Modalities in Scientific Representation

The aim of this blog is to present the result of my Marie Skłodowska-Curie research project "Modalities in Scientific Representation", realised in Madrid between September 2021 and December 2023 (which was in direct continutation with my project realised at UNAM between 2019-2023).

A large spectrum of discourse in science is typically analysed in modal terms, that is, in terms of what is possible or necessary. This includes scientific explanations, physical laws and constraints, causation, counterfactual reasoning and probabilities. There is a large amount of literature on the metaphysics of natural necessity in science at a general level, with proposed analyses in terms of governing laws of nature, or dispositions, etc. However, necessity comes in many varieties and other kinds of modalities than natural necessity are involved in scientific discourse. This is certainly the case for epistemic modality, involved, for example, in assessing the credibility of a hypothesis, but it can also be the case for logical, conceptual or normative modalities. It is not always easy to identify which kind of modality is involved in a piece of scientific reasoning, and this difficulty is a source of debate not only among philosophers, but also among physicists, for example concerning the interpretation of probabilities in quantum mechanics. Arguably, the lack of a systematic way to disentangle various kinds of modalities is an obstacle to a finer understanding of what science tells us about the world.

The aim of this project is to overcome this problem pragmatically, by connecting the topic of modalities with that of scientific representation. Debates on scientific representation concern the relationship between representational vehicles (e.g. models), their users and their targets. The project is to examine the representational status of various kinds of modalities and modal structures and their relationship: whether they are represented, or whether they play a role in the very act of representing, for example, in assessing the accuracy or credibility of a model. The purpose is to arrive at a means of distinguishing different kinds of modalities pragmatically, so as to provide tools for interpreting the modal aspect of scientific theories and scientific discourse more precisely.

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The Variety of Modalities

Modals are expressed by words such as "must", "have to", "ought to", "may", "can", "could", "should", "necessarily", "possibly". As a general rule, something is said to be possible if it is not necessary that it is not the case, and conversely, something is necessary if it is not possible that it is not the case, but beyond this, there is a variety of use. Here are a few distinctions between various kinds of possibilities. I will discuss in the next articles some criteria for disinguishing them, and attempt to reach a taxonomy. A logical or conceptual possibility anything that is not self-contradictory, that makes sense, that one can express or conceive without reaching a logical contradiction (for example respecting the fact that for any proposition, it must be that either p or not p"). Example: it is conceivable that aliens exist. An epistemic possibility anything that is com

Objective and subjective modalities

Remember our list of kinds of modalities from the previous post: Logico-conceptual (Bachelor cannot be married) Epistemic (she might be at home) Metaphysical (water molecules are of the H2O kind) Natural (heavy objects must fall) Deontic (she must work tonight) Practical (we could use wood to build this plane) The two first modalities above, epistemic and logico-conceptual, are often thought to be mind-dependent or subjective, while the two next ones, metaphysical and natural, are mind-independent or objective (as for the two last ones, let us put them aside for now). Objective modalities are often used in order to analyse explanations or causation. These are the ones typically involved in counterfactual talk (if you had got up earlier, you woudn't have missed your train), although sometimes conceptual necessities are thus expressed as well (if he were a bachelor, he wouldn't be married). The distinction between objective and subjective modalities could be understood as

Beyond the Objective/Subjective Distinction

As we have seen in the previous post, we can make sense of the division between subjective and objective modalities in terms of whether they concern worldly objects, or rather our attitudes towards them. The target of necessary constraints (whether they are worldly or representational) matters, not the source of necessity. But what about the finer distinctions: what distinguishes between epistemic and conceptual possibility? And what distinguishes metaphysical and natural necessity? Consider epistemic and conceptual possibilities first. An hypothesis that flows naturally from our previous remarks is that the target of necessity is representational in both cases, but the source of necessity is markedly different in each case. With conceptual and logical necessity, the source of necessity, the origin of the constraint, lies in our representational capacities, in us, while with epistemic necessity, it lies in the external world. This means reintroducing an analytic/synthetic distinctio

Modalities in Representation

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