Quine and Plantinga on De Re Necessity

Abstract

Aristotle introduced the modal notion of possibility and necessity. In Aristotle’s language de dicto modality is that which involves the whole compound of subject and predicate. On the other hand, when a modal word qualifies only the predicate part of the statement, the modality is called de re. This paper examines Aristotle’s modal notion in context of Quine and Plantinga. For Quine if something necessarily has a property relative to a certain specification, then it does not really have the property necessarily. It also highlights on Plantinga’s revival of essence, for Plantinga, there is a necessity in contingency—an individual having a property in this world is necessarily determined by that world to have that property. This world-bound contingency becomes a necessary property which he will carry on from one world to another.