ON MODELS FOR CROSS-WORLD PREDICATION

Я выдвигаю два методологических возражения против концепции кросс-мировой предикации, которую предлагает Е. Борисов: (1) Данный подход не учитывает того обстоятельства, что истинностный статус утверждений модального дискурса, как правило, интересует нас не в теоретико-модельном смысле, а в смысле истинности simpliciter. При этом данный подход не оставляет нам никакой возможности говорить о модальной эпистемологии и содержательном обосновании модальных утверждений. (2) Данный подход не учитывает роли воображения и ментального моделирования в том, что Е. Борисовым называется «интуитивным пониманием» рассматриваемых им утверждений. Учёт воображения и ментального моделирования, в свою очередь, переводит содержание подавляющего числа рассматриваемых Евгением примеров в разряд эпистемической модальности говорящего. При этом корректный переход от субъективной эпистемической модальности говорящего к любым типам объективных модальностей в рамках подхода Евгения попросту не может быть осуществлён, поскольку такой переход предполагает наличие внятной концепции модальной эпистемологии, чего Евгений нам не предлагает. Истинность любых рассматриваемых им примеров - это истинность на моделях говорящих, то есть на фреймах, в рамках которых говорящие полагают некоторые миры достижимыми из актуального. I raise two objections to E. Borisov’s methodology for building the theory of cross-world predication: (1) This approach does not take into account the fact that usually we are interested in truth values of modal claims not in the model-theoretical sense, but in the sense of truth simpliciter. However, this approach does not leave us any opportunity to talk about modal truths simpliciter, modal epistemology and substantive truth conditions for modal claims. (2) This approach does not take into account the role of imagination and mental modeling in what E. Borisov calls the ‘intuitive meaning’ of the analysed claims. However, taking into account imagination and mental modeling shows that the vast majority of the cases under consideration deal with epistemic and not alethic modality. In the absence of any modal epistemology we cannot simply postulate the validity of modal truths. Such postulation would be puzzling and unexplainable. And without such postulation of factuality, all the modalities we consider turn out epistemic.

A Humean modal epistemology

I present an exemplary Humean modal epistemology. My version takes inspiration from but incurs no commitment to both Hume’s historical position and Lewis’s Humeanism. Modal epistemology should meet two challenges: the Integration challenge of integrating metaphysics and epistemology and the Reliability challenge of giving an account of how our epistemic capacities can be reliable in detecting modal truth. According to Lewis, modal reasoning starts from certain Humean principles: there is only the vast mosaic of spatiotemporally distributed local matters of fact. The facts can be arbitarily recombined. These principles cannot be taken for granted. I suggest a bottom-up approach instead: Humean principles of recombining the mosaic of facts can be retrieved from the evolutionarily instilled and empirically informed use of imagination in exploring everyday circumstantial possibilities. This use of imagination conforms to a primitive conception of matter as freely recombinable. The modal beliefs that can be obtained from generalizing the more elementary exercise of imagination have to be corrected. Recombination is limited by sortal criteria of identity. Moreover, the overall picture of a recombinable spatiotemporal mosaic must be weighed against the results of science.

Epistemological Advantages

This chapter argues that accepting modal normativism brings significant epistemological advantages. Those who aim to account for modal knowledge face the integration challenge of reconciling an account of what is involved in knowing modal truths with a plausible story about how we can come to know them, and the reliability challenge of explaining how we could have evolved to have a reliable faculty for coming to know modal truths. Recent empiricist accounts of modal knowledge cannot solve these problems regarding specifically metaphysical modal truths—leaving us with the threat of skepticism about large portions of metaphysics. However, by giving a different functional story, the modal normativist can develop a plausible response to the remaining versions of both of these classic problems for modal epistemology. Modal normativists can also respond to further worries parallel to those raised by Sharon Street’s evolutionary debunking arguments in meta-ethics.

Sensitivity Principle in Epistemology

Sensitivity is a modal epistemic principle. Modal knowledge accounts are externalist in nature and claim that the knowledge yielding connection between a true belief and the truthmaker must be spelled out in modal terms. The sensitivity condition was introduced by Robert Nozick. He suggests that if S knows that p, then S’s belief that p tracks truth. Nozick argues that this truth-tracking relation can be captured by subjunctive conditionals. As a first approximation, he provides the following modal analysis of knowledge: S knows that p iff (1) p is true; (2) S believes that p; (3) if p were false, S wouldn’t believe that p and (4) if p were true, S would believe that p. The dominant terminology in the literature, also adopted here, is to call condition (3) the sensitivity condition and condition (4) the adherence condition. The sensitivity condition is intuitively appealing since it states that a subject does not know that p if she would believe that p even if p were false. Nozick used the sensitivity condition to accomplish two major tasks. First, he provided a solution to the Gettier problem by arguing that in Gettier cases subjects do not know since the sensitivity condition is violated. Second, he presented a controversial solution to the skeptical problem according to which we have external world knowledge but do not know that the skeptical hypothesis is false. This solution is available because sensitivity is not closed under known entailment. Quickly, criticism of the sensitivity condition emerged. First, most epistemologists regarded the price of abandoning knowledge closure as a price too high to pay. Second, it was noted that sensitivity leads to the counterintuitive consequence of precluding us from inductive knowledge since induction typically yields insensitive beliefs. The most dominant reaction to these problems was to replace sensitivity by the modal principle of safety, nowadays the most popular modal principle. However, sensitivity is not only important as a starting point of modal epistemology. Because of its intuitive attractiveness, many authors aimed at refining the original sensitivity account in order to avoid well-known problems. This has led to a second wave of sensitivity accounts. As of today, various sensitivity-based theories are on the market, including accounts that avoid closure failure, probabilistic interpretations of sensitivity and adherence, and contextualist approaches. There is thus a vivid and ongoing debate about the sensitivity principle in epistemology.

Can Enumerative Induction Be Defended by Modal Scepticism and Modal Empiricism?

ABSTRACTIn the spirit of modal scepticism, Peter Hawke offers a modal epistemology, the safe explanation theory (SET), which takes the form of modal empiricism. By employing SET, he tries to defend enumerative induction (EI): it is reasonable to believe that any X is F on the basis of a sufficiently large sample in which any X is F. In this paper, I argue that Hawke’s defence fails. Moreover, I point out a problem with SET, which results in this failure: SET is too strict to account for some possibility claims that we are entitled to believe.

Aristotle's Formal Identity of Intellect and Object: A Solution to the Problem of Modal Epistemology

In De Anima Book III, Aristotle subscribed to a theory of formal identity between the human mind and the extra-mental objects of our understanding. This has been one of the most controversial features of Aristotelian metaphysics of the mind. I offer here a defense of the Formal Identity Thesis, based on specifically epistemological arguments about our knowledge of necessary or essential truths.

E. J. Lowe on the modal ontological argument

E. J. Lowe has defended a modal ontological argument that draws upon Plantinga's version. Briefly, the argument is this: God is a necessary being; possibly, God exists; hence, God exists. In this article, I accept the validity of Lowe's modal ontological argument and focus on how he seeks to justify the argument's possibility claim in reference to his essence-based account of modal knowledge. I argue that here Lowe's defence fails. I have two complaints. I call them ‘the modified “perfect island” objection’ and ‘the conflicting possibilities objection’. Both of these refer to the concern that Lowe's modal epistemology is too permissive: it permits justification of possibility claims that question the acceptability of the underlying modal epistemology.