About this topic
Summary Modal Skepticism is concerned with the question of how much modal knowledge we can genuinely claim to have. Extreme modal skeptics maintain that we have no modal knowledge. Moderate modal skeptics maintain that we are justified in holding a modal beliefs with a certain range for which we have a reliable modal belief forming mechanism. Most philosophers reject extreme modal skepticism. The key issue is how to specify the appropriate range of modal beliefs. 
Key works The key work in modal skepticism is Van Inwagen 1998. In this paper van Inwagen argues against extreme modal skepticism and in favor of moderate modal skepticism. He presents a key challenge to conceivability approaches, especially that of Yablo 1993. The criticism centers around the idea that in order for one to conclude that their conception provides adequate warrant for believing that a proposition is possible, their conception must have a certain grain of detail that is not easily defeasible by further facts. Often it is the case that our conception does not provide us of adequate warrant, because our conception is best explained by our ignorance of certain facts that are clearly relevant. 
Introductions A key introduction is Vaidya 2007
Related

Contents
66 found
Order:
1 — 50 / 66
  1. The logic of negative conceivability.Daniel Cohnitz - manuscript
    Analytic epistemology is traditionally interested in rational reconstructions of cognitive pro- cesses. The purpose of these rational reconstructions is to make plain how a certain cognitive process might eventually result in knowledge or justi?ed beliefs, etc., if we pre-theoretically think that we have such knowledge or such justi?ed beliefs. Typically a rational reconstruction assumes some unproblematic basis of knowledge and some justi?cation-preserving inference pattern and then goes on to show how these two su ce to generate the explicandum.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. Modal Skepticism and Its Applications.Barthuly Joshua - 2023 - Dissertation, University of Notre Dame
    This dissertation is an examination of the epistemology of modality and its application to debates in metaphysics and the philosophy of religion. I first give a novel argument for a moderate modal skepticism. The argument is a generalization and improvement upon van Inwagen (1998)'s influential argument for a close cousin to my thesis. It also brings to bear highly-relevant, recent results in mainstream epistemology that have surprisingly gone overlooked in the otherwise thoroughgoing developments in modal epistemology, a sub-discipline that has (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  3. Mathematics and Metaphilosophy.Justin Clarke-Doane - 2022 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    This book discusses the problem of mathematical knowledge, and its broader philosophical ramifications. It argues that the challenge to explain the (defeasible) justification of our mathematical beliefs (‘the justificatory challenge’), arises insofar as disagreement over axioms bottoms out in disagreement over intuitions. And it argues that the challenge to explain their reliability (‘the reliability challenge’), arises to the extent that we could have easily had different beliefs. The book shows that mathematical facts are not, in general, empirically accessible, contra Quine, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  4. New Directions in the Epistemology of Modality: Introduction.Antonella Mallozzi - 2021 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 8):1841-1859.
    The fourteen papers in this collection offer a variety of original contributions to the epistemology of modality. In seeking to explain how we might account for our knowledge of possibility and necessity, they raise some novel questions, develop some unfamiliar theoretical perspectives, and make some intriguing proposals. Collectively, they advance our understanding of the field. In Part I of this Introduction, I give some general background about the contemporary literature in the area, by sketching a timeline of the main tendencies (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  5. Are Gettier cases disturbing?Peter Hawke & Tom Schoonen - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 178 (5):1503-1527.
    We examine a prominent naturalistic line on the method of cases, exemplified by Timothy Williamson and Edouard Machery: MoC is given a fallibilist and non-exceptionalist treatment, accommodating moderate modal skepticism. But Gettier cases are in dispute: Williamson takes them to induce substantive philosophical knowledge; Machery claims that the ambitious use of MoC should be abandoned entirely. We defend an intermediate position. We offer an internal critique of Macherian pessimism about Gettier cases. Most crucially, we argue that Gettier cases needn’t exhibit (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  6. Modal Objectivity.Clarke-Doane Justin - 2019 - Noûs 53:266-295.
    It is widely agreed that the intelligibility of modal metaphysics has been vindicated. Quine's arguments to the contrary supposedly confused analyticity with metaphysical necessity, and rigid with non-rigid designators.2 But even if modal metaphysics is intelligible, it could be misconceived. It could be that metaphysical necessity is not absolute necessity – the strictest real notion of necessity – and that no proposition of traditional metaphysical interest is necessary in every real sense. If there were nothing otherwise “uniquely metaphysically significant” about (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   31 citations  
  7. Causation and Sufficient Reason (Atheism).Felipe Leon - 2019 - In Joseph W. Koterski & Graham Oppy (eds.), Theism and Atheism: Opposing Viewpoints in Philosophy. MacMillan Reference.
