Modal Reasoning in Relationships

I have been thinking about how modal reasoning is something couples engage in (knowingly and unknowingly), and how we can leverage modal reasoning to enhance and uplift our relationships. “Modal reasoning” is central to philosophical analysis, ethics, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and even everyday decision-making. It’s what helps us imagine alternative realities, plan for uncertain outcomes, and explore hypothetical scenarios. Its that last item, “everyday decision-making” that interests me, and what I am going to write about today.

Modal reasoning offers us a type of logical thinking involving concepts like possibility, necessity, and contingency, which gives us tools to help analyze ideas and statements about what could be, must be, or might have been, rather than just what is.

Modal reasoning generally comes in 4 stripes:

1. Alethic: Concerned with truth, like possibility and necessity.
2. Epistemic: Related to knowledge and belief — e.g., “It might be the case that he knows.”
3. Deontic: About obligation and permission — e.g., “You must stop at a red light.”
4. Temporal: Concerning time — e.g., “It will eventually be the case that…”

As a basis for this discussion, I like to point out that as humans, we make up stories about something and operate as if that story is the truth. If we deal with what’s so rather than the story about what’s so, we have a chance of making progress. So, begin with, “That is what’s so,” which gives one the opportunity to create a possibility. That is where modal reasoning comes in. The thinking around creating a possibility is an example of alethic thinking When time is an issue, the process also involves temporal thinking. For this discussion, I am going to focus on alethic thinking alone.

Alethic thinking refers to a mode of reasoning or cognition that is concerned with truth—specifically, the nature, conditions, and modalities of truth. The term “alethic” comes from the Greek word alētheia (ἀλήθεια), meaning truth.

I like to say that knowing makes no difference, so we should not let fear intimidate us into inaction, but, even so, alethic thinking involves dealing with the truth of the moment as it is. In effect, examining what is necessarily true, what is possible, and what the contingencies are.

For example, alethic thinking means striving to be honest—not just in what you say, but in truly acknowledging your feelings and needs. It’s about examining whether your emotions and statements are in alignment with genuine truths about who you are and what you want. Thinking personally, an example is asking yourself, “Is it necessarily true that I’m unhappy in this relationship, or might my unhappiness be influenced by temporary stress?”

Further, alethic thinking involves critically assessing beliefs about one’s relationship that are often taken for granted. For example, you might ask yourself, “If trust in our partnership is a necessary condition for love, or is it something that has grown organically over time through our actions?” The process of examining questions like this can help clarify which elements are essential to your connection and which might be shaped by external circumstances.

Let’s look at the process of creating a possibility. It begins with the examination of the moment of reality you find yourself in – the truth – so to speak. Once you accept what’s so, you can then begin to imagine what could be possible in the relationship. Let’s take it out of the realm of relationship, and instead look at something personal. In my life, around the time I found myself alone after my ex-wife and I separated, I found myself preparing my own meals for the first time. I said, “If I am going to make food for myself, I am only going to make really delicious food from all over the world that I actually crave. I made the choice to start by learning how to make great pasta. I set out over the next few weeks learning about and making pasta till I perfected the recipe. Now, a decade later, my wife asks me to make pasta regularly. She says, “Your pasta is the best pasta I have ever had!” and she means it. My point is that I created the possibility of being an excellent eclectic competent cook who makes delicious food, and now, my wife, the most important person in my life, tells me that I am a chef.

Here is another idea that came out of alethic thinking in the context of relationship. When we had our first breakdown, we created the possibility that “breakdowns lead to breakthroughs”. That led to conversations about what we were committed to at the time, and what the mechanics of that process would look like in reality. My point is that it begins with accepting the truth of the moment. What’s so about things. Then it requires that you have an imagination which allows you to conjure up an illusion to live into. Then, as you live into the illusion you created as a possibility, your life will be transformed into reality from the illusion.

I’ll wrote about how to leverage the other modal reasoning tools going forward, but till then, I encourage you to leverage alethic thinking.

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