot, as Quine stressed, is that if
convention is to be billed as the mother of necessity, appeal must be made to
conventions of a quite different sortsentence-sized conventions, stipulating
the truth of complete sentences (or perhaps whole classes of sentences exem-
plifying some specified form) appear to be required. But as Quine, and
latersomewhat differentlyDummett argued, the project of grounding all
necessityor even all logical necessity, narrowly or broadly conceived, and
leaving aside other putative species of absolute necessityin such conven-
tional stipulations is equally hopeless.
The Source of Necessity / 303
Sentence-sized stipulations are likewise inadequate to the task of provid-
ing for the conventionally-based truth of all necessary truths becausegiven
the potential infinity of such truthsthis would require the necessity of most
necessary truths to be inherited from a base class of directly stipulated truths,
by virtue of their being logical consequences of truths in that base class, and
this either merely serves to disclose further necessary truths unaccounted for
on the premisses and conclusions model (Dummett) or generates a vicious in-
finite regress (Quine). To elaborate a little, let U be our base class of directly
stipulated necessary truths and p some necessary truth not in U.
15
Then the
conventionalist must claim that the necessity of p is secured by its being a log-
ical consequence of (some statements in) U. But then the conditional: Urp
will be a further necessary truth, which we may assume not to be guaranteed
by its being either in U or an instance of a form covered by a stipulation in
U.
16
Since its necessity is not secured by direct stipulation, it must be held to
result from its being, in turn, a logical consequence of statements in U. But that
merely discloses another necessary truth: Ur(Urp), of whose necessity we
have as yet no account.
Observing that the conditionals Urp, Ur(Urp), along with others in
the impending regress, such as Ur(Ur(Urp)), are all logically equivalent
(since the conditional is material), the conventionalist may retort that we do
not, contrary to appearances, need an infinite sequence of distinct stipulations,
but one single stipulation: in stipulating that Urp, we eo ipso stipulate that
Ur(Urp), etc., since the contents of each stipulation, and so the stipulations
themselves, are identical. As against this, it may be observed that the assump-
tion that stipulations with logically equivalent contents are identical is scarcely
unproblematicindeed, in this context, it handsomely begs the question at is-
sue: since all logical truths are logically equivalent, it would enable the con-
ventionalist to take care of them all with a single stipulation, say of prp
surely it should not be that easy! But even if the assumption is granted, it
does not appear, on reflection, that this reply is open to the conventionalist.
The biconditionals linking the conditionals in the sequence will themselves be
necessary. But their necessity must again be derivative, and thus, in her view,
they must be consequences of U. The reply therefore merely re-instates the
regress at one remove. The conventionalist may, of course, seek to avoid the
regress in a different way, by simply augmenting U with an additional stipu-
lation for Urp. But this manoeuvre is equally futile. For one thing, there will
be many other necessities in the same case as pinfinitely many, exemplify-
ing different logical forms, so that no finite extension of U could save the
day. And in any case, the manoeuvre merely relocates the problem. For the
expanded base class, U

, will now comprise both U and Urp, from which p

can be deduced by modus ponens. Corresponding to this deduction there is
the necessary truth: Ur((Urp)rp), which belongs neither to U nor, cru-
cially, to U

. Its necessity must therefore be put down to its being a logical

consequence of U

, and ... off we go again.