    This chapter provides an overview and critical discussion of cosmological arguments for theism, with special focus on the Kalam argument and arguments from contingency.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. Conceivability and possibility: some dilemmas for Humeans.Francesco Berto & Tom Schoonen - 2018 - Synthese 195 (6):2697-2715.
    The Humean view that conceivability entails possibility can be criticized via input from cognitive psychology. A mainstream view here has it that there are two candidate codings for mental representations (one of them being, according to some, reducible to the other): the linguistic and the pictorial, the difference between the two consisting in the degree of arbitrariness of the representation relation. If the conceivability of P at issue for Humeans involves the having of a linguistic mental representation, then it is (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (8 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   25 citations  
  9. Is imagination too liberal for modal epistemology?Derek Lam - 2018 - Synthese 195 (5):2155-2174.
    Appealing to imagination for modal justification is very common. But not everyone thinks that all imaginings provide modal justification. Recently, Gregory and Kung :620–663, 2010) have independently argued that, whereas imaginings with sensory imageries can justify modal beliefs, those without sensory imageries don’t because of such imaginings’ extreme liberty. In this essay, I defend the general modal epistemological relevance of imagining. I argue, first, that when the objections that target the liberal nature of non-sensory imaginings are adequately developed, those objections (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  10. A Critical Introduction to the Metaphysics of Modality, by Andrea Borghini: London: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2016, pp. vii + 224, £22.99. [REVIEW]T. Parent - 2018 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 96 (1):204-204.
  11. Moderate Modal Skepticism.Margot Strohminger & Juhani Yli-Vakkuri - 2018 - In Matthew A. Benton, John Hawthorne & Dani Rabinowitz (eds.), Knowledge, Belief, and God: New Insights in Religious Epistemology. Oxford University Press. pp. 302-321.
    This paper examines "moderate modal skepticism", a form of skepticism about metaphysical modality defended by Peter van Inwagen in order to blunt the force of certain modal arguments in the philosophy of religion. Van Inwagen’s argument for moderate modal skepticism assumes Yablo's (1993) influential world-based epistemology of possibility. We raise two problems for this epistemology of possibility, which undermine van Inwagen's argument. We then consider how one might motivate moderate modal skepticism by relying on a different epistemology of possibility, which (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  12. Can Modal Skepticism Defeat Humean Skepticism?Peter Hawke - 2017 - In Bob Fischer Felipe Leon (ed.), Modal Epistemology After Rationalism. Dordrecht: Synthese Library. pp. 281-308.
    My topic is moderate modal skepticism in the spirit of Peter van Inwagen. Here understood, this is a conservative version of modal empiricism that severely limits the extent to which an ordinary agent can reasonably believe “exotic” possibility claims. I offer a novel argument in support of this brand of skepticism: modal skepticism grounds an attractive (and novel) reply to Humean skepticism. Thus, I propose that modal skepticism be accepted on the basis of its theoretical utility as a tool for (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  13. From Modal Skepticism to Modal Empiricism.Felipe Leon - 2017 - In Robert William Fischer Felipe Leon (ed.), Modal Epistemology After Rationalism. Springer Verlag.
    This collection highlights the new trend away from rationalism and toward empiricism in the epistemology of modality. Accordingly, the book represents a wide range of positions on the empirical sources of modal knowledge. Readers will find an introduction that surveys the field and provides a brief overview of the work, which progresses from empirically-sensitive rationalist accounts to fully empiricist accounts of modal knowledge. Early chapters focus on challenges to rationalist theories, essence-based approaches to modal knowledge, and the prospects for naturalizing (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  14. The Epistemology of Modality.Margot Strohminger & Juhani Yli-Vakkuri - 2017 - Analysis 77 (4):825-838.
    This article surveys recent developments in the epistemology of modality.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   30 citations  
  15. Conceivability, possibility and the resurrection of material beings.Thomas Atkinson - 2016 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 80 (2):115-132.
