The Limits of Modal Knowledge

• Visser, Rehan P. ^[1]
  1. [1] Independent scholar, SOUTH AFRICA
• Localización: Principia: an international journal of epistemology, ISSN-e 1808-1711, Vol. 23, Nº. 2, 2019, págs. 323-343
• Idioma: inglés
• Títulos paralelos:
  • The limits of modal knowledge
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen
  • português

    In this essay I defend a nuanced but wide-reaching version of modal scepticism. I argue that claims about unrealised possibilities (part of an area that I term ‘merely metaphysical modality’), unless logically (or analytically) impossible, are not justified by our intuitions, nor are they justified by any other means proposed by philosophers. I further suggest that it is likely that we have epistemic access only to this reality, the ‘actual world’. It follows that, while we have modal knowledge pertaining to actualities (i.e., what has been realised) and impossibilities (i.e., what cannot be realised), we lack merely metaphysical modal knowledge (i.e., what has not been realised and is not ruled out by the prescripts of logic).

  • English

    Modal agnosticism is the view that we must be agnostic about whether things could have turned out differently. I argue that claims about unrealised possibilities (what I term ‘merely metaphysical modal claims’) are not justified by our modal intuitions, nor are they justified by any of the means proposed by philosophers. It follows that we do not have merely metaphysical modal knowledge, and that we must adopt modal agnosticism.