Abstract

The philosophical question of the nature and modes of human possibility is one which has received attention from a variety of perspectives—the scientific, the linguistic, and the phenomenological. The particular issue I would like to focus on here is the question whether there is a distinctive mode of human possibility which distinguishes man from other natural beings or entities. What I will try to show is that an analysis of modal terms expressing possibility indicates that man does have a unique mode of possibility and that this mode of possibility is one which is central to existentialism in general and to some forms of existential phenomenology.