    In his 1998 postscript to ‘The Possibility of Resurrection’ Peter van Inwagen argues that the scenario he describes by which God might resurrect a human organism, even though probably not true, is still conceivable and, consequently, ‘serves to establish a possibility’, namely, the metaphysical possibility of the resurrection of material beings. Van Inwagen, however, has also argued in favour of ‘modal scepticism’ [van Inwagen in, God, knowledge and mystery: essays in philosophical theology, Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1995b, pp. 11–12; van (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  16. Debunking and Dispensability.Justin Clarke-Doane - 2016 - In Uri D. Leibowitz & Neil Sinclair (eds.), Explanation in Ethics and Mathematics: Debunking and Dispensability. Oxford University Press.
    In his précis of a recent book, Richard Joyce writes, “My contention…is that…any epistemological benefit-of-the-doubt that might have been extended to moral beliefs…will be neutralized by the availability of an empirically confirmed moral genealogy that nowhere…presupposes their truth.” Such reasoning – falling under the heading “Genealogical Debunking Arguments” – is now commonplace. But how might “the availability of an empirically confirmed moral genealogy that nowhere… presupposes” the truth of our moral beliefs “neutralize” whatever “epistemological benefit-of-the-doubt that might have been extended (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   32 citations  
  17. Modal Epistemology After Rationalism.Bob Fischer & Felipe Leon (eds.) - 2016 - Cham: Springer.
    This collection highlights the new trend away from rationalism and toward empiricism in the epistemology of modality. Accordingly, the book represents a wide range of positions on the empirical sources of modal knowledge. Readers will find an introduction that surveys the field and provides a brief overview of the work, which progresses from empirically-sensitive rationalist accounts to fully empiricist accounts of modal knowledge. Early chapters focus on challenges to rationalist theories, essence-based approaches to modal knowledge, and the prospects for naturalizing (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  18. The Modal-Knowno Problem.Robert William Fischer & Felipe Leon - 2016 - Southwest Philosophy Review 32 (1):225-232.
  19. Modal scepticism, Yablo-style conceivability, and analogical reasoning.Peter Hartl - 2016 - Synthese 193 (1):269-291.
    This paper offers a detailed criticism of different versions of modal scepticism proposed by Van Inwagen and Hawke, and, against these views, attempts to vindicate our reliance on thought experiments in philosophy. More than one different meaning of “ modal scepticism” will be distinguished. Focusing mainly on Hawke’s more detailed view I argue that none of these versions of modal scepticism is compelling, since sceptical conclusions depend on an untenable and, perhaps, incoherent modal epistemology. With a detailed account of modal (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  20. Modal Rationalism and the Objection from the Insolvability of Modal Disagreement.Mihai Rusu - 2016 - Logos and Episteme 7 (2):171-183.
    The objection from the insolvability of principle-based modal disagreements appears to support the claim that there are no objective modal facts, or at the very least modal facts cannot be accounted for by modal rationalist theories. An idea that resurfaced fairly recently in the literature is that the use of ordinary empirical statements presupposes some prior grasp of modal notions. If this is correct, then the idea that we may have a total agreement concerning empirical facts and disagree on modal (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  21. Reply to Vetter.Timothy Williamson - 2016 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (4-5):796-802.
  22. Conceivability and the Epistemology of Modality.Asger Bo Skjerning Steffensen - 2015 - Dissertation, Aarhus University
    The dissertation is in the format of a collection of several academic texts, composed of a two-part presentation and three papers on the topic of conceivability and the epistemology of modality. The presentation is composed of, first, a general introduction to conceivability theses and objections and, second, a discussion of two cases. Following the presentation, Asger provides three papers. The first paper, Pretense and Conceivability: A reply to Roca-Royes, presents a problem and a dilemma for Roca-Royes’ Non-Standard Dilemma for conceivability-based (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  23. Perceptual Knowledge of Nonactual Possibilities.Margot Strohminger - 2015 - Philosophical Perspectives 29 (1):363-375.
    It is widely assumed that sense perception cannot deliver knowledge of nonactual (metaphysical) possibilities. We are not supposed to be able to know that a proposition p is necessary or that p is possible (if p is false) by sense perception. This paper aims to establish that the role of sense perception is not so limited. It argues that we can know lots of modal facts by perception. While the most straightforward examples concern possibility and contingency, others concern necessity and (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   34 citations  
  24. Modal Humeanism and Arguments from Possibility.Margot Strohminger - 2013 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 113 (3pt3):391-401.
