Lowe - What Is The Source of Our Knowledge of Modal Truths

What is the Source of Our Knowledge of
Modal Truths?
E. J. Lowe
There is currently intense interest in the question of the source of our presumed
knowledge of truths concerning what is, or is not, metaphysically possible or
necessary. Some philosophers locate this source in our capacities to conceive or
imagine various actual or non-actual states of affairs, but this approach is open to
certain familiar and seemingly powerful objections. A different and ostensibly more
promising approach has been developed by Timothy Williamson, according to
which our capacity for modal knowledge is just an extension, or by-product, of
our general capacity to acquire knowledge of true counterfactual conditionals a
capacity that we deploy ubiquitously in everyday life. Williamsons account crucially involves a thesis to the effect that modal truths can be explained in terms of
counterfactual truths. In this paper, I query Williamsons account on a number of
points, including this thesis. My positive proposal, which owes a debt to the work
of Kit Fine on modality and essence, appeals instead to our capacity to grasp
essences, understood in a neo-Aristotelian fashion, according to which essences
are expressed by real definitions.
1. Metaphysical modalities
It seems that, at least sometimes, we can know that something is
metaphysically possible or metaphysically necessary. By metaphysical
necessity I mean necessity of the strongest possible kind absolute
necessity and I take it to be an objective kind of necessity, rather
than being something mind-dependent and reflective of some mental
condition or ability of a thinker (Lowe 1998, pp. 1321). It is not to be
confused with epistemic necessity, which is more properly to be called
certainty. Nor is it to be confused with natural or causal necessity,
which may best be understood as a species of relative necessity
relative, namely, to the natural or causal laws that actually reign.
Of course, some philosophers hold that these laws are themselves
metaphysically necessary, in which case the distinction between metaphysical and natural necessity collapses (Shoemaker 1998). But that is,
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E. J. Lowe
Note that just as some truths are metaphysically but not logically necessary, so some
truths are logically but not metaphysically possible. Thus, given that it is metaphysically but
not logically necessary that a uniformly coloured surface is not at once both red and green, it
follows that it is logically but not metaphysically possible that a uniformly coloured surface is at
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to say the least, a contentious thesis, and it is not one that I adhere to
(Lowe 2006, pp. 14155).
A question arises as to whether metaphysical necessity is, or is not,
the same as logical necessity. That depends, of course, on exactly what
is understood by the latter. If logically necessary truths are taken to be
truths that are, or are logical consequences of, the laws of logic
whatever precisely we take those laws to be then I think we
must say that the logically necessary truths are only a proper sub-class
of the class of metaphysically necessary truths (Lowe 1998, pp. 1415).
That is to say, all logically necessary truths are ipso facto metaphysically necessary truths, but not all metaphysically necessary truths are
logically necessary truths. So what would be a plausible example of a
metaphysically necessary truth that is not a logically necessary truth?
Some would instantly say: the truth that water is H2O. And they would
contend that this is also an example of a metaphysically necessary
truth that is knowable only a posteriori. However, I think it is questionable whether it is true at all, let alone necessarily true, that water is
H2O. (Apart from anything else, any sample of pure water contains
OH and H3O+ ions as well as H2O molecules, which explains why
even pure water conducts electricity, albeit only very weakly; so, if
Water is H2O is understood as asserting water is identical with, or
is wholly composed by, H2O molecules, then it is simply false.) And I
am also somewhat sceptical about the very idea of a posteriori necessary truths (Lowe 2007). So I would prefer to venture a different
example of a truth that is metaphysically but not logically necessary:
the truth that a uniformly coloured surface is not at once both red
and green. This truth is certainly not a consequence of the laws of
logic. Nor can it even plausibly be said that it follows from those laws
taken together with suitable definitions of the predicates red and
green: for those predicates, it seems, are in fact primitive and
indefinable.
However, perfectly uncontentious examples of interesting (not
purely logical) metaphysically necessary truths are fairly hard to
come by, and even this example is not wholly uncontentious. It is,
by contrast, much easier to come by plausible examples of interesting
metaphysically possible truths.1 Obviously, an example of a metaphysically possible truth is provided by any actual truth, since what is the
What is the Source of Our Knowledge of Modal Truths?
2. Imagination, conceivability, and intuition

Some philosophers appeal to imaginability or conceivability which
are not, of course, exactly the same thing as guides to metaphysical
possibility (Gendler and Hawthorne 2002).2 One apparent difficulty
with this sort of approach is that the notions of imaginability and
once both red and green. For, whichever species of modality we are concerned with, hp
entails -p and hp entails -p.
2
Some of the critical points that follow are no doubt familiar ones, but it will help to
rehearse them here in order to highlight the differences between such approaches and the one
that I develop later in the paper.
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case is, a fortiori, possibly the case: ab esse ad posse valet consequentia.
The more interesting cases, however, are of metaphysically possible
truths that are not also actual truths. One such truth, very plausibly, is
that I could have had an identical twin brother. Followers of Spinoza
will want to deny this, no doubt, but only because they think that
truth and necessary truth coincide a thesis that I find quite literally
incredible. Another such truth, even more plausibly, is that the universe could have contained one more electron than it actually does. Yet
another is that a certain piece of clay, which is now actually spherical in
shape, could now have been cubic in shape.
We find it very easy indeed to generate such putative examples of
metaphysically possible truths that are not actual truths. And one
obvious question is: how do we do it? This, it might seem, is essentially
a psychological question and an empirical one too. A more obviously
philosophical question is: how is it possible for us to do it that is,
how is it possible for beings with our cognitive capacities to come to
know that certain non-actual truths are metaphysically possible? Of
course, we could just maintain, dogmatically, that we possess, as one
of our cognitive capacities, a brute or basic capacity to recognize at
least some metaphysically possible truths as such. But that would be,
or should be, a thesis of the last resort. It would be much more satisfying if we could explain our capacity to know metaphysically possible truths that is, more precisely, our capacity to know that
something that is not actually the case could be the case without
just positing a special capacity to do precisely this. So let us look at
some candidate explanations.
E. J. Lowe
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conceivability are themselves modal notions, these being the notions,

