Meanings
plural necessitations
- countableuncountablehuman sciencesNecessity, understood as a logical or other philosophical principle, or as a law or force of nature.
Moral obligation is not necessitation. The moral law commands but does not coerce us.
1894, J. G. Schurman, “The Consciousness of Moral Obligation”, in The Philosophical Review, volume 3, number 6, page 6413 more examples
The voluntary actions of men are now seen to claim an equal freedom from the necessitation of natural causes.
1896, J. Clark Murray, “The Idealism of Spinoza”, in The Philosophical Review, volume 5, number 5, page 485Determinism is an example: it alleges that all the seeming irregularities and spontaneities in the world are haunted by an omnipresent system of strict necessitation.
1957, J. W. N. Watkins, “Between Analytic and Empirical”, in Philosophy, volume 32, number 121, page 114In virtue of their contents, psychological states stand in logical relations like incompatibility, material implication, and conceptual necessitation.
2001, Eric Marcus, “Mental Causation: Unnaturalized but Not Unnatural”, in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, volume 63, number 1, page 79
Origin
Cite this entry
necessitation. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/necessitation
“necessitation.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/necessitation. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “necessitation,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/necessitation.
Source: necessitation on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.