Results for ' Modality'

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  1. Multi-attribute Decision Making based on Rough Neutrosophic Variational Coefficient Similarty Measure.Kalyan Modal, Surapati Pramanik & Florentin Smarandache - 2016 - Neutrosophic Sets and Systems 13:3-17.
    The purpose of this study is to propose new similarity measures namely rough variational coefficient similarity measure under the rough neutrosophic environment. The weighted rough variational coefficient similarity measure has been also defined. The weighted rough variational coefficient similarity measures between the rough ideal alternative and each alternative are xxxxx calculated to find the best alternative. The ranking order of all the alternatives can be determined by using the numerical values of similarity measures. Finally, an illustrative example has been provided (...)
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  2. Rough Neutrosophic TOPSIS for Multi-Attribute Group Decision Making.Kalyan Modal, Surapati Pramanik & Florentin Smarandache - 2016 - Neutrosophic Sets and Systems 13:105-117.
    This paper is devoted to present Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method for multi-attribute group decision making under rough neutrosophic environment. The concept of rough neutrosophic set is a powerful mathematical tool to deal with uncertainty, indeterminacy and inconsistency. In this paper, a new approach for multi-attribute group decision making problems is proposed by extending the TOPSIS method under rough neutrosophic environment. Rough neutrosophic set is characterized by the upper and lower approximation operators and the (...)
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  3. Epistemic Modals.Seth Yalcin - 2007 - Mind 116 (464):983-1026.
    Epistemic modal operators give rise to something very like, but also very unlike, Moore's paradox. I set out the puzzling phenomena, explain why a standard relational semantics for these operators cannot handle them, and recommend an alternative semantics. A pragmatics appropriate to the semantics is developed and interactions between the semantics, the pragmatics, and the definition of consequence are investigated. The semantics is then extended to probability operators. Some problems and prospects for probabilistic representations of content and context are explored.
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  4. Modal Objectivity.Justin Clarke-Doane - 2017 - Noûs 53 (2):266-295.
    It is widely agreed that the intelligibility of modal metaphysics has been vindicated. Quine's arguments to the contrary supposedly confused analyticity with metaphysical necessity, and rigid with non-rigid designators.2 But even if modal metaphysics is intelligible, it could be misconceived. It could be that metaphysical necessity is not absolute necessity – the strictest real notion of necessity – and that no proposition of traditional metaphysical interest is necessary in every real sense. If there were nothing otherwise “uniquely metaphysically significant” about (...)
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  5. Modal Epistemology.Juhani Yli-Vakkuri & John Hawthorne - manuscript
    Some central epistemological notions are expressed by sentential operators O that entail the possibility of knowledge in the sense that 'Op' entails 'It is possible to know that p'. We call these modal-epistemological notions. Using apriority and being in a position to know as case studies, we argue that the logics of modal epistemological notions are extremely weak. In particular, their logics are not normal and do not include any closure principles.
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  6. Modal Humeanism and Arguments from Possibility.Margot Strohminger - 2013 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 113 (3pt3):391-401.
    Sider (2011, 2013) proposes a reductive analysis of metaphysical modality—‘(modal) Humeanism’—and goes on to argue that it has interesting epistemological and methodological implications. In particular, Humeanism is supposed to undermine a class of ‘arguments from possibility’, which includes Sider's (1993) own argument against mereological nihilism and Chalmers's (1996) argument against physicalism. I argue that Sider's arguments do not go through, and moreover that we should instead expect Humeanism to be compatible with the practice of arguing from possibility in philosophy.
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  7. The modal logic of the countable random frame.Valentin Goranko & Bruce Kapron - 2003 - Archive for Mathematical Logic 42 (3):221-243.
    We study the modal logic M L r of the countable random frame, which is contained in and `approximates' the modal logic of almost sure frame validity, i.e. the logic of those modal principles which are valid with asymptotic probability 1 in a randomly chosen finite frame. We give a sound and complete axiomatization of M L r and show that it is not finitely axiomatizable. Then we describe the finite frames of that logic and show that it has the (...)
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  8. Modality and Explanatory Reasoning.Boris Christian Kment - 2014 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Boris Kment takes a new approach to the study of modality that emphasises the origin of modal notions in everyday thought. He argues that the concepts of necessity and possibility originate in counterfactual reasoning, which allows us to investigate explanatory connections. Contrary to accepted views, explanation is more fundamental than modality.
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  9. Modal science.Timothy Williamson - 2016 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (4-5):453-492.