    Sider (2011, 2013) proposes a reductive analysis of metaphysical modality—‘(modal) Humeanism’—and goes on to argue that it has interesting epistemological and methodological implications. In particular, Humeanism is supposed to undermine a class of ‘arguments from possibility’, which includes Sider's (1993) own argument against mereological nihilism and Chalmers's (1996) argument against physicalism. I argue that Sider's arguments do not go through, and moreover that we should instead expect Humeanism to be compatible with the practice of arguing from possibility in philosophy.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  25. Modal skepticism and counterfactual knowledge.Juhani Yli-Vakkuri - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 162 (3):605-623.
    Abstract Timothy Williamson has recently proposed to undermine modal skepticism by appealing to the reducibility of modal to counterfactual logic ( Reducibility ). Central to Williamson’s strategy is the claim that use of the same non-deductive mode of inference ( counterfactual development , or CD ) whereby we typically arrive at knowledge of counterfactuals suffices for arriving at knowledge of metaphysical necessity via Reducibility. Granting Reducibility, I ask whether the use of CD plays any essential role in a Reducibility-based reply (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  26. Modal Scepticism, Unqualified Modality, and Modal Kinds.Andrea Sauchelli - 2012 - Philosophia 40 (2):403-409.
    I formulate and defend two sceptical theses on specific parts of our modal knowledge (unqualified and absolute modalities). My main point is that unqualified modal sentences are defective in that they fail to belong unambiguously to specific modal kinds and thus cannot be evaluated; hence, we must be sceptical of beliefs involving them.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  27. On a form of skeptical argument from possibility.Rogers Albritton - 2011 - Philosophical Issues 21 (1):1-24.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  28. A Priori Skepticism.James R. Beebe - 2011 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 83 (3):583-602.
    In this article I investigate a neglected form of radical skepticism that questions whether any of our logical, mathematical and other seemingly self-evident beliefs count as knowledge. ‘A priori skepticism,’ as I will call it, challenges our ability to know any of the following sorts of propositions: (1.1) The sum of two and three is five. (1.2) Whatever is square is rectangular. (1.3) Whatever is red is colored. (1.4) No surface can be uniformly red and uniformly blue at the same (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  29. Possible disagreements and defeat.Brandon Carey - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 155 (3):371-381.
    Conciliatory views about disagreement with one’s epistemic peers lead to a somewhat troubling skeptical conclusion: that often, when we know others disagree, we ought to be (perhaps much) less sure of our beliefs than we typically are. One might attempt to extend this skeptical conclusion by arguing that disagreement with merely possible epistemic agents should be epistemically significant to the same degree as disagreement with actual agents, and that, since for any belief we have, it is possible that someone should (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  30. Van Inwagen’s modal skepticism.Peter Hawke - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 153 (3):351-364.
    In this paper, the author defends Peter van Inwagen’s modal skepticism. Van Inwagen accepts that we have much basic, everyday modal knowledge, but denies that we have the capacity to justify philosophically interesting modal claims that are far removed from this basic knowledge. The author also defends the argument by means of which van Inwagen supports his modal skepticism, offering a rebuttal to an objection along the lines of that proposed by Geirrson. Van Inwagen argues that Stephen Yablo’s recent and (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   23 citations  
  31. Armchair Knowledge and Modal Skepticism: A Rapprochement.Felipe Leon - 2009 - Dissertation, University of California, Riverside
    The thought experiment is a seemingly indispensable tool in the armchair philosopher’s toolbox. One wonders, for example, how philosophers could come to think that justified true belief isn’t knowledge, that reference isn’t determined by an expression’s associated description, or that moral responsibility doesn’t require the ability to do otherwise, without the use of thought experiments. But even if thought experiments play an integral role in philosophical methodology, their legitimacy is at least initially puzzling: one would think that significant knowledge of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  32. Agnosticismo modal.José Tomás Alvarado Marambio - 2008 - Anuario Filosófico 41 (93):597-620.
    Este trabajo presenta el agnosticismo modal como un nuevo programa en metafísica modal. El agnóstico modal sólo cree en la existencia del mundo actual y de ningún otro. Preserva, sin embargo, la semántica realista para los enunciados modales y los análisis propuestos por el realista para los conceptos modales. Si se concede al agnóstico modal conocimiento sobre: hechos lógicos, hechos semánticos y hechos sobre el mundo actual, puede replicar gran parte de las capacidades de aseveración de enunciados modales del realista. (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  33. Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency.Timothy O'Connor - 2008 - Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
    An expansive, yet succinct, analysis of the Philosophy of Religion – from metaphysics through theology. Organized into two sections, the text first examines truths concerning what is possible and what is necessary. These chapters lay the foundation for the book’s second part – the search for a metaphysical framework that permits the possibility of an ultimate explanation that is correct and complete. A cutting-edge scholarly work which engages with the traditional metaphysician’s quest for a true ultimate explanation of the most (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   42 citations  
  34. Acquaintance and possible worlds.Jennifer Vaughan Taylor - 2008 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 108 (1pt3):393-400.