respectively, of the ability to imagine and the ability to conceive. So, a
question arises in, say, the case of imaginability as to whether it is
the mere psychological possibility of imagining something that is indicative of its metaphysical possibility, or only the metaphysical possibility of doing so. If the latter, we are not really any further forward.
If the former, then either we are in danger of treating metaphysical
possibility as something mind-dependent, or we must recognize the
very great fallibility of imagination as a supposed guide to metaphysical possibility. The latter is indeed surely the case. Imagination is vital
in the composition of works of fiction, but they can be believable
even if they trade in metaphysical impossibilities, such as timetravellers who change the past. Imagination is also limited in its
scope by its intimate psychological connection with our perceptual
faculties, which are geared to register states of affairs in the actual
world, at the mesoscopic level. Thus, for example, it seems impossible for us humans, at least to imagine objects in fourdimensional space, and yet some current theories of physics postulate a good deal more than three spatial dimensions at the subatomic
level.
Some may urge that a way to overcome some of these limitations or
deficiencies of the imagination is to use it in a rationally constrained
way, by recourse to thought-experiments. And there have been famously compelling thought-experiments in the history of science, such
as Galileos thought-experiment to discount the possibility of objects
falling at different rates according to their weights, with a heavy one
supposedly falling faster than a light one: we just imagine a light and a
heavy weight being attached together, to make a still heavier weight,
and observe that the hypothesis under examination now generates
contradictory results, since we should expect the light weight to
retard the fall of the heavy weight and yet also expect the combined
weight to fall even faster than the heavy weight would on its
own (Galileo 1954, pp. 624). On the other hand, it is not clear that
imagination really plays any substantive role in this reasoning,
which is apparently just a reductio ad absurdum argument.
Thought-experiments which genuinely seem to involve something
like imaginability have, of course, also been widely deployed in philosophy, a notorious example being Derek Parfits teletransportation
thought-experiment, where we are invited to imagine someones body
being reduced to atoms, these atoms being beamed to a distant planet,
and the atoms there being reassembled into an exactly similar body
The doubts that I raise below about the reliability of intuitions are not intended to apply
to George Bealers highly sophisticated theory of what he calls rational intuitions (Bealer
2002, pp. 735). However, there is not space enough here for me to discuss Bealers very
interesting views and their relation to my own essence-based approach to modal epistemology
presented in later sections of this paper. Suffice it to say that most philosophers who appeal to
intuitions do not have an account like Bealers in mind.
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(Parfit 1984, pp. 199201). Does the person survive this process or not?
Here we are commonly asked to consult our intuitions on the matter.
And, indeed, intuition, more generally, is often appealed to by philosophers as a source of knowledge of possibility, whether on its own
or in conjunction with imagination.
An intuition, it seems, is supposed to be a sort of immediate and
unreasoned or non-inferential judgement, carrying a high degree of
conviction.3 But why should intuitions in this sense be supposed to
have much reliability where matters of possibility are concerned? No
doubt, the fact that we all have hunches from time to time, in circumstances in which reliable evidence is not forthcoming, is something that evolutionary psychology might be expected to explain, and
this might indicate that a faculty for hunches is, by and large, an
adaptive cognitive trait. But the point about hunches is that we have
recourse to them when we have nothing more reliable to go on in the
matter of belief-formation, and they are patently often mistaken and
sometimes disastrously so. I suspect that intuitions and hunches are
pretty much the same thing, and pretty useless as sources of knowledge all the more so to the degree that they concern things distantly
removed from actuality, as is eminently the case in the teletransportation thought-experiment. Furthermore, intuitions are notoriously
amenable to being massaged. We do not have a fixed stock of immutable intuitions. Things that seemed intuitively true to our forebears a century or two ago often by no means seem intuitively true to
us now. It may be the case that evolution has equipped us cognitively
with some sort of innate folk physics, and equivalent innate systems
in other domains, such as folk psychology . But if so, they evolved as
successful adaptations to the practical circumstances of human life as
it was lived in prehistoric times, and cannot be regarded as reliable
guides to the truth in the domains in question.
Similar points can be made about conceivability as a supposed guide
to metaphysical possibility, where conceivability is, as it should be, distinguished from imaginability. Long ago, Descartes famously pointed
out the need to distinguish them, utilizing his example of the
E. J. Lowe
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chiliagon a thousand-sided figure for this purpose: we cannot

really imagine a chiliagon, since we cannot distinguish in imagination
between a thousand-sided figure and a thousand-and-one-sided figure,
as they would look just the same to us (Descartes 1984, pp. 501). But
we can certainly conceive of such a figure, and distinguish in conception
between it and a thousand-and-one-sided figure. Conception, one
might want to say, involves the deployment of concepts in thinking,
whereas imagination just deploys perception-based imagery. That,
perhaps, is too simplistic, not least because some forms of thought
seem to be irreducibly imaginative: consider, for instance, the
thought process involved in thinking how to get from your house
to the nearest railway station you just imagine the route you
would take. However, propositional thought certainly seems to require the deployment of concepts. Appealing to conceivability as a
guide to possibility is close, if not identical, to appealing to conceptual analysis for this purpose. So, for example, in the Parfit
teletransportation case we might suppose the real task not to be
one of determining what we imagine or intuit the outcome of the
experiment to be, but rather one of assessing whether our concept
of a person is such that the proposition that the person who is
the subject of the experiment survives the process is conceptually
coherent. A conceptually incoherent proposition, presumably, is
one which is such that, when the concepts involved in it are properly
analysed, it turns out to be implicitly self-contradictory or
inconsistent.
But there are obvious difficulties with appeals to conceivability
taken in this way. Who is to determine what our concept of a
person is? And why should it matter, anyway, what our concept of a
person is: is it not more important what a person is, if indeed there
really are such things as persons? It often turns out that our concepts
of various really existing kinds of things are seriously inadequate to the
true natures of those things. And sometimes, of course, we have concepts of certain kinds of thing, such as phlogiston, which turn out not
to exist at all. What, after all, is a concept? This is a question that is
not often enough asked by those who happily talk about concepts,
conceivability, and conceptual analysis. The nearest I can get to a
quick definition is to say that a concept is a way of thinking of some
thing or kind of things, whether or not a really existent thing or kind of
things (Lowe 2006, pp. 856). But, plainly, one may think of something in an inadequate, distorted, or impoverished way. For instance,
the way in which a four-year-old child may think of a triangle is hardly
3. Modal knowledge as a special case of counterfactual

knowledge
I pass on now to examine a significantly new and prima facie attractive
way of identifying the source of our knowledge of modal truths, developed recently by Timothy Williamson (2007).5 Williamson appeals
4
This applies also to David Chalmerss notion of ideal conceivability , which he defines
thus: S is ideally conceivable when S is conceivable on ideal rational reflection (Chalmers
2002, p. 147). Chalmers himself concedes that the mathematical case is the most significant
challenge to scrutability (Chalmers 2002, p. 180).
5
Recent papers discussing Williamsons approach include Jenkins 2008, Vaidya 2010, and
Roca-Royes 2011.
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likely to be as adequate as that of a mathematician well-versed in

multidimensional algebraic geometry.
Yet another problem with appealing to conceptual analysis to resolve questions of metaphysical possibility is that it is increasingly
being questioned whether many of our concepts really are amenable
to analysis at all, at least if this means supplying necessary and sufficient conditions for their application (Fodor 1998). The notorious
concept of a bachelor, supposedly analysable as meaning an unmarried
male, is quite possibly the exception rather than the norm. In any case,
setting aside all the foregoing difficulties, the plain fact seems to be
that conceivability cannot always be a good guide to metaphysical
modality, as certain mathematical examples show.4 Goldbachs conjecture that every even number greater than 2 is the sum of two
prime numbers is a mathematical proposition and hence either necessarily true or necessarily false. But neither it nor its negation has yet
been proved to be true, and it may indeed be one of those arithmetical
truths which, according to Godels incompleteness proof, is not provable. Be that as it may, the fact surely is that both the conjecture and
its negation are conceivably true why otherwise would we bother to
try to settle the matter? But they cannot both be possibly true, since
neither is a contingent proposition. Nor would it be wise, I think, to
dismiss this as merely an exceptional example. I think we should take
the lesson to be that we have no good reason to suppose that conceivability is a good guide to metaphysical possibility. At best, the fact
that something is conceivable may give us good reason to inquire into
its possibility, as in the case of Goldbachs conjecture. But that implies
that the process of establishing its possibility, even if only provisionally
and defeasibly, is a quite different and additional task.
E. J. Lowe
(1)
If the bush had not been there, the rock would have ended in
the lake
It seems clear that we engage in counterfactual thinking of this kind

continually in everyday life, and that it is indispensable to us in our
processes of planning future courses of action and predicting possible
outcomes of events. Williamson maintains that our ability to make
judgements of metaphysical possibility and necessity is just a
by-product of this natural way of thinking, which has plausibly developed in humans as an evolutionary adaptation.
In order to sustain this thesis, Williamson needs to contend, and
does contend, that modal propositions are explicable in terms of
counterfactuals. For this purpose, he does not assume any specific
semantics for counterfactuals, such as the now prevailing LewisStalnaker semantics according to which, roughly speaking, the counterfactual A .T B (read as If A were the case, then B would be the
case) is true just in case B is true in the closest possible world(s) in
which A is true. However, he does make two crucial assumptions
concerning the logic of counterfactuals, which are these:
NECESSITY: h(A = B) = (A .T B)
and
POSSIBILITY: (A .T B) = (-A = -B)
Williamson then remarks: Although NECESSITY and POSSIBILITY
determine no necessary and sufficient condition for the counterfactual
conditional in terms of necessity and possibility, they yield necessary
and sufficient conditions for necessity and possibility in terms of the
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not to our capacities of imagination or conception merely as such, but

