A particular family of imagination-based epistemologies of possibility promises to provide an account that overcomes problems raised by Kripkean a posteriori impossibilities. That is, they maintain that imagination plays a significant role in the epistemology of possibility. They claim that imagination consists of both linguistic and qualitative content, where the linguistic content is independently verified not to give rise to any impossibilities in the epistemically significant uses of imagination. However, I will argue that these accounts fail to provide a satisfactory (...) basis for an epistemology of possibility as they fall victim to, what I call, the problem of modally bad company. In particular, I will argue that there is a deep methodological problem that these accounts face: to deliver the significant epistemology of possibility that they promise, they have to rely on problematic prior knowledge of necessities. (shrink)

Recently, interest has surged in similarity-based epistemologies of possibility. However, it has been pointed out that the notion of ‘relevant similarity’ is not properly developed in this literature. In this paper, I look at the research done in the field of analogical reasoning, where we find that one of the most promising ways of capturing relevance in similarity reasoning is by relying on the predictive analogy similarity relation. This takes relevant similarity to be based on shared properties that have structural (...) relations to the property of interest. I argue that if we base our epistemology of possibility on similarity reasoning on the predictive analogy similarity relation, we require prior knowledge of the specifics of these structural relations. I discuss a number of possible responses to this on behalf of the similarity theorists given their methodological approach to the epistemology of modality more generally. They could either opt for making explicit the metaphysics underlying these structural relations, in which case they need to spell out how we can come to know these relations. Or they could opt for developing a theory that explains why we do not need to have explicit knowledge of these structural relations; for example by suggesting that we make use of epistemic shortcuts. (shrink)

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 (...) ‘disturbing characteristics’ that Machery posits to explain why philosophical cases induce dubious judgments. It follows, we show, that Machery’s central argument for the effective abandonment of MoC is undermined. Nevertheless, we engineer a restricted variant of the argument—in harmony with Williamsonian ideology–that survives our critique, potentially limiting philosophy’s scope for establishing especially ambitious modal theses, despite traditional MoC’s utility being partially preserved. (shrink)

Philosophers have always taken an interest not only in what is actually the case, but in what is necessarily the case and what could possibly be the case. These are questions of modality. Epistemologists of modality enquire into how we can know what is necessary and what is possible. This dissertation concerns the meta-epistemology of modality. It engages with the rules that govern construction and evaluation of theories in the epistemology of modality, by using modal empiricism – a form of (...) modal epistemology – as a running example. In particular, I investigate the assumption that it is important to be able to meet the integration challenge. Meeting the integration challenge is a source of serious difficulty for many approaches, but modal empiricism is supposed to do well in this respect. But I argue that once we have a better grasp of what the integration challenge is, it is not obvious that it presents no problem for modal empiricism. Moreover, even if modal empiricism could be said to be in a relatively good position with respect to integration, it comes at the cost of a forced choice between far-reaching partial modal scepticism and non-uniformism about the epistemology of modality. Non-uniformism is the view that more than one modal epistemology will be correct. While non-uniformism might not in itself be unpalatable, it must be defined and defended in a way which squares with the modal empiricist’s other commitment. I explore two ways of doing so, both involving a revised idea of the integration challenge and its role for the epistemology of modality. One involves a bifurcation of the integration challenge, and the other a restriction of the integration challenge’s relevance. Both ways are interesting, but neither is, as it turns out, a walk in the park. (shrink)