    I argue that if a subject's acquaintance with an object is necessary for him to think about and refer to the object, then the content of his thought cannot be a set of metaphysically possible worlds. Acquaintance resets what possibilities there are; it affects the powers of representation, and does not only limit the range of possibilities. If acquaintance restricts what a subject can think about, the theorist cannot specify what possibilities are open to the subject simply in terms of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  35. Quinean scepticism about de re modality after David Lewis.John Divers - 2007 - European Journal of Philosophy 15 (1):40–62.
  36. Philosophical knowledge and knowledge of counterfactuals.Timothy Williamson - 2007 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 74 (1):89-123.
    Metaphysical modalities are definable from counterfactual conditionals, and the epistemology of the former is a special case of the epistemology of the latter. In particular, the role of conceivability and inconceivability in assessing claims of possibility and impossibility can be explained as a special case of the pervasive role of the imagination in assessing counterfactual conditionals, an account of which is sketched. Thus scepticism about metaphysical modality entails a more far-reaching scepticism about counterfactuals. The account is used to question the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   34 citations  
  37. Modal Stability and Warrant.Colin P. Ruloff - 2006 - Philosophia 34 (2):173-188.
    Keith DeRose believes that it is a strength of his contextualist analysis that it explains why the recently much-discussed skeptical Argument from Ignorance (AI) is so persuasive. Not only that, however; DeRose also believes that he is able to explain the underlying dynamics of AI by utilizing solely the epistemological and linguistic resources contained within his contextualist analysis. DeRose believes, in other words, that his contextualist analysis functions as a genuinely self-contained explanation of skepticism. But does it? In this paper (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  38. Inter-world probability and the problem of induction.Chase B. Wrenn - 2006 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87 (3):387–402.
    Laurence BonJour has recently proposed a novel and interesting approach to the problem of induction. He grants that it is contingent, and so not a priori, that our patterns of inductive inference are reliable. Nevertheless, he claims, it is necessary and a priori that those patterns are highly likely to be reliable, and that is enough to ground an a priori justification induction. This paper examines an important defect in BonJour's proposal. Once we make sense of the claim that inductive (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  39. In defence of sceptical theism: a reply to Almeida and Oppy.Michael Bergmann & Michael Rea - 2005 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (2):241-251.
    Some evidential arguments from evil rely on an inference of the following sort: ‘If, after thinking hard, we can't think of any God-justifying reason for permitting some horrific evil then it is likely that there is no such reason’. Sceptical theists, us included, say that this inference is not a good one and that evidential arguments from evil that depend on it are, as a result, unsound. Michael Almeida and Graham Oppy have argued (in a previous issue of this journal) (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   36 citations  
  40. Deflating skolem.F. A. Muller - 2005 - Synthese 143 (3):223-253.
    . Remarkably, despite the tremendous success of axiomatic set-theory in mathematics, logic and meta-mathematics, e.g., model-theory, two philosophical worries about axiomatic set-theory as the adequate catch of the set-concept keep haunting it. Having dealt with one worry in a previous paper in this journal, we now fulfil a promise made there, namely to deal with the second worry. The second worry is the Skolem Paradox and its ensuing Skolemite skepticism. We present a comparatively novel and simple analysis of the argument (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (7 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  41. Rule-Circularity and the Justification of Deduction.Neil Tennant - 2005 - Philosophical Quarterly 55 (221):625 - 648.
    I examine Paul Boghossian's recent attempt to argue for scepticism about logical rules. I argue that certain rule- and proof-theoretic considerations can avert such scepticism. Boghossian's 'Tonk Argument' seeks to justify the rule of tonk-introduction by using the rule itself. The argument is subjected here to more detailed proof-theoretic scrutiny than Boghossian undertook. Its sole axiom, the so-called Meaning Postulate for tonk, is shown to be false or devoid of content. It is also shown that the rules of Disquotation and (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  42. Studies in the Philosophy of Logic and Knowledge.Thomas Baldwin & Timothy Smiley (eds.) - 2004 - New York: Oup/British Academy.