much more specifically to our capacity to arrive at seemingly reliable
judgements concerning the truth or falsehood of counterfactual conditionals. He allows that this capacity may call on our powers of imagination in many cases, but, he suggests, this happens in a suitably
constrained way in counterfactual thinking with the consequence that
such thinking must be acknowledged to be a genuine source of knowledge, even if only a defeasible one that may need to be corrected by
further processes of thinking of the same kind. He offers us a typical
example of the product of such thinking in the form of the following
counterfactual, asserted about a rock that is observed to roll down a
hillside only to be blocked in its descent by a bush:
counterfactual conditional (Williamson 2007, p. 156). The necessary

and sufficient conditions in question he shows to be the following,
where o denotes any contradiction:6
(h)
hA F (A .T o)
(-) -A F (A .T o)
4. Some objections to the counterfactual-based account of

modal knowledge
The foregoing line of thinking is neat enough, but I consider that it
suffers from several fatal flaws. I have no quarrel with Williamsons
assumption of POSSIBILITY above. But I do not accept NECESSITY. I
consider that the counterfactual conditional A .T B is stronger, not
weaker, than the strict conditional h(A = B). In fact, I have elsewhere defended the following necessary and sufficient condition for
the counterfactual conditional in terms of necessity and possibility
(Lowe 1995):
(.T) (A .T B) F (h(A = B) & (-A _ hB))
Here it may be wondered why the second conjunct in the right-hand
side of (.T) is included. One reason is simply that there are plausible
examples of cases in which the counterfactual (A .T B) fails to hold
because, although the first conjunct in the right-hand side of (.T)
holds, the second does not. Here is one: If there were both rain tomorrow and no rain tomorrow, then the streets would be dry tomorrow. This is a counterfactual with an impossible antecedent and a
contingent consequent. Of course, in some systems of counterfactual
logic, any such counterfactual is deemed to be vacuously true. But I
very much doubt that any native speaker of English would confidently
6
Williamson does not claim that the right-hand and left-hand sides of these alleged
equivalences are synonymous, but remarks that this detracts little from their philosophical
significance (Williamson 2007, p. 160). For a challenge to this remark, see Jenkins 2008.
Since I want to deny that the alleged equivalences hold, I can afford to grant that they
would, if true, have the significance that Williamson claims for them.
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(The labels (h) and (-) are mine, not Williamsons.) Appealing to
these alleged equivalences, Williamson then proposes that acquiring
knowledge of modal truths is just a special case of acquiring knowledge of counterfactual truths.
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E. J. Lowe
(h*) hA F (` .T A)
(-*) -A F (` .T A)
Here it may be asked why someone could not simply take the equivalences (h*) and (-*) to explain modal truths in terms of counterfactuals, just as Williamsons alleged equivalences (h) and (-) are
supposed to do. That is not feasible, however. For (h*) and (-*) can
hold only in a system of counterfactual logic such as mine which is
reducible to standard modal logic, via a principle like (.T). By contrast, Williamsons (h) and (-) can hold only in a system of counterfactual logic such as David Lewiss which is not reducible to
standard modal logic. Thus, my equivalences (h*) and (-*) and
Williamsons (h) and (-) do not have the same logical significance.
His, if correct, entitle him to claim that modal truths are reducible to
counterfactual truths. Mine have no such implication, since they are
just trivial logical consequences, in standard modal logic, of the fact
that counterfactuals, as I specify their truth-conditions, are truthfunctions of certain modal propositions (see again Appendix 1).
In the system of counterfactual logic that I favour, (A .T B)
may be rewritten as (A ST B), read as If A were the case, then B
might be the case. Consequently, if (h*) and (-*) are accepted, It is
necessarily the case that A is equivalent to Whatever were the case,
A would be the case and It is possibly the case that A is equivalent to
Whatever were the case, A might be the case understanding the
antecedent Whatever were the case, as seems quite natural, to be a
way of saying Whether or not X were the case, for any arbitrarily
chosen proposition X. For Whether or not X were the case, A would
be the case just means If X were the case, A would be the case; and if
X were not the case, A would be the case. And the latter, given (.T),
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assert this particular counterfactual, which strikes me as being plainly

false. However, this is not the only reason for including the second
conjunct in the right-hand side of (.T). It turns out that the system of
counterfactual logic based on (.T) has certain general features which
are attractive, such as the fact that contraposition and strengthening
the antecedent are not unrestrictedly valid for counterfactuals,
whereas they are in a system based on (.T) minus the second conjunct
in its right-hand side.
It is easy to show that if (.T) is correct, then the following equivalences, rather than Williamsons (h) and (-), are correct, where `
is any tautology (see Appendix 1):
11
(h+) hA F 8p(p .T A)
However, I am not at all convinced that 8p(p .T A) is the most
natural way of understanding Whatever were the case, A would be the
case. Clearly, 8p(p .T A) entails an infinite number of counterfactuals, each of the form X .T A, one for every proposition X that
there is. Can ordinary speakers seriously be supposed to have this in
mind when they assert Whatever were the case, A would be the case?
Isnt the latter, on Williamsons construal of it, an extraordinarily big
claim to be making?
Note that one of the possible values of the variable p in
8p(p .T A) is presumably the infinitely long conjunction of all propositions, so that 8p(p .T A) apparently entails If everything were the
case, A would be the case. Indeed, if propositional quantification
really makes sense and so 8p(p .T A) expresses a proposition,
then so, by the same token, does 8p(p), which accordingly expresses
the proposition that everything is the case. (I confess that I have serious
doubts as to whether there really is any such proposition, though,
notwithstanding the fact that we can construct this form of words.)
And then from 8p(p .T A), by the rule of universal instantiation, we
can infer ((8p)p .T A), which says If everything were the case, A
would be the case. And yet it hardly seems credible that an ordinary
speaker who asserts Whatever were the case, A would be the case
could seriously intend to imply this, even if it makes sense (which, as I
say, I doubt). I do not think it will really do to reply here that ((8p)p
.T A) is just trivially true, on the grounds that whatever proposition
A is, it is one of those hypothesized to be the case in the antecedent of
this conditional. After all, As negation, A, is another one of those
propositions, so on the current proposal we should maintain that If
everything were the case, A would be the case and If everything were
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is just equivalent to It is necessarily the case that A (see Appendix 2).

The same holds, mutatis mutandis, with regard to Whatever were the
case, A might be the case. It seems to me that my (h*) and (-*) are
considerably more intuitive (for what thats worth) than Williamsons
(h) and (-), as principles stating necessary and sufficient conditions
for necessity and possibility in terms of the counterfactual conditional.
I should remark here that Williamson himself also wants to say that
something is necessary if and only if whatever were the case, it would
still be the case (2007, p. 159), although he expresses this idea as
follows, using propositional quantification:
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Note, by the way, that 8p(p .T A) entails (A .T A), which indeed is also equivalent
to hA by Williamsons account. So, according to Williamson, to say that A is necessary is
equivalent to saying that even if A were not the case, A would still be the case. This also strains
my credulity.
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the case, A would not be the case are both trivially true. Yet it is hard
to see how either, let alone both, could really be true, and calling them
trivially true does not make this any easier, in my view. If things as
strange as these can be said to be trivially true, then I feel I have lost
my grip on both the notion of truth and the notion of triviality.
For my own part, I am inclined to think that locutions along the
lines of Whatever were the case typically arise in situations such as
the following. Two speakers are discussing in what circumstances a
certain projected cricket match would be called off and one says,
Well, if it were to rain, the match would be called off . The
other who is much more sceptical about the match ever being
played replies as follows: I agree, but equally, if it were not to
rain, the match would also be called off so, whatever were the
case, it would be called off . And this seems a perfectly natural conclusion to draw. After all, if the match would be called off in the case
of rain occurring but also in the case of rain not occurring, isnt that
tantamount to saying that it would be called off whatever the case
might be, since any case that might obtain must either be one of
rain occurring or one of rain not occurring? Anyway, whether or
not I am right about the everyday meaning of Whatever were the
case in these counterfactual contexts, I am content with the observation that, according to my principles (h*) and (.T), It is necessarily the case that A is equivalent to Whether or not X were the
case, A would be the case, for any arbitrarily chosen proposition X:
for I think that this equivalence, taken purely on its own terms, is
intuitively plausible.7
It is additionally worth remarking here that, although Williamsons
NECESSITY and POSSIBILITY do not commit him to it, he is apparently willing to accept the thesis accepted also by David Lewis
that any sentence A is logically equivalent to ` .T A, where ` is a
trivial tautology (Williamson 2007, p. 152). This, of course, is in direct
conflict with my principle (h*). But I would urge that logical intuition
and common sense are again on my side in this matter. How, for
instance, could Grass is green seriously be supposed to be logically
equivalent to, say, If grass were coloured or not coloured, it would be
green? (Incidentally, it might be wondered how Williamsons (h) and
13
my (h*) can be in conflict, given that the right-hand side of his

