Quine, Statements, and `Necessarily True'

Modality and Anti-Metaphysics

“…In the next chapter I will argue that there is a significant class of modality, namely 20 As has been noted, Quine is prepared to admit the adverb 'necessarily' when it relates to natural necessity, but he construes this (1966,51) as conveying no more than regularity. 21 Quine's attribution of referential opacity to modal contexts is criticized by Wolfram (1975) and Millican (1993), both of whose arguments rest upon the premise that definite descriptions can have purely referential occurrence. I take that premise to be implausible, and indeed untenable, in view of my support for a broadly Fregean distinction between sense and reference (see Chapter 4).…”