Abstract

It is widely held that metaphysical modality is the broadest non-epistemic, alethic modality, and that a posteriori modal essentialist truths, like that gold has atomic number 79, enjoy the necessity of the broadest alethic modality. One prominent argument for these conclusions—given by Cian Dorr, John Hawthorne, and Juhani Yli-Vakkuri—rests upon an extremely dubious premise: that certain pairs of properties—e.g., being gold and being made of atoms containing 79 protons—are one and the very same property. The two properties are seen to be distinct on independent philosophical grounds. Metaphysical modality is in fact a restricted alethic modality. In particular, mathematical modality is broader than metaphysical modality. Arguably, the broadest alethic modality is logical modality, which is distinct from metaphysical modality. Even if it is metaphysically necessary that gold have atomic number 79, there is no logical/analytical inconsistency in the supposition that it does not.