principle is just the contrapositive of the right-hand side of mine.
The answer, of course, is that in neither his nor my system of counterfactual logic is a counterfactual logically equivalent to its
contrapositive.)
Williamsons proposed way of understanding metaphysical necessity

and possibility in terms of counterfactuals has other deficiencies, in
my view, in addition to what I see as being its inherently unintuitive
character. One is that it seems at best very contrived to maintain that
we reason to the necessity of a proposition A by arguing for the truth
of a counterfactual with the negation of A as its antecedent and a
contradiction as its consequent. In fact, according to my own principle
(.T), such a conditional, (A .T o), far from being equivalent to
hA, is necessarily false, whatever proposition A is (see Appendix 3).
How indeed could there be a proposition such that, if it were not true,
a contradiction would be the case? After all, in no circumstances could a
contradiction be the case, and so in none would it be the case. My
principle (.T) concurs with this verdict, because according to it no
true counterfactual can have a contradictory consequent.8 Here it may
be protested that we often argue, in reductio ad absurdum fashion,
from the negation of a proposition to a contradiction, with a view
to establishing the truth of that proposition. That is indeed so, but we
need not suppose that such reasoning also serves to establish, by conditional proof, the truth of a conditional with the propositions negation as antecedent and a contradiction as consequent. We should,
I believe, carefully state the rule of conditional proof so as to avoid this
implication. In any case, a proof by reductio typically only establishes
the truth of a certain proposition, not its necessary truth. Thus, for
example, one may apparently derive a contradiction from the proposition I do not exist, given that any proposition predicating something of its subject entails the existence of that subject (so that I do
not exist entails I exist), but this does not entitle us to conclude that
I exist is a necessary truth which it plainly is not only that it is
8
This is because, according to principle (.T), if the consequent of (A .T B) is contradictory and therefore impossible, then in order for (A .T B) to be true its antecedent must be
possible; but (-A & -B) is inconsistent with h(A = B) in standard modal logic.
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5. Further difficulties
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true. Furthermore, it seems clear that there are necessary truths which
could not be known to be such on the basis now being proposed, such
as our earlier example, A uniformly coloured surface is not at once
both red and green. For we cannot formally derive a contradiction
from the negation of this proposition, given that the predicates red
and green are primitive and indefinable. How, then, is it proposed
that we can come to know the truth of the counterfactual If a uniformly coloured surface were at once both red and green, a contradiction would obtain? If that is the only way in which one could come
to know that it is necessary that a uniformly coloured surface is not at
once both red and green, then that is not something that we know.
And yet we do know this.
Yet another potential difficulty with Williamsons account is that it
seems clear that counterfactuals are endemically context-dependent,
and yet truths of metaphysical necessity and possibility cannot be, if
they are really wholly mind-independent. (Concerning this worry,
Williamson says that Infection [by vagueness and context-sensitivity]
is not automatic (2007, p. 175), and goes on to discuss the issue very
briefly.) However, I will not dwell on this objection here, serious
though I think it is, as I have another and, I consider, even more
fundamental one. On my own account of counterfactuals, as embodied in my principle (.T), a counterfactual conditional is explicable in
terms of certain modal propositions. However, the account leaves
open what kind of modality may be involved in particular cases.
Some counterfactuals, as is illustrated by Williamsons own rockand-bush example (1) above, are causal counterfactuals, because the
modality involved is evidently natural or causal necessity. Other cases,
such as examples arising in mathematics, clearly do not involve this
sort of necessity, but instead something like logical necessity. Yet
others, typically arising in philosophical contexts, involve metaphysical
necessity. Williamson, by contrast, proposes to explain the metaphysical modalities in terms of a single notion of counterfactual dependence, leaving it quite obscure how the various different species of
modality, in addition to the metaphysical ones, are to be recovered.
Perhaps he has the resources to do this in his own way. But note that
even if he does, his initial appeal was to our facility with causal counterfactuals such as (1), since these are the ones that we typically need
for purposes of planning and prediction. If our knowledge of metaphysical necessity and possibility is, however, supposed to be a special
case of our knowledge of counterfactuals like these, then he is surely
misrepresenting the metaphysical modalities as a species of causal
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modality. On the other hand, if he were to appeal instead to our

facility with a special class of counterfactuals which are non-causal
in character, this would undermine the alleged evolutionary credentials of the theory.
The root trouble is that Williamsons theory is based on a purely
formal explication of modal propositions in terms of counterfactual
ones, whereas the facility with counterfactuals that he appeals to in his
account of how we can acquire modal knowledge draws only on our
ability to handle causal counterfactuals, which are just not relevant
where the metaphysical modalities are concerned. And yet it is our
knowledge of metaphysical necessity and possibility that is the very
subject at issue. In short, Williamson has put together two ideas to
construct his account of our ability to acquire knowledge of metaphysical necessity and possibility: an appeal to our evolved facility
with causal counterfactuals like (1) and a formal explication of
modal truths in terms of counterfactuals, in the shape of his principles
(h) and (-). He then proposes that we can know something to be
metaphysically necessary by coming to know a counterfactual truth of
the form prescribed by (h), and come to know this just by deploying the
facility with counterfactuals that evolution has conferred upon us. But
even if that facility delivered up counterfactuals of that prescribed
form, how could they be anything other than causal counterfactuals,
with the implication that the necessary truths that we would thereby
come to know would merely be causally, not metaphysically, necessary
truths? In effect, Williamson has simply avoided the subject that his
theory ostensibly aims to address. He has been misled, I think, by the
fact that his formal explication provides an equivalence between a
modal truth of the form hA and a counterfactual conditional of a
certain form, namely, (A .T o). But many different kinds of modal
truth have the form hA, differing from one another in respect of the
species of necessity that the modal operator h is being taken to represent, and our present concern is only with those that are truths of
metaphysical necessity. Yet the psychological mechanism that
Williamson proposes as the supposedly reliable source of our knowledge of such necessities only seems applicable to counterfactuals that
are distinctively causal, not metaphysical, in character. It is not enough
for evolution to have conferred upon us an ability to formulate, in
counterfactual terms, modal propositions which have the form of expressions of metaphysical necessity: they must also actually express
such necessities, and Williamson has done nothing to explain how
they do, much less how we can acquire knowledge of their truth.
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6. Essence and metaphysical modality
Recent papers discussing Fines views include Zalta 2006 and Correia 2007. To engage
with critiques of Fines views here would take me too far away from my main purpose in this
paper. Moreover, although my own conception of essence is similar to his, it also differs in
some important respects.
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Currently dominant accounts of the traditional metaphysical distinction between essence and accident attempt to explain it in modal terms,
and more specifically in terms of the notions of metaphysical necessity
and possibility. These in turn are commonly explicated in terms of the
language of possible worlds (Kripke 1980). Thus, a property F is said
to be an essential property of an object a just in case, in every possible
world in which a exists, a is F. And as essence is then said to consist in
the set or sum of as essential properties. One difficulty of this approach, brought to our notice by the work of Kit Fine (1994), is that it
seems grossly to over-generate essential properties. For instance, by
this account, one of Socrates essential properties is his property of
being either a man or a mouse and another is his property of being such
that 2 + 2 = 4. It might be objected that these are not genuine properties anyway and so a fortiori not essential properties of Socrates. But
there are other examples which cannot be objected to on these
grounds, such as Socrates property of being the sole member of the
set singleton Socrates, that is, the set {Socrates} whose sole member is
Socrates. Fine urges, plausibly, that it is not part of Socrates essence
that he belongs to this set, although it is plausibly the case that it is
part of the essence of singleton Socrates that Socrates is its sole
member. The modal account of essence cannot, it seems, accommodate this asymmetry. These points are too well-known for it to be
necessary for me to dwell on them further. Suffice it to say that I
am persuaded by Fines objections to the modal account of essence
and accept the lesson that he draws: that it is preferable to try to
explicate the notions of metaphysical necessity and possibility in
terms of the notion of essence, rather than vice versa.9 This may
also enable us to dispense with the language of possible worlds as a
means of explicating modal statements. That would be a good thing,
in my view, since I regard this language as being fraught with ontological difficulties, even if it can sometimes have a heuristic value.
However, if we are to take this alternative line of approach, we need,
of course, to provide a perspicuous account of the notion of essence
which does not seek to explicate it in modal terms. Fortunately, we do
17
(C1)
A circle is the locus of a point moving continuously in a

plane at a fixed distance from a given point
The given point in question is, of course, the circles centre. This
formula or recipe tells us what a circle is, and it does so by revealing
its generating principle what it takes for there to be or, more exactly,
for there to come into being, a circle.
I do not mean to imply here that real definitions must always proceed by way of revealing generating principles or what, as we shall
shortly see, Spinoza calls proximate causes since this will be appropriate only in the case of entities that are in a suitable sense capable
10
Had the present paper been more historically oriented, I might also have tried to make
connections at this point with the work of Husserl, but as it is I have neither the space nor, I
fear, the exegetical expertise to pursue this important line of inquiry here.
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have at our disposal some resources wherewith to accomplish this,

drawing on the Aristotelian and Scholastic traditions in metaphysics.10
A key notion here, pointed out and exploited by Fine himself, is that
of a real definition, understood as being a definition of a thing (a res, or
entity), in contradistinction to a verbal definition, which is a definition
of a word or phrase. A real definition of an entity, E, is to be understood as a proposition which tells us, in the most perspicuous fashion,
what E is or, more broadly, since we do not want to restrict ourselves solely to the essences of actually existing things, what E is or
would be. This is perfectly in line with the original Aristotelian understanding of the notion of essence, for the Latin-based word essence is
just the standard translation of a phrase of Aristotles which is more
literally translated into English as the what it is to be or the what it
would be to be (Lowe 2008a, p. 35). We find a similar turn of phrase
in Lockes Essay, where he tells us that the word essence, in what he
calls its proper original signification just means the very being of any
thing, whereby it is, what it is (Locke 1975, III, III, 15).
It will be helpful at this point to proceed by way of examples, the
first of which I borrow from Spinoza. Consider a familiar geometrical
figure, such as a circle. And suppose that someone asks us what a circle
is. This can be understood as a request for a real definition of this kind
of geometrical figure not a request for the meaning of the English
word circle, for which we would do well simply to resort to a good
English dictionary. And here, plausibly, is the real definition that is
required (one that will typically be found in textbooks of elementary
geometry):
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(E1) An ellipse is the locus of a point moving continuously in a

plane in such a fashion that the sum of the distances between it and two other fixed points remains constant
These fixed points are the ellipses foci. By contrast, consider this
alternative description of an ellipse (as a type of conic section),
which is equally true of all ellipses:
(E2) An ellipse is the closed curve of intersection between a cone
and a plane cutting it at an oblique angle to its axis greater
than that of the cones side
This, I suggest, tells us a necessary property of all ellipses, but not the
essence of an ellipse what an ellipse is. For it does not capture an
ellipses generating principle. It characterizes an ellipse in terms that
are extrinsic to its nature as the particular kind of geometrical figure
that it is. Certainly, one can make an elliptically shaped surface by
cutting a cone in the prescribed fashion, but this procedure does not
really explain why it is that what is so produced is an ellipse. On the
other hand, once we understand what an ellipse is, by learning its real
definition, we can go on to understand why it is that the cutting
procedure in question generates an ellipse, as opposed to any other
11
It may be noted that this definition, which I take from a typical dictionary of mathematics (Baker 1961, p. 120), prevents us from regarding a circle as being a special case of an
ellipse. However, it is debatable whether we should do that anyway. The standard equations of
a circle and an ellipse are certainly different, being x2 + y2 = r2 and x2/a2 + y2/b2 = 1 respectively.
But it is easy to modify definition (E1) so as to avoid this consequence, if that is desired.
Instead of speaking of two other fixed points, we can speak of a fixed point P and a fixed
point Q, leaving it open whether these points are identical or different. A corresponding
modification to (E2) is equally easily made, by substituting right or oblique angle for oblique
angle.
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of generation (not, for instance, in the case of God, as traditionally

conceived, nor, plausibly, in the case of universals, at least if these are
regarded as eternal entities). Moreover, although all of my geometrical
examples will be drawn from Euclidean geometry, nothing of significance hinges on this for my present purposes. The question of which
geometry best describes the space of the actual physical world is in
large measure an empirical one. But we must at least understand
what any given Euclidean or non-Euclidean figure is, by grasping its
essence, if we are to be able to determine, on empirical grounds,
whether or not figures of that type actually characterize regions of
physical space.
Here is another geometrical example:11
19
A definition, if it is to be called perfect, must explain the inmost essence of

a thing, and must take care not to substitute for this any of its
properties. If a circle be defined as a figure, such that all straight lines
drawn from the centre to the circumference are equal, everyone can see
that such a definition does not in the least explain the essence of a circle,
but solely one of its properties. If the thing in question be created, [its]
definition must comprehend [its] proximate cause. For instance, a circle
12
Note that it is still true of such an ellipse that it would be a conic section of the kind
specified in (E2), if cones existed, and in that sense it can still be said to possess the necessary
property in question.
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kind of geometrical figure. The reverse does not seem to hold: taking
an ellipse to be the shape we get when we cut a cone in the prescribed
fashion does not help us to understand why an ellipse is the locus of a
point moving continuously in a plane in such a fashion that the sum
of the distances between it and two other fixed points remains
constant.
So, at least, I suggest. The necessary property of all ellipses that I have
just identified that of being a closed curve of intersection between a
cone and a plane cutting it at an oblique angle to its axis greater than
that of the cones side holds of all ellipses not purely in virtue of their
essence, but at least partly in virtue of the essence of a quite different
kind of geometrical object, a cone. That is what I mean by saying that
to characterize an ellipse in terms of this property is to characterize it
in terms that are extrinsic to its nature as the particular kind of geometrical figure that it is. Here is another way of making this point: an
ellipse can exist even in a purely two-dimensional space, but a cone
can exist only in a space of at least three dimensions hence it cannot
be right to define an ellipse in terms of its relationship to a cone, since
ellipses can exist perfectly well without cones.12 Yet another way of
making the same point is the following: an ellipse evidently does not
depend for its identity on any cone of which it may happen to be a
section, but it does depend for its identity on the distances between its
foci and the sum of the distances between them and any point on the
ellipse.
As I intimated earlier, the view of essence and real definition that I
have just been articulating is one with a lengthy philosophical pedigree. We find it, for instance, in Spinozas On the Improvement of the
Understanding, where indeed he uses the example of a circle with
which I began:
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should, according to this rule, be defined as follows: the figure described by

any line whereof one end is fixed and the other free. [The] definition of
a thing should be such that all the properties of that thing, in so far as it is
considered by itself, and not in conjunction with other things, can be
deduced from it, as may be seen in the definition given of a circle: for from
that it clearly follows that all straight lines drawn from the centre to the
circumference are equal. (Spinoza 1955, p. 35)
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In citing Spinoza here, I do not mean to suggest that I endorse every

