The epistemology of modality and the problem of modal epistemic friction

Vaidya, Anand Jayprakash; Wallner, Michael

doi:10.1007/s11229-018-1860-2

Cited by 26 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…For Williamson, we can generally trust our capacity for assessing counterfactual conditionals to deliver the correct answers because it is informed and constrained by such a knowledge of ‘constitutive’ facts. Our account here agrees with Williamson's and importantly further clarifies what those constitutive facts are—namely facts about essential super-explanatory properties—as well as why they have such a special status in counterfactual thinking (see Mallozzi forthcoming; Vaidya and Wallner 2018).…”

Section: The Necessity Of Super-explanatorinesssupporting

confidence: 86%

Essential Properties Are Super-Explanatory: Taming Metaphysical Modality

Godman¹,

Mallozzi²,

Papineau

2020

J. of the Am. Philos. Assoc.

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This article aims to build a bridge between two areas of philosophical research: the structure of kinds and metaphysical modality. Our central thesis is that kinds typically involve super-explanatory properties, and that these properties are therefore metaphysically essential to natural kinds. Philosophers of science who work on kinds tend to emphasize their complexity, and are generally resistant to any suggestion that they have essences. The complexities are real enough, but they should not be allowed to obscure the way that kinds are typically unified by certain core properties. We show how this unifying role offers a natural account of why certain properties are metaphysically essential to kinds.

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Section: The Necessity Of Super-explanatorinesssupporting

confidence: 86%

Essential Properties Are Super-Explanatory: Taming Metaphysical Modality

Godman¹,

Mallozzi²,

Papineau

2020

J. of the Am. Philos. Assoc.

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“…As noted, Lowe's slogan 'essence precedes existence' has both an ontological and an epistemic reading. Lowe (2008, see also Lowe 2012 focused his efforts on clarifying the epistemic reading and this has been discussed in detail by others before (e.g., Vaidya, 2010, Tahko, 2017, Vaidya & Wallner, 2021; see also Oderberg, 2011 andKoslicki, 2018). I will discuss this reading in Sect.…”

Section: Essence Precedes Existencementioning

confidence: 93%

“…The focus here is on the epistemic reading of the thesis that essence precedes existence, that is: do we require knowledge of essence before we can know about actually existing things? I have in mind the contributions of Horvath (2014), Sgaravatti (2016), Tahko (2017), Casullo (2020), and Vaidya and Wallner (2021). 10 In the present paper my primary interest is on the ontological reading, but of course in Lowe's own work these two readings are so closely related that it is difficult to distinguish them entirely.…”

Section: Essence Precedes Existencementioning

confidence: 94%

Possibility Precedes Actuality

Tahko

2022

Erkenn

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This paper is inspired by and develops on E. J. Lowe’s work, who writes in his book The Possibility of Metaphysics that ‘metaphysical possibility is an inescapable determinant of actuality’ (1998: 9). Metaphysics deals with possibilities – metaphysical possibilities – but is not able to determine what is actual without the help of empirical research. Accordingly, a delimitation of the space of possibilities is required. The resulting – controversial – picture is that we generally need to know whether something is possible before we can know whether it is actual. In order to appreciate this picture, we need to understand Lowe’s slogan: ‘essence precedes existence’ (Lowe 2008: 40). This slogan has both an ontological and an epistemic reading. The ontological reading is related to the now familiar idea that essence grounds modality, as popularised by Kit Fine. The epistemic reading suggests that we can know the essence of some entity before we know whether or not that entity exists. However, this idea is often met with puzzlement and Lowe himself sadly passed away before he had a chance to clarify this framework. I will present the framework as I understand it, develop it on my own terms, and put forward a qualified defence of it. I will also illustrate how the framework can be put to use with a case study concerning the discovery of transuranic elements.

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“…For criticism of rationalist modal epistemologies, see e.g Roca-Royes 2010, Vaidya and Wallner 2018, Jenkins 2008Mizrahi and Morrow 2015, Horvath 2014, Leech 2011, Worley 2003.…”

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confidence: 99%

Non-uniformism and the Epistemology of Philosophically Interesting Modal Claims

Wirling

2021

Grazer Philos. Stud.

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Philosophers often make exotic-sounding modal claims, such as: “A timeless world is impossible”, “The laws of physics could have been different from what they are”, “There could have been an additional phenomenal colour”. Otherwise popular empiricist modal epistemologies in the contemporary literature cannot account for whatever epistemic justification we might have for making such modal claims. Those who do not, as a result of this, endorse scepticism with respect to their epistemic status typically suggest that they can be justified but have yet to develop some distinct, workable theory of how. That is, they endorse a form of non-uniformism about the epistemology of modality, according to which claims about philosophically interesting modal matters need to be justified differently from e.g. everyday or scientific modal claims, but they fail to provide any more detail. This article aims to fill this gap by outlining how such a non-uniformist view could be spelled out and what story about philosophically interesting modal justification it could contain.

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The epistemology of modality and the problem of modal epistemic friction

Cited by 26 publications

References 61 publications

Essential Properties Are Super-Explanatory: Taming Metaphysical Modality

Essential Properties Are Super-Explanatory: Taming Metaphysical Modality

Possibility Precedes Actuality

Non-uniformism and the Epistemology of Philosophically Interesting Modal Claims

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