304 / Bob Hale
This last ploy, ineffective as it is, might suggest a way around the
objectionin essence, Dummettsweve been reviewing. For it might seem
that the (necessary) truths about logical consequence which were struggling
to capture could be brought into reach by conventionalising the means of de-
duction along with the ultimate premisses. We are forever being thwarted by
such facts as this: when p and prq are both in U, but q is not, we can secure
the conventional necessity of q by appealing to the fact that it is a conse-
quence of those other necessities by modus ponens, but only at the cost of
highlighting another necessityin this case pr(( prq)rq)as yet uncon-
ventionalised. So why not cut through the problem by writing in a convention
corresponding to that rule of inference, and similarly for such other rules as
we may require. Thus we might try to take care of inferences by modus po-
nens by a stipulation to the effect that any statement is to be true which re-
sults in a truth when it is substituted for B and a truth is substituted for A in
ArB.
17
But as Quine pointed out, this gets us nowhere, very slowly. For our
convention corresponding to modus ponens is, and has to be, general. To ap-
ply it, we must make some inferences. In this case, besides observing that a
truth results from substituting q for B and some truth p for A in ArB, we must
infer from our general convention that if a truth results from putting q for B
and p for A in ArB, then q is to be true, and thence infer (by modus ponens
once again), that q is to be true. Since these inferences must themselves be
accorded the same or similar treatment, we can never get to first base. In short,
any attempt to subvert Dummetts objection by conventionalising the means of
deduction merely lands the conventionalist in Quines version of the regress.
These objections allowat least for the sake of argumentthat the con-
ventionalist strategy can at least get started, by conferring truth by convention
upon sentences in the base class by direct stipulation. But even this much is
open to question. It is called into question by an equally old objection to con-
ventionalism which claims that the conventionalist confuses sentences with
propositionsin the sense that she mistakenly treats what makes words or sen-
tences mean what they do (and so renders them apt to express certain proposi-
tions) as what makes true the propositions they are thereby enabled to express.
The anti-conventionalist thought is that the conventionalist illicitly runs to-
gether determinants of meaning with determinants of truthit is granted that
what words and sentences mean is determined by conventions explicitly adopted
or otherwise entrenched in our linguistic practice, and granted, further, that what
we saywhat propositions we expressby our words is accordingly conven-
tionally determined. But that, so the objection runs, is the end of the matter, as
far as conventions goit does not follow that the truth of the propositions ex-
pressed, if indeed they are true, is ever, in any sense, a matter of convention.
Nor is it true: conventions merely determine what proposition is expressed by a
sentencewhether that proposition is true is always a further question whose
answer is never settled by our linguistic conventions.
The Source of Necessity / 305
At first sight, this objectionin sharp contrast with the objections of Quine
and Dummett just discussedcharges conventionalism with a mistake about the
proper bearers of truth-values, and rests upon the claim that sentences, as dis-
tinct from the propositions they may serve to express, cannot discharge that rle.
However, whilst this is suggested by my initial formulation of the objection, and
may have been what some of its early proponents had in mind, it isor so it
seems to meinessential to the real force of the objection, which need not rely
upon any controversial insistence that propositions are the only or primary bear-
ers of truth-value, or that sentences cannot be truth-bearers. All the objection
requires is that if sentences, rather than propositions, are to be taken as truth-
bearers, then it must be interpreted sentences that are so taken (i.e. sentences
with a certain content, or understood as having associated with them certain def-
inite truth-conditions). The objection can then be put: the rle of convention is
restricted to determining the content of the interpreted sentenceits truth-value,
or that of the content (proposition) it expresses, is a further, separate and inde-
pendent matter which is not, and could not be, settled or determined by stipu-
lation. So understood, the objection rests upon two claims: first, that only what
has a (more or less) determinate contentin the sense, minimally, that it is as-
sociated with some (more or less) definite condition for its truthcan be true
or false; and second, that once somethinga declarative sentence, sayis thus
associated with a truth-condition, it isalready, as it werean objective and
independent matter whether that condition is or is not fulfilled, so that there is
simply no room for a stipulation to settle its truth-value.
18
If this objection is sound, conventionalismat least as an account of the
source of necessary truthis fundamentally misconceived. It is not just, as the
arguments of Quine and Dummett seem to show, that conventional stipulation
cannot possibly provide, directly or otherwise, for the necessity of all neces-
sary truthsit cannot account for that of any. But is it sound? It may be coun-
tered that the objection overlooks a crucial possibility. Why should meaning
(or truth-conditions) and truth-value not be fixed together by stipulating the
truth of a suitable sentence? Indeed, is this not precisely what happens when
meanings are fixed by implicit definition conceived, as it standardly is, as pro-
ceeding through a stipulation of the truth of a sentence or sentences embedding
the definiendum. It may thus appear that the objection, if sound, rules out the
