MODALITY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Modality

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/mədˈæləti/ Listen

noun

Modality n.

The quality or state of being modal.

(Logic & Metaph.) A modal relation or quality; a mode or point of view under which an object presents itself to the mind. According to Kant, the quality of propositions, as assertory, problematical, or apodeictic.

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Etymology of 'Modality'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Modality" Quotes from Famous Books

... The most important modifications of extension are rest and motion. Among the modes of thought are understanding and will. These belong in the sphere of determinate and transitory being and do not hold of the natura naturans: God is exalted above all modality, above will and understanding, as above motion and rest. We must not assert of the natura naturata (the world as the sum of all modes), as of the natura naturans, that its essence involves existence (I. prop. ...

— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... aspects. Spinoza [24] starts with the idea of the Infinite, or the All-One, from which there is no logical deduction of the individual. And in Spinoza's system the individual does not exist except as a modality. But the existence of the individual is one of the primordial truths of the human mind, the foremost fact of consciousness. With this, therefore, Leibnitz begins, and arrives, by logical induction, to the Absolute and Supreme. Spinoza ends where he begins, in pantheism; the moral result ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... implication being that the speaker wishes to know the truth of the matter and that the person spoken to is expected to give him the information. The interrogative sentence possesses an entirely different "modality" from the declarative one and implies a markedly different attitude of the speaker towards his companion. An even more striking change in personal relations is effected if we interchange the farmer and the duckling. The duckling kills the farmer ...

— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir