which we might call absolute and subsequent necessity.14 Something is absolutely necessary if it intrinsically cannot be otherwise. For instance, it is absolutely necessary that one plus one is two. By contrast, some things are necessary only on a certain assumption (§7, 603a). For instance, if we assume that you will finish reading this chapter, it necessarily follows from this that you will have read the chapter’s last sentence. But your having read that sentence would not become absolutely necessary: it would remain the case that you could have refrained from reading it.