aspect of his conceptions of essence and real definition. For my purposes, perhaps the most important feature of the foregoing passage
from On the Improvement of the Understanding is the distinction that
Spinoza draws between the inmost essence of a thing, as revealed by
its real definition, and that things properties, by which he means
necessary features of the thing that are not included in its very essence,
but which may be deduced from its real definition. In drawing this
distinction, Spinoza was, of course, merely falling in line with a tradition reaching back, via the mediaeval Scholastics, to Aristotle. It will
be noted, incidentally, that in the cited passage Spinoza uses more
than once the language of explanation and I have no objection to
that. Real definitions are, doubtless, in some sense explanatory principles, serving as they do to improve our understanding concerning
the natures of things. But the general notion of explanation is a broad
and multifaceted one, with explanations falling into a number of different species (for instance, logical, mathematical, causal, teleological,
and psychological). The general notion of explanation is not, consequently, a notion that is fit to be appealed to in order to frame a
perspicuous account of essence. Rather, I think we should regard
essence-based explanation just as one more distinctive species of explanation and this requires us to provide an account of essence
which does not simply appeal to an already assumed notion of explanation. I believe that the Aristotelian approach to essence in terms
of real definition, if carefully and judiciously pursued, achieves precisely this.
Now, any essential truth is ipso facto a metaphysically necessary truth,
although not vice versa: there can be metaphysically necessary truths
that are not essential truths understanding an essential truth to be a
truth concerning the essence of some entity. If we can truly affirm that
it is part of the essence of some entity, E, that p is the case, then p is an
essential truth and so a metaphysically necessary truth. Thus, for example, it is part of the essence of a certain ellipse, E, that its foci are a
certain distance apart, whence it follows that it is metaphysically
21
13
Strictly, of course, I should have said that planes are also involved in the explanation. But
that does nothing to diminish the point being made and there is, in any case, a good reason to
distinguish the role of planes in the explanation from that of cones, since planes must on any
account feature in the essence of ellipses, the latter being essentially planar figures.
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necessary that Es foci are that distance apart. By somethings being a

part of the essence of a certain entity, I just mean that it either is the
whole essence of that entity or else is properly included in its essence.
Thus, for instance, since the essence of an ellipse is that it is the locus of
a point moving continuously in a plane in such a fashion that the sum of
the distances between it and two other fixed points remains constant, and
having foci a certain distance apart is properly included in this essence,
it is part of the essence of an ellipse that it has foci a certain distance
apart but this is obviously not the whole essence of an ellipse, since
it is also part of the essence of an ellipse that the sum of the distances
between its foci and any point on the ellipse is constant. Consider now
a metaphysically necessary truth such as the fact that an ellipse is the
closed curve of intersection between a cone and a plane cutting it at an
oblique angle to its axis greater than that of the cones side. It is not part
of the essence of any ellipse that this condition holds, nor is it part of
the essence of any cone that it does. What is very plausible to contend,
however, is that this metaphysically necessary truth holds in virtue of
the essences of an ellipse and a cone, which are two quite distinct
essences. It is because of what an ellipse is, and what a cone is, that
this relationship necessarily holds between ellipses and cones. But it is
not part of anythings essence that it holds. For ellipses and cones,
which are the only things whose essences have a role to play in explaining why this necessary truth holds, are quite different things. Nor
is there any such thing as a cone-ellipse, part of whose essence it
could be that this truth obtains.13 Our proposal concerning metaphysically necessary truths is, then, this: a metaphysically necessary truth is
a truth which is either an essential truth or else a truth that obtains
in virtue of the essences of two or more distinct things. On this account, all metaphysical necessity (and by the same token all metaphysical possibility) is grounded in essence.
A concern that might be raised here is that our example of ellipses
and cones concerns geometrical objects, rather than material ones
for it might be suspected that our account cannot easily be extended to
cover the latter. I think this concern is unfounded. Consider instead,
for instance, material objects of the following two kinds: a bronze
statue and a lump of bronze. I would urge that it is a metaphysically
necessary truth, obtaining in virtue of the essences of such objects
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obtaining, that is to say, in virtue of what a bronze statue is and what a

lump of bronze is that at any time at which it exists a bronze statue
coincides with a lump of bronze, which is numerically distinct from that
statue. Likewise, it is a metaphysical possibility, again obtaining in
virtue of the essences of such objects, that the same bronze statue
should coincide with different lumps of bronze at different times.
And I say this despite the protestations of some metaphysicians that
they do not understand how such things can be the case how, for
instance, two numerically distinct things, one of them a bronze statue
and the other a lump of bronze, can be composed of exactly the same
bronze particles at one and the same time (Olson 2001). If they genuinely do not understand this, then I say that they have not properly
grasped what a bronze statue is or what a lump of bronze is. For in
grasping those essences they would grasp what the identity and persistence conditions of such objects are, and thereby know that these
are different and that in virtue of these different identity and persistence conditions the truths that they purport not to understand are
indeed truths (Lowe 2003, Lowe 2008b).
Of course, I recognize that my view of statue/lump cases is a controversial one, which will be disputed by many so-called four-dimensionalist theorists of material persistence, even if I am far from being
alone in holding it. But this only goes to show that philosophers can
have honest disagreements about questions of essence. I would only
seek from my four-dimensionalist opponents an acknowledgement
that if I am right concerning the essences of statues and lumps, then
there is no mystery as to how and why they can coincide spatiotemporally and yet be numerically distinct. If they were to recognize this,
they might even be brought to see that their opposition to the threedimensionalist view which even they acknowledge to be commonsensical is unfounded, for one of their chief objections to it is the
alleged mysteriousness of spatiotemporal coincidence between numerically distinct material things, to which three-dimensionalism seems to
be committed.
While on the topic of the essences of material objects, it might be
appropriate to say something more about the essences of natural kinds
of material substance, such as water, briefly touched upon earlier in
connection with the frequently made claim that it is a metaphysically
necessary, but a posteriori, truth that water is H2O. As I indicated
then, I am sceptical about such a claim, and correspondingly sceptical
that it is truly part of the essence of water that all and only water is
(chiefly) composed of H2O molecules. This is a thorny issue that is too
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complex to be gone into in detail here, but let me just say that my own
view is that it is only naturally, not metaphysically, necessary that all
and only water is (chiefly) composed of H2O molecules, because the
natural laws governing the chemical behaviour of hydrogen and
oxygen atoms could have been significantly different, with the consequence that atoms of those types in chemical combination might not
have composed a substance with any of the typical chemical properties
of water (a point rather compellingly made in Putnam 1990a; see also
Lowe 2011).
It will be recalled that, according to the currently prevailing modal
account of essence, an entity s essence consists in the set or sum of its
essential properties, these being the properties that it possesses in
every possible world in which it exists. Hence, according to this
view, an entity s essence is a further entity, namely, a set or sum of
certain properties. According to my version of the neo-Aristotelian
account of essence, however, an entity s essence is not some further
entity (Lowe 2008a, pp. 3840). Rather, an entity s essence is just what
that entity is, as revealed by its real definition. But what E is is not
some entity distinct from E. It is either identical with E (and some
scholars think that this was Aristotles view) or else it is no entity at all:
and the latter is my own view. On my view, we can quite properly say
that it is part of the essence of a certain entity, E, that it possesses a
certain property, P. But this does not entitle us to say that P is a part of
the essence of E (Lowe 2008a, p. 39). The latter would imply that Es
essence is a further entity, with P as a part, which accords with the
orthodox view that Es essence is a set or sum of certain properties.
But I have rejected that view. We should not, in my opinion, reify
essences. And although I speak of essences as having parts, I have
already explained what I mean by this, in a way that does not require
us to reify essences. Note that there is a particularly objectionable
feature of the view that an entity s essence is some further entity.
This is that, since it seems proper to say that every entity has an
essence, the view generates an infinite regress of essences (Lowe
2008a, p. 39). Neither the view that an entity is identical with its
own essence, nor my preferred view that an entity s essence is not
an entity at all, has this defect. And my view, as we shall shortly see,
has an additional advantage when we come to consider the epistemology of essence, that is, the proper account of our knowledge of
essence.
Before we come to that, however, we must consider a prior question. I have said that an entity s real definition reveals its essence
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tells us what that entity is. But is it the case that every entity has a real
definition? If real definitions are at all similar to verbal definitions, one
might suppose that at least some entities are really indefinable. For
instance, I suggested earlier that the predicates red and green are
verbally indefinable, meaning thereby that we cannot find complex
synonyms for them employing other terms, in the way that unmarried
male is a synonym for bachelor. Is it similarly true that we cannot
say, non-circularly, what red is? I do not think so, because I think we
can provide red with an ostensive real definition. I can point to a
colour-sample and say red is this colour, or perhaps, more precisely
(since we need to acknowledge the many different shades of red) red is
any shade of colour that is similar in hue to this shade. Notice that the
predicate is similar in hue to this shade is certainly not a synonym for
is red, so such an ostensive definition will not serve as a verbal definition of the word red. It might be objected that, by this account, it
will be part of the essence of red that it is similar in hue to this shade,
where this shade picks out the ostended shade and yet, one might
suppose, red could easily have existed even if this shade had not.
However, by this shade I assume that we are referring to a certain
colour-universal, not to a certain colour-trope, even if this kind of
demonstrative reference is a case of deferred reference that is to
say, even though it is secured via ostension of a certain colour-trope.
And it is not objectionable, I think, to hold that there is an essential
connection between all the determinate colour-universals that are
shades of red. Anyway, I do think we should accept that we human
beings, at least, can sometimes only provide ostensive real definitions
for entities of certain kinds, but that such definitions are as genuinely
revelatory of essences as are non-ostensive real definitions.
Note that the foregoing case of colours is not one in which it can
plausibly be maintained that a real definition should proceed by way
of revealing the generating principle of the entity being defined, as
was appropriate in the Spinozan example of a circle. For one thing, I
am speaking of colour-universals and, as I observed earlier, it is not
plausible to talk of generating principles in their case. It is true that
we can, in an efficient causal sense, generate instances of certain
physical colours by, for example, mixing lights of different wavelengths. However, the colours of which I am now speaking are phenomenal colours, and Locke seems right to have supposed that these
all have simple natures, apparently rendering them amenable only to
what I am calling ostensive real definition at least as far as a
human grasp of their essence is concerned. This, however, then
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raises the question of how I can warrant my earlier claim that it is