practice of implicit definition, so that if that procedure, as standardly con-
ceived, is viable and legitimate, there must be something wrong in the objection.
It might appear that if a proponent of the original objection is to stay in
play, he must reject altogether the standard, stipulative, conception of implicit
definition to which this counter to it appeals, perhaps replacing it by the idea
advocated in recent writings by Paul Horwichthat what fixes the meaning of
the definiendum is not a stipulation of truth, but our accepting or regarding as
true some sentence(s) containing it.
19
I am not myself convinced that switch-
ing from stipulation to acceptance in and of itself makes any crucial difference
to the point at issue. In any case, it does not seem that any such shift is needed
306 / Bob Hale
for an effective response to the counter-objection. For it is not clear that the
objection must be in tension with the idea that implicit definition proceeds
through a stipulation of truth, when that is properly understood. What the ob-
jection denies is that we can stipulate the truth of a proposition, or fully inter-
preted sentence (i.e. a sentence which is already and independently associated
with a definite content, or determinate truth-condition). That is, there is room
for stipulation only in a case where some aspect of meaning (and so, what prop-
osition is expressed by a sentence) is yet to be determinedbut this is pre-
cisely how, according to the standard conception of it, an implicit definition
does work. The vehicle of the stipulation is some sentence incorporating the
definiendum, but otherwise composed of expressions whose meaning is al-
ready understood (and so already determined), in a syntactic fashion whose
semantic significance is again already determinate. If we schematically repre-
sent this sentence by (t) (where t is the definiendum), the import of the
stipulation is that t is to take on a meaning which ensures, given the meanings
of the expressions in , that (t) is truei.e. expresses a true proposition.
Since, independently of the stipulation, (t) has no determinate sense (or truth-
condition) as a whole, there need be no attempt at stipulation where there is no
room for it, and no inevitable clash with the idea that what already possesses a
definite truth-condition cannot be made true by stipulation. Indeed, on this ac-
count, nothing is, strictly speaking, made true by stipulation. Rather, a sentence
whichprior to the stipulationlacks a completely definite meaning comes to
express a certain truth. There is, therefore, a sense in which it is correct to say
that meaning (or truth-conditions) and truth-value are fixed together by an im-
plicit definitionby stipulating that the sentence which is its vehicle is to ex-
press a truth, we thereby determine its truth-condition. But in doing so, we do
not create a truth by stipulation, rather we create a means of expressing one. In
any interesting case, i.e. any case in which the implicit definition isnt otiose,
there wont already be an independent way of expressing the truth in question.
There being a truth, awaiting the means of expression, as it were, is a precon-
dition of successful implicitly definitional stipulation.
If this is right, the force of the objection to conventionalism weve been
reviewing remains undented. The upshotsince it is hard to see how else one
might make good on the idea that any truth might be produced by convention
or stipulation, if not via implicitly definitional stipulationis that conventions
or stipulations concerning whole sentences arent and cant be the source of the
truth of any propositions.
Explaining necessitysome needed distinctions and the transmission
model of explanation
We have already seen some reason to expect that principles plausibly taken
to govern explanation of contingencies may not generally carry over to expla-
nations of necessity. I want now to take up some questions I left aside when
The Source of Necessity / 307
considering Blackburns attempt to skewer a conventionalist explanation on the
second horn of his dilemma. What kind of explanation may we properly and
sensibly demand, when our explanandum is (some) necessity? When we ex-
plain a contingency, at least part of what we do is explain why that particular
contingency obtains, rather than not (or rather than some competing alterna-
tive). Since there is no possible alternative to a necessity, nothing clearly and
straightforwardly analogous to this carries over to explanations of necessityso
what does make for a good or illuminating explanation in this case? I can do
little more than scratch the surface of these hard questions here. However, it is
clear that we need some distinctions. First, and most obviously, we need to
distinguish between explaining particular necessities and explaining necessity
in general; but we clearly ought to distinguish also between explaining, in re-
gard to any given necessary truth, why it is true, and explaining why it is nec-
essary. Since our concern is principally with explaining necessity in general, it
is this idea that is especially in need of clarification; but I think it will be in-
structive to look briefly at how the other explanatory tasks may be discharged.
Consider the particular necessity that the sum of the first n positive inte-
gers is n
2
n/2, i.e. n(n1)/2. someone who wishes to know why this is so
may be toldWell, consider what you get when you add the first n positive
integers to themselves in reverse order. Then you have a sum of 2n terms: (12
... .(n1)n) (n(n1) ... .21). Since addition commutes and asso-
ciates, this sum of 2n terms is equal to a sum of n terms, each of which is a
sum of two terms: (1n)(2(n1)) ... ((n1)2)(n1). Notice that
as the left hand terms increase by 1, the right hand terms decrease by 1. Obvi-
ously, then, each of these n terms is equal to n1. So the total is n(n1). Just
look at the diagram:
1 2 3 ... .. n
... . .
n n1 n2 ... . . 1

