Williamsonian modal epistemology, possibility-based

Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (4-5):766-795 (2016)
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Abstract

Williamsonian modal epistemology is characterized by two commitments: realism about modality, and anti-exceptionalism about our modal knowledge. Williamson’s own counterfactual-based modal epistemology is the best known implementation of WME, but not the only option that is available. I sketch and defend an alternative implementation which takes our knowledge of metaphysical modality to arise, not from knowledge of counterfactuals, but from our knowledge of ordinary possibility statements of the form ‘x can F’. I defend this view against a criticism indicated in Williamson’s own work, and argue that it is better connected to the semantics of modal language.

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Barbara Vetter
Freie Universität Berlin

Citations of this work

Modal science.Timothy Williamson - 2016 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (4-5):453-492.
Metaphysical and absolute possibility.Justin Clarke-Doane - 2019 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 8):1861-1872.
Putting Modal Metaphysics First.Antonella Mallozzi - 2018 - Synthese (Suppl 8):1-20.
Counterpossibles.Alexander W. Kocurek - 2021 - Philosophy Compass 16 (11):e12787.

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References found in this work

Modal Logic as Metaphysics.Timothy Williamson - 2013 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality.Barbara Vetter - 2015 - Oxford, England and New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press.
The Paradoxes of Time Travel.David K. Lewis - 1976 - American Philosophical Quarterly 13 (2):145-152.
Between Perception and Action.Bence Nanay - 2013 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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