Difference Between Logical Possibility and Metaphysical Possibility

Logical Possibility vs Metaphysical Possibility

逻辑可能性和形而上学的possibility are two of the four types of subjective possibility in the course of modal logic. The statements or possibility propositions are using moods or modal words like necessarily, accidentally, might, possibly, essentially, could, contingently, must, and others with the likes of it.

Logical Possibility

The logical possibility is the most widely discussed type of possibility because of its extensive explanations. You can consider a statement logically possible one if there are no contradictions for it to be true. For example, the statement “Julian is sickly” is considered logically possible since “Julian” and “sickly” is not contradicting each other. But the statement “Julian is healthy sick” is logically impossible because “healthy” and “sick” are contradicting.

Metaphysical Possibility

Metaphysical possibility is a little bit narrower when it comes to the explanations and statements if you compare it to the logical possibility. But sometimes, philosophers interchange them since they are closely related. To put it in an example for better understanding, the proposition “Salt is NaCl” is metaphysically possible since salt really is a compound of Sodium (Na) and Chloride (Cl).

Difference between Logical Possibility and Metaphysical Possibility

When you say that a statement is logically possible, there should not be any contradicting word or words in the whole statement while the metaphysically possible is a proposition that states the composition of an object. It’s pretty hard to understand their difference if not put into examples. Using Saul Kripke’s celebrated statement that “Water is not H2O”, the proposition is actually in the state of logical possibility since water and H2O is not contradictory but it’s also metaphysically impossible because water will always be H2O. Deeper studying regarding this matter is recommended.

The philosopher’s have been dealing these two types of possibilities for years already and even until now. They keep on debating between which is proper to use, the logical possibility or the metaphysical possibility since there are statements that are logically possible but metaphysically impossible like the one stated above.

In brief: • A statement is considered as logically possible if there are no contradicting word/s in the statement while a metaphysically possible statement if it tells the correct composition of an object. • A logically possible proposition doesn’t always mean metaphysically possible and a metaphysically possible statement can sometimes be logically impossible.