n(n1)
n1 n1 n1 ... . . n1
So the sum of the first n positive integers is just half of that: n(n1)/2
Whilst not every proof is explanatory, this one (which could, of course, be re-
placed by a more rigorous inductive proof ) has a good claim to be so. It ex-
plains why the sum of the first n positive integers is n(n1)/2. Does it explain
why that is necessarily so? No, not as it stands. It perhaps suggests an expla-
nation, but it does not give one. The facts cited in the explanationits starting
pointssuch as that twice the sum of the first n positive integers is, or can be
expressed as: (12 ... .(n1)n) (n(n1) ... .21), and that addi-
tion is commutative and associativeare themselves necessary, and the transi-
tions are necessarily truth-preserving. So we can easily get an explanation why
308 / Bob Hale
it is necessary that the sum of the first n positive integers is n(n1)/2 by point-
ing out that each of the undischarged premisses in the explanation why the sum
of the first n positive integers is n(n1)/2 is itself necessary, and appealing to
the principle that what follows from necessities is itself necessary (i.e. to the
modal logical law: (

p

( prq)) r

q). Of course, we havent explained

why the undischarged premisses are necessary (or, for that matter, why the gov-
erning modal logical law is so)but that is no reason to suppose that we havent
really explained why it is necessary that the sum of the first n positive integers
is n(n1)/2to think otherwise is to commit the fallacy of many questions.
Whilst our little example suggests a modelthe transmission-modelfor
the explanation of a quite wide range of particular necessities, it offers no pros-
pect of an explanation of necessity in general. Although I do not suppose that
anyone will be much tempted to think otherwise, it is worth being clear pre-
cisely why this is so. An explanation of necessity in general need neither be,
nor provide for, an explanation of each and every particular necessity. What is
required, rather, is to explain why there is any necessity at allwe may, and I
shall, take this to amount to the requirement to explain why, assuming it to be
so, it is true that there is at least one necessary truth, i.e. why p

p.
20
Natu-
rally, this requirement cannot be met by any explanation which makes essential
appeal to the necessity, as distinct from the truth simply, of its explanans. It is
for this reason that the transmission-model, whilst providing for the explana-
tion of many particular necessities, cannot possibly support an explanation of
necessity in general.
It looks to be the transmission-model that Blackburn has in mind when he
urges, on the first horn of his dilemma, that any explanation why

