Philosophy is largely concerned with claims about identity and constitution, claims which as it happens will be necessary if they are true. When philosophers ask about knowledge, names, persons, persisting objects, free will, causation, and so on, they are seeking to understand the identity or constitution of these kinds. They want to know whether knowledge is the same as true justified belief, whether persisting objects are composed of temporal parts, and so on. And so any truths they might establish about such matters will inevitably be necessary rather than contingent, and so carry implications about a realm beyond the actual.