ABSTRACT
The primary purpose of this chapter is to crystallize and formulate certain points which have not been dealt with at great length in previous chapters. In Section 1, I consider how Avicenna viewed quantifiers which occur in predicate contexts. In Section 2, I try to explain the syntax of quantifiers, qualifiers, and modal operators as these occur in predicate contexts. In Section 3, I try to present Avicenna’s explanation of modalities in predicate contexts. While to do with syntax, the discussion here is quickly revealed as one to do with essentialism. In Section 4, I try to present contemporary arguments which are leveled against modalities in predicate contexts. In Section 5, I show one way of using these criticisms against Avicenna’s modalities in predicate contexts, and one way his explanation can survive these criticisms. In Section 5, in light of previous sections, and in a preliminary way, I consider Avicenna’s distinction between necessity and essentialism. In Section 6, I try to determine the nature of the relations between antecedents and consequents in conditional statements and the modal nature of the quantifiers which govern such statements – in effect, whether causality in these contexts is still epistemic and therefore different from ontological causality. Even though I continue to defend the epistemic perspective I nevertheless point to a distinction in the Avicennian model between conditional modalities and predicative modalities.
