Nicolai Hartmann's Possibility and Actuality is the second volume of a four-part investigation
of ontology. It deals with such questions as: How do we know that something is really possible?
Is the possible only the actual? Is the actual only the possible? What is the difference
between ideal and real possibility?This groundbreaking work of modal analysis describes the
logical relations between possibility actuality and necessity and it provides insight into
the relations between modes of knowledge and modes of being. Hartmann reviews the history of
philosophical concepts of possibility and necessity from ancient Megarian philosophy to
Aristotle to Medieval Scholasticism to Leibniz Kant and Hegel. He explains the importance
of modal analysis as a basic investigative tool and he proposes an approach to understanding
the nature of human existence that unifies the fields of ontology modal logic metaphysics
and epistemology.This brilliant and fascinating work is relevant to many topics of debate in
contemporary philosophy including the ontology of possible worlds the metaphysics of modality
the logic of counterfactual conditionals and modal epistemology. It illuminates the nature of
real ideal logical and epistemic possibility.