p which
appeals to another necessity, q, cannot discharge but must merely postpone
the explanatory task. Certainly if no other style of explanation of any neces-
sity is possiblei.e. other than one conforming to the transmission-modelwe
can be sure that no explanation of necessity in general is to be got by appeal
to necessities. The fact that we can, in accordance with the model, explain
some particular necessities in terms of others indicates that some necessities
are more fundamentalexplanatorily more fundamental, anywaythan oth-
ers. It would be consistent with acknowledgement of that point to hold that
some necessities are not merely more fundamental than others, but fundamen-
tal, not just in the sense that they do not admit of explanation in terms of the
transmission-model, but in the strong sense that they do not admit of explana-
tion at all.
21
Given such a base class of fundamental necessities, all other
necessities might be explained, transmissively, in terms of it. But on the as-
sumption that only transmissive explanation is possible, it remains the case
that there can be no explanation of necessity in general. The assumption that
there must be a base class of fundamental, inexplicable, necessities is inessen-
tial to the point. Someone who holds that necessities may be explained only
in terms of the transmission-model might, without inconsistency, hold that ev-
ery necessity is so explicable, so that there just is no base class. Of course,
The Source of Necessity / 309
if every necessity is to be explicable, without circularity, in terms of the
transmission-model, then there must be an infinite regress of ever more fun-
damental necessities. This may be thoughtand in my view isimplausible,
but I have not been able to see that the regress is actually vicious. But it is
worth being clear why, even if non-vicious, the regress is inevitable. In any
transmission explanation of a particular necessity, appeal is made not simply
to the truth of at least one further necessary truth, but to its necessitythis is
what makes it a transmission explanationand, if circularity is to be avoided,
the explanans must be a new necessity which, if every necessity admits of a
transmission explanation, calls for explanation in its turn in terms of a further
necessity, and so on. It follows that if transmission is the only model for ex-
plaining necessity, there can be no explanation of necessity in generali.e. of
why there are any necessities at all. We cannot infer outright that there can be
no explanation of necessity in general, since we lack any ground to assert the
requisite minor premissthat any explanation of necessity must be a trans-
mission explanation. Indeed, although we have as yet no concrete alternative
model, we have just observed that transmission explanations exhibit a feature
their essential play with the (transmitted) necessity of their premisseswhich
it is not obvious that every candidate explanation of necessity must share. Noth-
ing established so far shows that there cannot be explanations of the shape:

p because q, wherewhile it may be necessary that qthe necessity that q,

as distinct from its truth, does no distinctive explanatory work. In the absence
of reason to foreclose on the possibility of such alternative non-transmissive
explanations of necessity, we cannotwithout further argumentconclude that
no explanation of necessity in general is possible (even if it is granted that
there can be no satisfactory explanation of necessity which appeals only to
contingencies
22
).
Non-transmissive explanations
Let us take stock. The upshot of my examination of Blackburns
dilemmaif I am rightis that neither horn presents its would-be takers with
a conclusive objection. The argument on the contingency horn suffers from
two weaknesses. First, it cannot run without the assumption that what is nec-
essary is necessarily necessary, which effectively begs the question against a
proponent of explanations of necessity in terms of conventions which might
not have been adopted. It is true enough that there are other, more effective,
objections to a conventionalist account of the source of necessitythose of
Dummett and Quine appear to show that convention cannot be the mother of
all necessities, and another plausibly shows that it cannot give birth to any.
But, second, even if directed against one who (seeks to explain necessities by
reference to contingencies but who), unlike the conventionalist, accepts the S4
principle, it requires the further assumption that she not only holds that

p
because q, but is committed to the would-counterfactual: q

r

p, or at
310 / Bob Hale
least to the might-counterfactual: q r

p. But as we saw, even if some

such assumption is defensible in regard to explanations of contingencies, there
are good reasons to deny that it holds for explanations of necessities. The ar-
gument on the necessity horn appears effective only on the assumption that
any explanation

p because q, where it is necessary that q, must be a

transmission-explanation.
Although I have not been able to see how to refurbish the second horn of
Blackburns dilemma, I have to confess that I am also quite unable to see how
plausible, non-conventionalist, explanations of necessities, or of necessity in
general, in terms of contingencies might go. I shall therefore confine attention,
in the remainder of this paper, to further exploration of the alternative ap-
proach, which looks for an explanation of necessity whose explanans com-
prises only propositions which are themselves necessarily true. As we have seen,
it may be thought that no such explanation can possibly succeed, because it
must be either viciously circular or regressive. But I have suggested that this
first horn of his dilemma may be less sharp than it first appearsthat while
any explanation of necessity on the transmission-model seems bound to leave
us with a bad residual must, as Blackburn puts it, it is at least not obvious
that every explanation of necessity must be of that kind. I want now to try to
consolidate that suggestion. At least some necessities, I shall claim, admit of
non-transmissive explanations of the form

p because qexplanations in
which the explanans, q, is indeed necessary (at least if it is true, as it must be if
we are to have an explanation at all), but in which what explains the necessity
of the explanandum is not qs necessity, but its truth simpliciter. If this claim
can be made good, it leads to a very simple and straightforward explanation of
necessity in generalthat is, why there are some necessarily true propositions:
Suppose that

p because q. Then

p. Hence p

p. Provided our explanation

why

p is non-transmissive, there is no residual must.
The best way to see how some necessities might be explained non-
transmissively is by examples. Here are two. Consider the propositions:
(1) Vixens are female foxes
(2) The conjunction of two propositions A and B is true only if A is true
and B is true
I take it that these propositions are not only true, but necessarily so. That is:
(3)