    This paper explains and defends the idea that metaphysical necessity is the strongest kind of objective necessity. Plausible closure conditions on the family of objective modalities are shown to entail that the logic of metaphysical necessity is S5. Evidence is provided that some objective modalities are studied in the natural sciences. In particular, the modal assumptions implicit in physical applications of dynamical systems theory are made explicit by using such systems to define models of a modal temporal logic. Those assumptions (...)
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  10. Essentialist modal rationalism.Philip Goff - 2019 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 8):2019-2027.
    It used to be thought that rational coherence and metaphysical possibility went hand in hand. Kripke and Putnam put a spanner in the works by proposing examples of propositions which seem to violate this principle. I will propose a nuanced form of modal rationalism consistent with the Kripke/putnam cases. The rough idea is that rational coherence entails possibility when you grasp the essential nature of what you’re conceiving of.
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  11. Bounded Modality.Matthew Mandelkern - 2019 - Philosophical Review 128 (1):1-61.
    What does 'might' mean? One hypothesis is that 'It might be raining' is essentially an avowal of ignorance like 'For all I know, it's raining'. But it turns out these two constructions embed in different ways, in particular as parts of larger constructions like Wittgenstein's 'It might be raining and it's not' and Moore's 'It's raining and I don't know it', respectively. A variety of approaches have been developed to account for those differences. All approaches agree that both Moore sentences (...)
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  12. Modal Virtue Epistemology.Bob Beddor & Carlotta Pavese - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 101 (1):61-79.
    This essay defends a novel form of virtue epistemology: Modal Virtue Epistemology. It borrows from traditional virtue epistemology the idea that knowledge is a type of skillful performance. But it goes on to understand skillfulness in purely modal terms — that is, in terms of success across a range of counterfactual scenarios. We argue that this approach offers a promising way of synthesizing virtue epistemology with a modal account of knowledge, according to which knowledge is safe belief. In particular, we (...)
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  13. A Modal Solution to the Problem of Moral Luck.Rik Peels - 2015 - American Philosophical Quarterly 52 (1):73-88.
    In this article I provide and defend a solution to the problem of moral luck. The problem of moral luck is that there is a set of three theses about luck and moral blameworthiness each of which is at least prima facie plausible, but that, it seems, cannot all be true. The theses are that (1) one cannot be blamed for what happens beyond one’s control, (2) that which is due to luck is beyond one’s control, and (3) we rightly (...)
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  14. Agentive Modals.Matthew Mandelkern, Ginger Schultheis & David Boylan - 2017 - Philosophical Review 126 (3):301-343.
    This essay proposes a new theory of agentive modals: ability modals and their duals, compulsion modals. After criticizing existing approaches—the existential quantificational analysis, the universal quantificational analysis, and the conditional analysis—it presents a new account that builds on both the existential and conditional analyses. On this account, the act conditional analysis, a sentence like ‘John can swim across the river’ says that there is some practically available action that is such that if John tries to do it, he swims across (...)
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  15. Modal Epistemology and the Rationalist Renaissance.George Bealer - 2002 - In Tamar Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Conceivability and Possibility. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 71-125.
    The paper begins with a clarification of the notions of intuition (and, in particular, modal intuition), modal error, conceivability, metaphysical possibility, and epistemic possibility. It is argued that two-dimensionalism is the wrong framework for modal epistemology and that a certain nonreductionist approach to the theory of concepts and propositions is required instead. Finally, there is an examination of moderate rationalism’s impact on modal arguments in the philosophy of mind -- for example, Yablo’s disembodiment argument and Chalmers’s zombie argument. A less (...)
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  16. Modal Disagreements.Justin Khoo - 2015 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 58 (5):511-534.
    It is often assumed that when one party felicitously rejects an assertion made by an- other party, the first party thinks that the proposition asserted by the second is false. This assumption underlies various disagreement arguments used to challenge contex- tualism about some class of expressions. As such, many contextualists have resisted these arguments on the grounds that the disagreements in question may not be over the proposition literally asserted. The result appears to be a dialectical stalemate, with no independent (...)
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  17. Modal Realism and Anthropic Reasoning.Mario Gómez-Torrente - 2024 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 102 (4):925-938.
    Some arguments against David Lewis’s modal realism seek to exploit apparent inconsistencies between it and anthropic reasoning. A recent argument, in particular, seeks to exploit an inconsistency between modal realism and typicality anthropic premises, premises common in the literature on physical multiverses, to the effect that observers who are like human observers in certain respects must be typical in the relevant multiverse. Here I argue that typicality premises are not applicable to the description of Lewis’s metaphysical multiverse, where the proportions (...)
