Modal metaphysics and conceptual metaphysics
Here is a short paper version of my GAP.6 talk "Modal metaphysics and conceptual metaphysics", to appear in the GAP.6 proceedings. It has a lot less formulas than the talk.
I distinguish two metaphysical projects: modal metaphysics and conceptual metaphysics. I show that the two projects really are distinct, and that Frank Jackson's argument for the opposite conclusion doesn't work. Then I have a closer look at how the projects come apart, and suggest that when they do, the modal project always becomes metaphysically uninteresting. Thus the term "metaphysical modality" is a misnomer: metaphysical entailment only matters for metaphysics insofar as it coincides with conceptual entailment.
I suppose I should say a little more on what I call "modal back-reference", and on the sense in which what a sentence expresses can be conceptually independent of how things are in the actual world: doesn't what a sentence express always depend on what the sentence means? Unfortunately, I don't have a simple and uncontroversial answer to that, so I just ignored this point. Hopefully no-one will notice.