metaphysically necessary that a uniformly coloured surface is not at
once both red and green. For how, it may be asked, does this follow
from the supposed ostensive real definitions of red and green? My
initial answer is that in grasping what red is and what green is, by
grasping ostensive real definitions of them, we thereby also grasp
their mutual exclusivity, and thus that what is red is necessarily not
green. There is no formal logical deduction of this available, as it is
formally deducible from the real definitions of a square and a triangle
that no geometrical figure can be both square and triangular. But, I
suggest, we can still infer, with equal assurance, from appropriate
ostensive real definitions of red and green, that no uniformly coloured
surface can have both of these colours simultaneously. However, I also
have a supplementary answer to the question just posed. This is that a
satisfactory real definition of colour will imply that different
colour-determinables, and different colour-determinates of the same
colour-determinable, are mutually exclusive. Given, then, that red and
green are different colour-determinables, their mutual exclusivity follows. These two answers are by no means in tension with each other:
indeed, they are mutually complementary. For ostensive real definitions of red and green along the lines proposed above for example,
red is this colour, or red is any shade of colour that is similar in hue
to this shade define them as being colours, whence those definitions
inherit the implications of the real definition of colour.
I acknowledge that some of the claims made in the preceding two
paragraphs are controversial and call for further examination. For
now, however, I would only point out that these claims are not central
to my overall position concerning essence and real definition and that
I am, in principle, open to persuasion that some entities are, as I put it
earlier, really indefinable in which case, it seems, the only metaphysically necessary truths concerning such entities will be perfectly
general ones applying to any entity whatever, such as that every entity
is necessarily identical with itself. Clearly, though, red and green are at
least essentially colours, so that even if the difference between them
were deemed to be really indefinable, we should surely still allow
that they admit of partial real definition. I have highlighted the case
of red and green precisely in order to open up for discussion the
important question of whether all entities can reasonably be supposed
to have (complete) real definitions. A negative answer to this question
would, of course, by no means imply that no entities have real definitions (whether partial or complete).
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7. An essence-based account of modal knowledge
Mind, Vol. 0 . 0 . 2013
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Given that all metaphysical modality is grounded in essence, we can

have knowledge of metaphysical modality, provided we can have
knowledge of essence. Can we? Most assuredly we can. We have already seen this in the case of geometrical figures, such as an ellipse.
Knowing an entity s essence is simply knowing what that entity is. And
at least in the case of some entities, we must be able to know what they
are, because otherwise it would be hard to see how we could know
anything at all about them. How, for example, could I know that a
certain ellipse had a certain eccentricity, if I did not know what an
ellipse is? In order to think comprehendingly about something, I surely
need to know what it is that I am thinking about (Lowe 2008a, pp. 356).
And sometimes, at least, we surely succeed in thinking comprehendingly about something for if we do not, then we surely never succeed in thinking at all, which is absurd. Here it may be objected that
currently prevailing causal or direct theories of reference precisely
deny that a thinker must know what it is that s/he is thinking about in
order to be able to think about it. For, on this account, a thinker need
not grasp the sense of some referring expression in order to be able
to refer successfully by means of such an expression to its referent:
rather, reference is supposedly secured by a causal connection between
the expression and the thing referred to. This is not the place for me to
enter into a full-scale debate about theories of reference. I would only
urge that, even if the causal approach accommodates some of our
referential practices, it does not make sense to suppose that, for successful reference to occur, no one need ever know what it is that they
are thinking about. It suffices for my purposes that at least sometimes
a thinker must be able to know this.
Here another objection may be raised, as follows. Sometimes, it may
be conceded, we have a concept of what it is that we are thinking
about: but that is all, and we cannot be entitled ever to suppose
that anything actually falls under that concept. For instance, we
might have the concept of a table, and believe that we are thinking
about such a thing: but for all that, it might well be that in reality there
are no tables, and hence no table for us to be thinking about. But let us
remind ourselves what concepts are. And note that in thus reminding
ourselves we are recalling the essence of a concept: what a concept is. I
earlier proposed that a concept is a way of thinking of some thing or
kind of things. But ways of thinking of things can be more or less
adequate to the nature of the things in question that is, more or
27
14
I use the term adequate here in conscious emulation of its use by seventeenth-century
philosophers such as Descartes and Arnauld, but as the present paper is not primarily a
historical one I am loath to go into the question of how far such philosophers would agree
with the characterization of adequacy that I offer immediately below.
Mind, Vol. 0 . 0 . 2013
Lowe 2013
less adequate reflections of their essence.14 A childs way of thinking of

a triangle is less adequate than that of an experienced geometer. A
concept of an entity E is fully adequate only if it captures the whole
essence of E. Now, I concede that a thinker may be able to think of
some entity without fully grasping its whole essence, and this is no
doubt the case with the childs thought about triangles. But I see no
reason to suppose that we may never fully grasp the whole essence of
any kind of entity. Bear in mind, too, that we want to allow that we
can grasp the essences not only of actually existing things, but also, at
least sometimes, of non-existent things things such as unicorns and
mermaids, perhaps. So I can happily allow that sometimes, in thinking
about something, we succeed in grasping its essence and hence in
thinking about it, even though no such thing actually exists. I believe
that I know, for instance, what a table is or would be, and hence grasp
the essence of such a thing and can thereby think about tables: but this
does not commit me to acknowledging the actual existence of tables. I
might be open to persuasion, by a suitably ingenious philosopher, that
tables do not really exist (van Inwagen 1990, Merricks 2001). But if I am
even to be able to understand what such a philosopher is contending, I
must surely know what a table is or would be what its essence is.
Otherwise, I do not really know what it is whose actual existence the
philosopher is denying, when s/he denies that tables actually exist.
However, only a global sceptic is going to affirm that, quite possibly,
nothing that we can think about actually exists, including even ourselves and our thoughts. And such an all-embracing scepticism is
self-undermining and incoherent. So I find nothing in the present
line of attack to suggest that I am wrong in supposing that we can,
at least sometimes, grasp the essences of at least some things including some actually existing things and thereby come to know some
modal truths.
I should stress that nothing of significance turns on my choice here
of tables as an example, which I use merely for purposes of illustration.
I am, in principle, open to persuasion not merely that no tables really
exist, but even, perhaps, that there is nothing that a table is or would
be that is, that there is no essence to be grasped in this instance and
so no corresponding real definition that is available. Perhaps a philosopher who regards tables in much the same way that Wittgenstein
28
E. J. Lowe
15
In the case of games, Suits 1978 is particularly instructive concerning this. I am indebted
to Colin McGinn for drawing my attention to this remarkable book.
Mind, Vol. 0 . 0 . 2013
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regarded games would seek to persuade me of this. My response here