Vixens are female foxes
(4)

The conjunction of two propositions A and B is true only if A is true
and B is true
are both true. Why is that? According to the conventionalist answer discussed
earlier, the truth of (2) and, perhaps less directly, that of (1)and thence that
of (3) and (4)is secured by conventions which fix the meanings of their key
ingredient words. In an earlier section, I upheld a version of an old and simple
The Source of Necessity / 311
objection to the conventionalist theory, that it mistakes determinants of mean-
ing for determinants of truth: conventions at best determine the content or truth-
conditions of a (partially interpreted) sentenceeven if they do so by stipulating
that the sentence is to express a true proposition, the truth of that proposition is
not itself a matter for stipulation. I think that this objection not only highlights
what is fundamentally wrong with conventionalism, but also helps point us in
the right direction. For if what makes (1) and (2) true, and necessarily so, isnt
facts about our linguistic conventionsbecause these determine meaning rather
than the truth of what is meantwhat can do so, if not facts about what these
propositions are about, i.e. a certain kind of animal and a certain function of
propositions? This suggests some very simple answers to our questions about
(3) and (4):
(5)

(Vixens are female foxes) because being a vixen just is, or consists
in, being a female fox.
(6)

(The conjunction of two propositions A and B is true only if A is true
and B is true) because conjunction just is that binary function of prop-
ositions which is true iff both its arguments are true.
I claim that (5) and (6) do provide explanations of necessity, that in each case
the explanans is itself not just true but necessarily true, but that in neither case
does the explanation given appeal to or otherwise presuppose their necessity in
order to explain that of the explananda (i.e. they are non-transmissive). I shall
try to say a little in defence of the last part of this claim shortly; first, I want to
make three preliminary, and mainly clarificatory, remarks.
(i) An explanation of this kind worksexplains why it is necessary that
pby claiming that ps truth is a consequence of, or is ensured by, the nature
or identity-conditions of something involved that truth (e.g. what it is to be an
object of a certain kind, or what it is to be a particular function, or relation,
etc.). It is quite widely held that truths about the nature or identity-conditions
of things are necessary, in a strong or absolute sense. I think this is right, but I
am not clear what could be said to persuade anyone not already disposed to
accept it, beyond saying that if something has a certain nature, or such and
such identity conditions, iti.e. that very thingcould not not have that na-
ture or identity-conditions. Butcruciallyit seems to me that the claim that
explanations like (5) and (6) succeed as explanations of necessity does not de-
pend upon the correctness of this further claim.
(ii) The explanandum, in an explanation of the kind illustrated by (5) and
(6), is why it is necessary that p, not just why it is true. What allows us to
regard whats explained as the necessity of p is that fact that the truth of p is
explained is a special way, in terms of some fact about what it is to be ..., where
[being] ... is integral to the proposition that p. In this respect, our explanations
are structurally parallel to those offered by conventionalists, who likewise main-
tain that it is necessary that p when ps truth is explained in a special waythe
crucial difference being that whereas the conventionalist claims that ps truth is
312 / Bob Hale
ensured by meaning-determining conventions, our explanations take it to be
ensured by the nature or identity-conditions of the things p is about.
(iii) My initial examples are naturally regarded as examples of conceptual
or analytic necessitiesbut on the suggestion I am making, what does the ex-
plaining is a fact about the nature or identity of a non-conceptual entitya
property, or a relation, or a function, rather than a conceptsomething belong-
ing, in Fregean terms, to the realm of reference, rather than the realm of sense.
One might think that in examples like these, the explanation could, and per-
haps even should, take a different formthat they should run:
It is necessary that vixens are female foxes because the concept vixen just
is the concept female fox
It is necessary that the conjunction of two propositions A and B is true
only if A is true and B is true because the concept of conjunction just is the
concept of a (or that) binary function of propositions which is true iff both
its arguments are true.
I dont want to suggest that putting the explanations this way would be wrong.
But I think it is preferable to cast them in the form Ive chosenor at least
that it is desirable to notice the possibility of casting them in that formfor a
couple of related reasons. One is that putting them in my preferred style en-
ables us more readily to see how explanations of necessity of the same kind
may be given in cases in which it would be either obviously wrong or at least
quite implausible to attempt to see the necessity as having its source in (facts
about) the identity or nature of conceptsexamples of what are sometimes
called metaphysical necessities, concerning natural kinds, individuals and iden-
tity, like: Water is H
2
O, Gold is an element, George W. Bush is a man, Hes-
perus is Phosphorus, etc. There is no plausibility in the suggestion that truths
like these owe their necessity to facts about concepts. The second is that even
in cases where it is (relatively) plausible to cast the explanation in terms of
facts about the nature or identity of concepts, doing sobesides tending to
obscure what may otherwise be seen as the underlying unity of a wide class
of absolutely necessary truthsrisks conflating considerations to do with the
source of necessity with considerations concerning our knowledge of it. I do
not want to deny that the concept vixen, say, is no other than the concept fe-
male fox, or that the concept conjunction is no other than the concept of a
certain function. But it seems to me that such identity-relations among con-
cepts have more to do with explaining how we know that vixens are female
foxes, etc., than with explaining why it is necessary, and, more generally, with
explaining why some necessities are knowable a priori, while others are know-
able only a posteriori.
My proposed route past Blackburns dilemma claims that it overlooks a
species of explanation in which necessities are explained by appeal to facts
about the nature or identity (-conditions) of the things they concern (what it is
The Source of Necessity / 313
to be an object of a certain kind, or to be a certain property or relation or func-
tion, etc.). It is plausible that these facts are themselves necessary, butor so I
am claimingthe explanation does not exploit or rely on their necessity. The
flaw, on the first horn of the dilemma, lies with the assumption that if one ex-
plains

