Conceptual necessity is a property of the certainty with which a state of affairs, as presented by a certain description, occurs: it occurs by conceptual necessity if and only if it occurs just by virtue of the meaning of the description. If someone is a
bachelor
A bachelor is a man who is not and has never been married.Bachelors are, in Pitt & al.'s phrasing, "men who live independently, outside of their parents' home and other institutional settings, who are neither married nor cohabitating". ().
Etymo ...
, for instance, then he is bound to be unmarried by conceptual necessity, because the meaning of the word "bachelor" determines that he is.
Alternatively, there is
metaphysical necessity In philosophy, metaphysical necessity, sometimes called broad logical necessity, is one of many different kinds of necessity, which sits between logical necessity and nomological (or physical) necessity, in the sense that logical necessity entails ...
, which is a certainty determined, not by the meaning of a description, but instead by facts in the world described.
Historically,
Baruch Spinoza was a subscriber to this belief.
See also
*
Modal logic
*
Analytic-synthetic distinction
References
Modal logic
Necessity
Concepts
Meaning (philosophy of language)
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