Modal Operators

Abstract

Notwithstanding her rejection of quantification over an absolutely comprehensive domain, a relativist about quantifiers may still be tempted to seek other means to generalize. This chapter concerns relativist-friendly modal operators. By modalizing her quantifiers, the relativist has a systematic way to attain absolute generality, which permits her to regiment her view with a single modal formula, and to frame an attractive modal axiomatization of the iterative conception of set. In addition to the immediate cost of admitting the relevant modality into her ideology, however, this approach leads to a hybrid version of relativism, which has some significant commonalities with absolutism about quantifiers.