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  18. Putting Modal Metaphysics First.Antonella Mallozzi - 2018 - Synthese (Suppl 8):1-20.
    I propose that we approach the epistemology of modality by putting modal metaphysics first and, specifically, by investigating the metaphysics of essence. Following a prominent Neo-Aristotelian view, I hold that metaphysical necessity depends on the nature of things, namely their essences. I further clarify that essences are core properties having distinctive superexplanatory powers. In the case of natural kinds, which is my focus in the paper, superexplanatoriness is due to the fact that the essence of a kind is what (...)
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  19. Deontic Modals and Probability: One Theory to Rule Them All?Fabrizio Cariani - 2016 - In Nate Charlow & Matthew Chrisman (eds.), Deontic Modality. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
    This paper motivates and develops a novel semantic framework for deontic modals. The framework is designed to shed light on two things: the relationship between deontic modals and substantive theories of practical rationality and the interaction of deontic modals with conditionals, epistemic modals and probability operators. I argue that, in order to model inferential connections between deontic modals and probability operators, we need more structure than is provided by classical intensional theories. In particular, we need probabilistic structure that interacts directly (...)
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  20. Dispositionalism and the Modal Operators.David Yates - 2015 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 91 (2):411-424.
    Actualists of a certain stripe—dispositionalists—hold that metaphysical modality is grounded in the powers of actual things. Roughly: p is possible iff something has, or some things have, the power to bring it about that p. Extant critiques of dispositionalism focus on its material adequacy, and question whether there are enough powers to account for all the possibilities we intuitively want to countenance. For instance, it seems possible that none of the actual contingent particulars ever existed, but it is impossible (...)
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  21. Function, modality, mental content.Bence Nanay - 2011 - Journal of Mind and Behavior 32 (2):84-87.
    I clarify some of the details of the modal theory of function I outlined in Nanay (2010): (a) I explicate what it means that the function of a token biological trait is fixed by modal facts; (b) I address an objection to my trait type individuation argument against etiological function and (c) I examine the consequences of replacing the etiological theory of function with a modal theory for the prospects of using the concept of biological function to explain mental content.
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  22.  31
    Epistemic Modals in Context.Andy Egan, John Hawthorne & Brian Weatherson - 2005 - In Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds.), Contextualism in philosophy: knowledge, meaning, and truth. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 131-168.
    A very simple contextualist treatment of a sentence containing an epistemic modal, e.g. a might be F, is that it is true iff for all the contextually salient community knows, a is F. It is widely agreed that the simple theory will not work in some cases, but the counterexamples produced so far seem amenable to a more complicated contextualist theory. We argue, however, that no contextualist theory can capture the evaluations speakers naturally make of sentences containing epistemic modals. If (...)
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  23. Grading Modal Judgement.Nate Charlow - 2020 - Mind 129 (515):769-807.
    This paper proposes a new model of graded modal judgment. It begins by problematizing the phenomenon: given plausible constraints on the logic of epistemic modality, it is impossible to model graded attitudes toward modal claims as judgments of probability targeting epistemically modal propositions. This paper considers two alternative models, on which modal operators are non-proposition-forming: (1) Moss (2015), in which graded attitudes toward modal claims are represented as judgments of probability targeting a “proxy” proposition, belief in which would underwrite (...)
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  24. The Modal-Epistemic Argument: Wintein's Rebuttals Rebutted.Emanuel Rutten - forthcoming - Acta Philosophica.
    In a recent paper, Stefan Wintein criticizes my responses to the objections he raised to my modal-epistemic argument (MEA) for the existence of God. In this paper, I continue our debate and respond to Wintein’s criticisms of my previous responses. I argue that Wintein’s criticisms are unsuccessful. As a result, the MEA still stands.
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  25. Agentive Modals and Agentive Modality: A Cautionary Tale.Timothy Kearl & Robert H. Wallace - 2024 - American Philosophical Quarterly 61 (2):139–155.
    In this paper, we consider recent attempts to metaphysically explain agentive modality in terms of conditionals. We suggest that the best recent accounts face counterexamples, and more worryingly, they take some agentive modality for granted. In particular, the ability to perform basic actions features as a primitive in these theories. While it is perfectly acceptable for a semantics of agentive modal claims to take some modality for granted in getting the extension of action claims correct, a metaphysical (...)
