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Sònia Roca-Royes examines the different ways in which things can be possible, necessary or impossible. Modality begins by distinguishing kinds of modal claims, then concentrates on metaphysical modality: the possibilities and necessities involved in questions about what things are and how reality could have been different.
The first part surveys modality as a broad phenomenon, including distinctions between knowledge, obligation and truth. It asks whether these different uses can be unified or whether their differences require separate explanations. The second part turns to the source of metaphysical modality, connecting theories of possibility to ideas about essence, dispositions and possible worlds.
The book provides a sustained philosophical discussion rather than a catalogue of modal expressions. Examples and conceptual distinctions show how apparently simple claims about what could happen raise questions about their grounds. Its concluding remarks return to the relationship between the general problem of modality and the particular issues that make it central to metaphysics.
Sònia Roca-Royes. Modality. Cambridge University Press, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009004596. Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0; the unchanged original edition and its required notices are retained.