ABSTRACT
The topic of modality is one of the more flourishing areas in present-day philosophy of logic and language. Its remit – in brief – is to distinguish the various orders of necessity, possibility, epistemic warrant, explanatory (counterfactualsupporting) scope, and so forth, that characterise different types of statement in different areas of discourse.1 Since my discussion up to now has been largely concerned with clarifying the issue about scientific realism in light of these or kindred distinctions – some of which will no doubt strike the anti-realist or the sceptic as standing in need of further defence – I shall devote this last chapter to treating them in more detail and offering additional support where required. At the same time I shall take the opportunity to revisit various points raised in the course of this book and relate them more explicitly to issues in the area of modal or ‘possible worlds’ logic. For it is here that we can find the most intensive debate surrounding the status of scientific truth-claims and the extent to which science can advance such claims beyond the limits of empirical warrant or statements whose truth is purely a matter of their rational self-evidence or logical form.