p because q, where it is necessary that q, this must collapse into a

transmissive explanation

p because

q. The key claim here, clearly, is that
in giving a non-transmissive explanation, the necessity of the explanans is not
in any relevant way presupposed. It may be objected that, provided the second
horn of the dilemma is sharp, we cannot avoid presupposing the necessity of
our explanans. For if the argument of the second horn is sound, there can be no
explanation of a necessity via a contingency, so that we cannot explain the ne-
cessity that vixens are female foxes, say, by claiming that being a vixen just is
being a female fox without presupposing that the latter too is a matter of
necessity.
There is, as I have argued, reason to doubt that the argument of Black-
burns second horn is sound, and I, at least, am not clear how it can be made
secure. But even granting that that could be done, it does not seem to me that
the objection is good. For even if (one agrees that) an explanation

p because
q of the kind suggested cannot be correct unless (one thinks that) q is itself
necessaryso that the necessity of the explanans is in a sense presupposedit
does not follow that it is presupposed in a relevant way, i.e. in a way that com-
promises the explanation. It would do so if the explanation worked by trans-
mitting the necessity of the explanans to the explanandum, but that it does not
do. The objection simply misses this distinction or assumes that it marks no
significant difference.
The concession that an explanation of the suggested kind cannot be cor-
rect unless the explanans is itself necessary would by itself be fatalthe last
point notwithstandingif the aim were to furnish a reductive explanation, i.e.
a general account of the source of necessity, or of how there can be such a
thing as necessity at all, which draws only upon premisses which are not them-
selves true as a matter of necessity. But that was not the aim, and it is not
clear how the demand for a reductive explanation could be justified. Reduc-
tive explanation is, necessarily, a very special case. Puzzled over the existence
of truths or facts of a certain general kindB-factswe furnish an account or
analysis of key concepts involved in terms of A-concepts, in the light of which
B-facts are reducible to A-facts, i.e. can be exhibited as logical consequences
of A-facts. Such an explanation shows that the initial appearance of a special
class of (puzzling) facts is misleadingthere are no B-facts over and above
A-facts, or, if you like, there are B-facts, but they are just A-facts presented in
a novel guise. It is obvious that not every kind of fact can admit of reductive
explanation, and thatunless irreducibility is simply equated with inexplica-
bility or unintelligibilityreductive explanation cannot be an adequate model
of explanation in general. Any sensible would-be reductionist about facts, or
alleged facts, of some given kind must concede the first point, even if she is
disposed to resist the second, and so must justify her insistence that facts of
314 / Bob Hale
that kind be somehow reduced to facts of some other kind, rather than just
accepted as irreducible. Quite apart from the specific points Ive made against
Blackburns dilemma, it is hard to see how it can avoid relying on the assump-
tion that modal factsif there are such facts and if their existence is not to
be simply unintelligiblemust be reductively explicable. That assumption
cannot be justified merely by adverting to the undisputed facts that we find
necessity puzzling and are hard pressed to explain its source or basis (in Black-
burns words, think there must ... be something which makes them so, but
we cannot quite imagine or understand what this is)since so much is con-
sistent with there being a non-reductive explanation. To the extent that the
proposed dilemma rests upon the unargued premiss that only a reductive ex-
planation could serve to render the existence of modal facts really intelligible,
it is hard to see that it has any real force.
To be sure, philosophical puzzlement about a kind of fact need not be fu-
eled by narrowly reductionist prejudices. A (somewhat) more liberal concep-
tion might grant that facts of a given kind may be rendered intelligible without
benefit of reductive explanation, perhaps by charting relations of supervenience
between them and facts of some other, arguably less problematic, kind. And
since we may seem no better placed to explain how modal facts might super-
vene on the non-modal than we are to reduce the former to the latterthis
might seem to offer Blackburn a way to run his dilemma without reliance upon
any specifically reductionist assumption. But it seems to me that so far from
enabling a re-instatement of the dilemma, any such move towards a more lib-
eral conception of explanationone which finds space for explanation based
upon supervenience relationsactually has quite the opposite tendency. Per-
haps we can, in certain cases, alleviate puzzlement about the existence of B-facts
by observing that they supervene upon A-factsthat is, that, while B-facts dont
reduce to A-facts, there can be no variations in B-facts without matching vari-
ations in A-facts. Precisely because facts about supervenience are themselves a
species of modal factsfacts about necessary co-variationthere can be no
general explanation of modal facts in terms of supervenience. But the sword
cuts both ways. Precisely because supervenience-explanations work through facts
about supervenience, there can be no such (correct) explanations unless there
are such facts.
23
But the purpose of the dilemma was to wean us off a truth-
conditionali.e. fact statingconception of judgements of necessity.
The account of the source of necessity I have proposed is, of course, di-
ametrically opposed to the viewendorsed, albeit with tongue somewhat in
cheek, by Quine
24
that necessity resides not in the things we talk about, but
in our ways of talking about them. I am rejecting this view, even in regard to
the cases for which it is most plausible, i.e. those where we can express the
truth held to be necessary by means of a sentence which would be classified
as analytic (at least by anyone prepared to employ that notion). In claiming
that certain necessities can be non-transmissively explained by appeal to facts
about what it is to be an object of a certain kind, or a certain property or
The Source of Necessity / 315
relation or function, I am not only embracing a form of the essentialism which
Quine so vigorously opposed, but am also siding with those who view facts
about the essential natures of things as fundamental, in the sense that they
underlie and explain de re necessities, rather than the other way about.
25
For
the purposes of my suggested explanation of necessity in general, it is enough
that some necessities can be explained in this way. It is not necessary to claim
that all necessities can be so explained.
26
I can afford to leave that question
open, and will do so. On one viewconsistent, so far as I can see, with ev-
erything I have claimed herethere is a fundamental or base class of neces-
sities which directly reflect and are to be explained by reference to the natures
of the things they concern, and a much larger class of necessities members of
which are to be explained, ultimately by reference to necessities in the base
class, in accordance with the transmission model. This view would see the
class of necessities as a whole as structured in a way which leaves room for
transmissive explanations to play an indispensable role in accounting for non-
basic necessities. Of course, there is a temptation to say that just because the
necessity of non-basic necessities is explained, ultimately, by reference to ne-
cessities in the base class, with those necessities themselves being explained
in terms of facts about essences, all necessities have their source in such facts.
This suggests an alternative view, on which there is, from an ontological or
metaphysical point of view, no distinction to be drawn between more or less
fundamental necessitiesthe class of necessities as a whole is flat and un-
structured, and explanations of necessity in accordance with the transmission
model reflect no relations of dependence of some necessities on other more
basic ones, only the epistemological dependence of our recognition of some
necessities on that of others. Whilst each of these rival views has its attrac-
tions, my own inclination is towards the former, partly because I suspect that
the latter destabilises if taken as a wholly general account of necessity,
27
and
partly because I think the factas it would be, if the former view is correct
that only a limited class of necessities admits of non-transmissive explanation
makes it easier to sustain the view that certain necessities asymmetrically de-
pend upon facts about essences or natures and that the non-transmissive char-
acter of such explanations is not undermined by the fact that truths about
essences or natures are themselves necessary. But the development of those
thoughts, and the needed further defence of the proposal I have canvassed
here, must be left to another occasion.
28
Notes
1. Dummett (1959), p.169
2. The qualification is obviously needed, since without it, there would be no room for
unknown absolute necessities. For further explanation and some remarks on the en-
suing complications, see Hale (1999), pp.245.
3. Or at least, not by any philosophy of necessity that accepts that there are truths
about what is necessary and what is not.
316 / Bob Hale
4. Blackburn (1986), p.119.
5. op.cit. pp.1201
6. loc.cit. p121
7. As I think Blackburn must be assumingit could, of course, be argued that the
best way to view conventionalism is precisely as a deflationary account, aimed less
at explaining necessity than at explaining it away.
8. The supposition is somewhat problematic, since it is at least open to question whether
endorsing an explanation B because A invariably commits one to the correspond-
ing counterfactual: A

r B. I shall return to this point.
9. via the principlesound on standard semantical accounts of counterfactualsthat
A, A

rB B. Fromq and q

r

p, infer

p, i.e.

p.
10. I am not sure, but I suspect I may owe this point to Crispin Wright. Something
very close to it certainly came up in a discussion with him. It is independently
likely that he should be credited with it, since he makes essentially the same point
in a very careful critical assessment, in Wright (1985), with which I have been
long familiar, of Casimir Lewys arguments against the conventionalism advocated
by John Wisdom.
It is also worth remarking that the S4 principle is hardly one that Blackburn
himself can insist upon, since his own projectivist construal of judgements of
necessitylacking, as it does, the resources to make good sense of iterated modal
operatorsalmost certainly requires him to reject it. See Hale (1984) and also Wright
(1987)
11. Quite apart from this point, there is bound, anyway, to be room to challenge the
applicability of the principle, when the explanation of necessities is in question
given that when