    Questions about knowledge, and about the relation between logic and language, are at the heart of philosophy. Eleven distinguished philosophers from Britain and America contribute papers on such questions. All the contributions are examples of recent philosophy at its best. The first half of the book constitutes a running debate about knowledge, evidence and doubt. The second half tackles questions about logic and its relation to language.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  43. The origins of modal error.George Bealer - 2004 - Dialectica 58 (1):11-42.
    Modal intuitions are the primary source of modal knowledge but also of modal error. According to the theory of modal error in this paper, modal intuitions retain their evidential force in spite of their fallibility, and erroneous modal intuitions are in principle identifiable and eliminable by subjecting our intuitions to a priori dialectic. After an inventory of standard sources of modal error, two further sources are examined in detail. The first source - namely, the failure to distinguish between metaphysical possibility (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   24 citations  
  44. A Priori knowledge contextualised and Benacerraf’s dilemma.Maja Malec - 2004 - Acta Analytica 19 (33):31-44.
    In this article, I discuss Hawthorne'€™s contextualist solution to Benacerraf'€™s dilemma. He wants to find a satisfactory epistemology to go with realist ontology, namely with causally inaccessible mathematical and modal entities. I claim that he is unsuccessful. The contextualist theories of knowledge attributions were primarily developed as a response to the skeptical argument based on the deductive closure principle. Hawthorne uses the same strategy in his attempt to solve the epistemologist puzzle facing the proponents of mathematical and modal realism, but (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  45. Modal skepticism: Philosophical thought experiments and modal epistemology.Daniel Cohnitz - 2003 - Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 10:281--296.
    One of the most basic methods of philosophy is, and has always been, the consideration of counterfactual cases and imaginary scenarios. One purpose of doing so obviously is to test our theories against such counterfactual cases. Although this method is widespread, it is far from being commonly accepted. Especially during the last two decades it has been confronted with criticism ranging from complete dismissal to denying only its critical powers to a cautious defense of the use of thought experiments as (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  46. Gómez-Torrente on Modality and Tarskian Logical Consequence.Manuel García-Carpintero - 2003 - Theoria 18 (2):159-170.
    Gómez-Torrente’s papers have made important contributions to vindicate Tarski’s model-theoretic account of the logical properties in the face of Etchemendy’s criticisms. However, at some points his vindication depends on interpreting the Tarskian account as purportedly modally deflationary, i.e., as not intended to capture the intuitive modal element in the logical properties, that logical consequence is (epistemic or alethic) necessary truth-preservation. Here it is argued that the views expressed in Tarski’s seminal work do not support this modally deflationary interpretation, even if (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (8 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  47. On the de-naturalization of epistemology.András Kertész - 2002 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 33 (2):269-288.
    Starting from an overview of approaches to naturalized epistemology, the paper shows, firstly, that Quine's programme yields a sceptical paradox. This means that Quine's attempt to defeat scepticism itself yields a rather strong argument for scepticism and thus against his own programme of naturalized epistemology. Secondly, it is shown that this paradox can be solved by an approach called reflexive-heuristic naturalism. Finally, the paper also raises some fundamental problems which the solution proposed has to leave open.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  48. Skeptical theism and Rowe's new evidential argument from evil.Michael Bergmann - 2001 - Noûs 35 (2):278–296.
    Skeptical theists endorse the skeptical thesis (which is consistent with the rejection of theism) that we have no good reason for thinking the possible goods we know of are representative of the possible goods there are. In his newest formulation of the evidential arguments from evil, William Rowe tries to avoid assuming the falsity of this skeptical thesis, presumably because it seems so plausible. I argue that his new argument fails to avoid doing this. Then I defend that skeptical thesis (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   85 citations  
  49. Invariances: the structure of the objective world.Robert Nozick - 2001 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
    Excerpts from Robert Nozick's "Invariances" Necessary truths are invariant across all possible worlds, contingent ones across only some.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   120 citations  
  50. Skepticism and possibilities.James Cargile - 2000 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61 (1):157-171.
    One skeptical strategy against A’s claim to know that P is to hold that it is logically possible for someone to have the same “base” for P as A does in spite of its not being true that P. Philosophical replies have focussed on showing that these are not genuine possibilities. Whether they are can be an interesting question of metaphysics, but it is argued in this paper that this metaphysical discussion is not the proper focus for an assessment of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (7 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
1 — 50 / 66