PSA: Be sceptical of modal talk

Modal talk is everything that has to do with possibility, necessity, possible worlds, etc. These concepts are often used by philosophers in argument, notably the modal argument for god existence (if it's possible god exists, then god necessarily exists) or the zombie argument against materialist accounts of consciousness (it's possible zombies exist, etc), the fine tuning argument (it's possible the physical constants are different from what they are), among many others. One thing these arguments have in common is that they rely on quite strong, realistic account of modality; they take modal talk seriously. I'd just want to point that you don't need to take modal talk that seriously, at least not without justification, and you can also have different view on it. There's different degrees of skepticism about modality (that's a quick and dirty overview, don't shoot me, but please give correction/additional info) : - Possible world realism (Lewis) : Possible worlds are real, concrete or abstract entities, and "possible" just means "true in some of these worlds". - Fictionalism about possible worlds: Possible worlds are useful fictions, like a philosophical model. Talking about them can help clarify ideas, but it's just a manner of speaking. This is not necessarily skepticism about modality in general, more about the possible world account of it. - Aristotelian accounts of modality / Branching actualism (e.g. Graham Oppy): Possibility isn't about alternate worlds, but about potentialities in this one. A block of marble has the potential to be a statue. "Possible" just means nothing in the current state of this world prevents it. This makes many philosophical "possibilities" (like other-worldly zombies) irrelevant, because they aren't rooted in actual potentialities. I think that's how Oppy answered the fine tuning argument in his recent video with Alex (link bellow) - Deflationary accounts / skepticism (e.g. Bob Fischer): Modal talk is theory-based; given a theory one can makes predictions about what is possible and what is not. And we select our theories using explanatory/predictive power, simplicity etc. If our best theory is naturalism then there's no zombies (and not : zombies are possible so naturalism is false). Or Van Inwagen modal skepticism about modal claims (modal claims are fine for ordinary things like "the bottle could be here instead of there" but not for things far-removed from ordinary experience). - Necessitarianism (e.g. Amy Karofsky). Everything is necessary, the actual world is the only possible world. I'm not sure that's a kind of skepticism but it also makes all these modal arguments moot. The point is, when someone starts with "It's possible that..." as a premise, you should ask yourself: "What do you mean by possible? And why should I accept that your sense of possible tells me anything about reality?" Personally I'm not settled on the matter, but I like Bob Fischer's theory-based account. * * * A few references : Kane B : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-eSa9KROgo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-eSa9KROgo) Amy Karofsk : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf0BjBBGjxA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf0BjBBGjxA) Oppy : [https://youtu.be/kl6AfEP2SNI?t=4267](https://youtu.be/kl6AfEP2SNI?t=4267) Van Inwagen: [https://www.jstor.org/stable/41487638](https://www.jstor.org/stable/41487638) Bob Fischer : [https://www.jstor.org/stable/26444808](https://www.jstor.org/stable/26444808)