B, A

rB will be vacuously true, no matter what A may be, and
A

rB can be at best vacuously true (when A is impossible), otherwise false.
12. It was suggested to me, by Richard Gaskin, in discussion of an earlier version of
this paper.
13. Defining A r B, with David Lewis ((1973), p.2), as (A

r B), the truth of
A r B requires that B be false, and so that B be true, at at least one of
the nearest A worlds, so if there are any A worlds at all (i.e. if A), some of
them will be B worlds (so that B).
14. Even that much is not obviously true, but I can, fortunately, set this tricky question
aside here.
15. U need not be finite, since among our finitely many stipulations, there may be stip-
ulations guaranteeing the truth of infinitely many instances of some given form.
But there is bound to be such a p, because there are infinitely many forms whose
instances are necessary truths, and only finitely many of these can figure in our
stipulations.
16. The assumption is justified by the consideration given in the preceding note.
17. As in Quine (1936), p.92.
18. There are, of course, statementsmost obviously, but not only, statements concern-
ing our own future actionswhich we can make true, or indeed false, by acting or
reacting in various ways, and whose truth-values are not independent of us. But
that is perfectly consistent with the second claim. We may make them true (or false)
by acting or reacting in ways required (or proscribed) by their already determinate
truth-conditionswe cannot make them true just by stipulating them to be so.
19. See Horwich (1997) or (1998), ch.6. Horwichs proposal is to replace what he calls
the standard account, according to which, where f is the definiens and #f some
The Source of Necessity / 317
sentence embedding it, we stipulate that the meaning of f is to be the meaning
f would need to have in order that #f be true, by the view that the meaning f
has is the meaning constituted by regarding #f as true (see (1998), p.138)note
that true as applied to sentences, for Horwich, means: expresses a true proposi-
tion (see (1998), p.133, fn.3). For some critical discussion of Horwichs view, and
defence of a version of the standard account, see Hale and Wright (2000).
20. Equivalently, we may take it as the requirement to explain why p(

p

p). It
is worth noting that no distinctively classical principles are required to establish the
equivalence.
21. Of course, anyone who thinks that any explanation of a necessity must be a trans-
mission explanation will deny that there is any such difference in strength
unavailability of a transmission explanation will, for him, entail inexplicability tout
court.
22. That is, if the contingency horn of Blackburns would-be dilemma can be made
sharp.
23. I rely here on the factive character of explanatory statementsi.e. that q because
p cant be true unless it is true that p. Blackburn has arguedfor example, in his
(1984), p.182ffthat the existence of supervenience relations, such as are often
thought to hold between matters of value and matters of natural fact, defies expla-
nation if one takes a realist view of the supervening facts, but is more readily
explicable on a non-realist or quasi-realist view. Although Im sceptical about this
argument, Im not directly concerned to dispute it here. My point concerns not the
explanation of supervenience relations, but the explanation of other facts in terms
of such relations. It is simply that if one is to explain how there come to be B-facts
by pointing out that they supervene on A-facts, one must accept that there are facts
about supervenience. If this is right, then it is not open to one who holds, as Black-
burn does, that modal facts are really no more than projections of our attitudes
or imaginative (in)capacities, to assign any explanatory role to supervenience
relations.
24. Cf. Quine (1953), where he writes: Being necessarily or possibly thus and so is in
general not a trait of the object concerned, but depends on the manner of referring
to the object (p.148), and Necessary greaterness than 7 makes no sense as applied
to a number x; necessity attaches only to the connection between x 7 and the
particular method ... of specifying x. (p.149).
25. I am thinking here, mainly, of David Wiggins and Kit Finesee, especially, Wig-
gins (1980) and Fine (1994). The position I defend here has obvious and consider-
able affinities with that developed in Fine (1994). The main differences, perhaps,
are (i) that whereas Fine operates with a broad distinction between conceptual and
non-conceptual necessities, with logical necessities as a subclass of the former, I do
not treat any necessities as having their source, strictly speaking, in concepts (as
distinct from the thingsincluding relations and functionsthe relevant concepts
are concepts of ), and (ii) the class of necessities is probably more structuredwith
a limited subclass of fundamental necessities directly owed to the nature or identity
of relevant objects, properties, etc., and others being indirectly, and dependently,
necessaryon my view than on Fines. I discuss Fines view in Hale (1996), sec-
tions 57; however, I am probably closer to his view than some remarks in that
discussion suggest.
26. or even that all necessities can be explained.
318 / Bob Hale
27. For some discussion of the kind of difficulty I have in mind here, see the article by
me cited in note 25, and especially pp.10214.
28. I thank Joseph Almog, John Benson, Jim Edwards, Richard Gaskin, Gary Kemp,
Philp Percival, Adam Rieger, Peter Sullivan, Crispin Wright, audiences in Liver-
pool and Delhi, and a group of Glasgow postgraduates including Ross Cameron,
Paul McCallion, and Andrew McGonigal for helpful critical reactions to earlier ver-
sions of this paper.
References
Simon Blackburn (1986) Morals and Modals in Graham Mcdonald & Crispin Wright, eds. Fact,
Science & Morality: Essays on A.J.Ayers Language, Truth & Logic Oxford: Blackwell,
pp.11941.
Michael Dummett (1959) Wittgensteins Philosophy of Mathematics, originally published in The
Philosophical Review Vol.LXVIII (1959), pp.32448 and reprinted in Dummetts Truth
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