is not to dig my heels in over the particular case of tables, but only to
insist that there is a limit to how far such a scepticism about essences
can be taken, and that this limit must, once more, fall far short of a
global scepticism. At the same time, I think it should not too readily be
conceded that neither tables nor even games are susceptible to real
definition. Framing a satisfactory real definition is by no means always
an easy matter, and difficulties in doing so should not always be
assumed to be indicative of a misguided quest.15
I mentioned earlier that, according to my account of essence, essences are not entities. This means that grasping an essence knowing
what something is is not, by my account, a kind of knowledge by
acquaintance of a special kind of entity, the thing in questions essence.
All that grasping an essence amounts to, on my view, is understanding
a real definition, that is, understanding a special kind of proposition. To
know what a circle is, for instance, I need to understand that a circle is
the locus of a point moving continuously in a plane at a fixed distance
from a given point. Provided that I understand what a point and a plane
are, and what motion and distance are, I can understand what a circle
is, by grasping this real definition. And bear in mind that I do not
insist that we need fully grasp the whole essence of a thing in order to
be able to think about it to some degree adequately, so that even if I do
not fully grasp what motion, say, is, I can still achieve at least a partial
grasp of what a circle is by means of the foregoing real definition. If, by
contrast, knowledge of essence were knowledge by acquaintance of a
special kind of entity, then indeed we would have cause to be doubtful
about our ability ever to grasp the essences of things. For what mental
faculty of ours could possibly be involved in this special kind of acquaintance? Surely not our faculty of sense perception. Sense perception may provide us with knowledge by acquaintance of concrete,
physical things, existing in space and time, but hardly with their essences, conceived as further entities somehow grounding modal truths
about those concrete things. If appeal is instead made to some special
intellectual faculty of rational insight, with essences as its special
objects, then one is open to the charge of anti-naturalistic obscurantism. My own account of what it is to grasp an essence appeals only to
an intellectual ability that, by any account, we must already be
29
References
Baker, C. C. T. 1961: Dictionary of Mathematics. London: George
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Bealer, George 2002: Modal Epistemology and the Rationalist
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16
I am grateful for comments received when earlier versions of this paper were presented
to audiences at the University of Miami, the University of Georgia at Athens, the University of
Nebraska at Omaha, and Durham University. I should also like to thank three anonymous
referees for Mind and the Editor of Mind, who very generously provided me with some
extremely helpful criticisms of preceding drafts of this paper.
Mind, Vol. 0 . 0 . 2013
Lowe 2013
acknowledged to possess: the ability to understand at least some propositions, including those that express real definitions.
We now have in place the basic ingredients for a thoroughgoing
epistemology of metaphysical modality although, of course, much
still remains to be said about the details. Put simply, the theory is this.
Metaphysical modalities are grounded in essence. That is, all truths
about what is metaphysically necessary or possible are either straightforwardly essential truths or else obtain in virtue of the essences of
things. An essence is what is expressed by a real definition. And it is
part of our essence as rational, thinking beings that we can at least
sometimes understand a real definition which is just a special kind
of proposition and thereby grasp the essences of at least some
things. Hence, we can know at least sometimes that something is
metaphysically necessary or possible: we can have some knowledge of
metaphysical modality. This itself is a modal truth, of course, and one
that obtains in virtue of our essence as rational, thinking beings. And
since we can, it seems clear, grasp our own essence, at least sufficiently
well to know the foregoing modal truth about ourselves, we know that
we can have some knowledge of metaphysical modality. Indeed, to
demonstrate that this is so, and why it is so, has been the ultimate
objective of this paper.16
30
E. J. Lowe
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Fine, Kit 1994: Essence and Modality . In Tomberlin 1994, pp. 116.
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Philosophical Quarterly, 45, pp. 4159.
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for Natural Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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2008a: Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence. In Le
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2008, pp. 7389.
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31
Appendix 1: Proof that hA F (` .T A)

By principle (.T)
(1)
(` .T A) F (h(` = A) & (-` _ hA))
But (` = A) is truth-functionally equivalent to A, so that the RHS of

(1) is logically equivalent to
(2)
(hA & (-` _ hA))
And (2) is truth-functionally equivalent to hA. Hence, by substitution

of logical equivalents in (1),
(3)
(` .T A) F hA
QED
Appendix 2: Proof that ((X .T A) & (X .T A)) F hA

By principle (.T)
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1990b: Realism with a Human Face. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.
Roca-Royes, Sonia 2011: Conceivability and De Re Modal
Knowledge. Nous, 45, pp. 2249.
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E. J. Lowe
(1)
((X .T A) & (X .T A)) F (h(X = A) & (-X _ hA) &

h(X = A) & (-X _ hA))
But (h(X = A) & h(X = A)) is logically equivalent to h((X = A)

& (X = A)) and hence logically equivalent to hA, since ((X = A) &
(X = A)) is truth-functionally equivalent to A. Hence, by substitution of logical equivalents, the RHS of (1) is logically equivalent to
(2)
(hA & (-X _ hA) & (-X _ hA))
(3)
(hA & (-X _ hA))
which is again truth-functionally equivalent to hA. Hence, the RHS of

(1) is logically equivalent to hA and so, by substitution of logical
equivalents in (1),
(4)
((X .T A) & (X .T A)) F hA
QED
Appendix 3: Proof that (A .T o) is necessarily false

By principle (.T)
(1)
(A .T o) F (h(A = o) & (-A _ ho))
However, (A = o) is truth-functionally equivalent to A, so that the

RHS of (1) is logically equivalent to
(2)
(hA & (-A _ ho))
which is logically equivalent to

(3)
(hA & (hA _ ho))
But (3) is truth-functionally equivalent to (hA & ho), which is

necessarily false. Hence, (A .T o), being logically equivalent to
(3), is likewise necessarily false.
QED
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However, (hA & (-X _ hA)) is truth-functionally equivalent to hA,

whence by substitution of logical equivalents (2) is logically equivalent
to

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What is the Source of Our Knowledge of

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What is the Source of Our Knowledge of Modal Truths?

2. Imagination, conceivability, and intuition

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conceivability are themselves modal notions, these being the notions,

What is the Source of Our Knowledge of Modal Truths?

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chiliagon a thousand-sided figure for this purpose: we cannot

What is the Source of Our Knowledge of Modal Truths?

3. Modal knowledge as a special case of counterfactual

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likely to be as adequate as that of a mathematician well-versed in

It seems clear that we engage in counterfactual thinking of this kind

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not to our capacities of imagination or conception merely as such, but

What is the Source of Our Knowledge of Modal Truths?

counterfactual conditional (Williamson 2007, p. 156). The necessary

4. Some objections to the counterfactual-based account of

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assert this particular counterfactual, which strikes me as being plainly

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is just equivalent to It is necessarily the case that A (see Appendix 2).

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What is the Source of Our Knowledge of Modal Truths?

my (h*) can be in conflict, given that the right-hand side of his

Williamsons proposed way of understanding metaphysical necessity

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What is the Source of Our Knowledge of Modal Truths?

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modality. On the other hand, if he were to appeal instead to our

6. Essence and metaphysical modality

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What is the Source of Our Knowledge of Modal Truths?

A circle is the locus of a point moving continuously in a

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have at our disposal some resources wherewith to accomplish this,

(E1) An ellipse is the locus of a point moving continuously in a

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of generation (not, for instance, in the case of God, as traditionally

What is the Source of Our Knowledge of Modal Truths?

A definition, if it is to be called perfect, must explain the inmost essence of