Kit Fine has since the 1970s been one of the leading contributors
to work at the intersection of logic and metaphysics. This is his
eagerly-awaited first book in the area. It draws together a series
of essays, three of them previously unpublished, on possibility,
necessity, and tense. These puzzling aspects of the way the world
is have been the focus of considerable philosophical attention in
recent decades. Fine gives here the definitive exposition and
defence of certain positions for which he is well known: the
intelligibility of modality de re; the primitiveness of the modal;
and the primacy of the actual over the possible. But the book also
argues for several positions that are not so familiar: the
existence of distinctive forms of natural and normative necessity,
not reducible to any form of metaphysical necessity; the need to
make a distinction between the worldly and the unworldly, analogous
to the distinction between the tensed and the tenseless; and the
viability of a non-standard form of realism about tense, which
recognizes the tensed character of reality without conceding that
there is any privileged standpoint from which it is to be viewed.
Modality and Tense covers a wide range of topics from many
different areas: the possible-worlds analysis of counterfactuals;
the compatibility of special relativity with presentism; the
implications of ethical naturalism; and the nature of
first-personal experience. A helpful introduction orients the
reader and offers a way into some of the most original work in
contemporary philosophy.
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