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  26. Modal normativism on semantic rules.Rohan Sud - 2024 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 67 (8):2361-2380.
    According to Amie Thomasson’s modal normativism, the function of modal discourse is to convey semantic rules. But what is a "semantic rule"? I raise three worries according to which there is no conception of a semantic rule that can serve the needs of a modal normativist. The first worry focuses on de re and a posteriori necessities. The second worry concerns Thomasson's inferential specification of the meaning of modal terms. The third worry asks about the normative status of semantic rules.
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  27. Modal Normativism and De Re Modality.Tom Donaldson & Jennifer Wang - 2022 - Argumenta 7 (2):293-307.
    In the middle of the last century, it was common to explain the notion of necessity in linguistic terms. A necessary truth, it was said, is a sentence whose truth is guaranteed by linguistic rules. Quine famously argued that, on this view, de re modal claims do not make sense. “Porcupettes are porcupines” is necessarily true, but it would be a mistake to say of a particular porcupette that it is necessarily a porcupine, or that it is possibly purple. Linguistic (...)
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  28. The Modal Future: A Theory of Future-Directed Thought and Talk.Fabrizio Cariani - 2021 - Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
    Provisional draft, pre-production copy of my book “The Modal Future” (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press).
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  29. Modal Knowledge and Counterfactual Knowledge.Sonia Roca-Royes - 2011 - Logique Et Analyse 54 (216):537-552.
    The paper compares the suitability of two different epistemologies of counterfactuals—(EC) and (W)—to elucidate modal knowledge. I argue that, while both of them explain the data on our knowledge of counterfactuals, only (W)—Williamson’s epistemology—is compatible with all counterpossibles being true. This is something on which Williamson’s counterfactual-based account of modal knowledge relies. A first problem is, therefore, that, in the absence of further, disambiguating data, Williamson’s choice of (W) is objectionably biased. A second, deeper problem is that (W) cannot satisfactorily (...)
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  30. Modal logic with names.George Gargov & Valentin Goranko - 1993 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 22 (6):607 - 636.
    We investigate an enrichment of the propositional modal language L with a "universal" modality ■ having semantics x ⊧ ■φ iff ∀y(y ⊧ φ), and a countable set of "names" - a special kind of propositional variables ranging over singleton sets of worlds. The obtained language ℒ $_{c}$ proves to have a great expressive power. It is equivalent with respect to modal definability to another enrichment ℒ(⍯) of ℒ, where ⍯ is an additional modality with the semantics x (...)
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  31. A Modal Account of Essence.Michael De - 2020 - Metaphysics 3 (1):17-32.
    According to the simple modal account of essence, an object has a property essentially just in case it has it in every world in which it exists. As many have observed, the simple modal account is implausible for a number of reasons. This has led to various proposals for strengthening the account, for example, by adding a restriction to the intrinsic or sparse properties. I argue, however, that these amendments to the simple modal account themselves fail. Drawing on lessons from (...)
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  32. A Modal Theory of Function.Bence Nanay - 2010 - Journal of Philosophy 107 (8):412-431.
    The function of a trait token is usually defined in terms of some properties of other (past, present, future) tokens of the same trait type. I argue that this strategy is problematic, as trait types are (at least partly) individuated by their functional properties, which would lead to circularity. In order to avoid this problem, I suggest a way to define the function of a trait token in terms of the properties of the very same trait token. To able to (...)
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  33. Modal Meinongianism and Object Theory.Francesco Berto, Filippo Casati, Naoya Fujikawa & Graham Priest - 2020 - Australasian Journal of Logic 17 (1):1-21.
    We reply to various arguments by Otavio Bueno and Edward Zalta (‘Object Theory and Modal Meinongianism’) against Modal Meinongianism, including that it presupposes, but cannot maintain, a unique denotation for names of fictional characters, and that it is not generalizable to higher-order objects. We individuate the crucial difference between Modal Meinongianism and Object Theory in the former’s resorting to an apparatus of worlds, possible and impossible, for the representational purposes for which the latter resorts to a distinction between two kinds (...)
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  34. Epistemic Modal Credence.Simon Goldstein - 2021 - Philosophers' Imprint 21 (26).
    Triviality results threaten plausible principles governing our credence in epistemic modal claims. This paper develops a new account of modal credence which avoids triviality. On the resulting theory, probabilities are assigned not to sets of worlds, but rather to sets of information state-world pairs. The theory avoids triviality by giving up the principle that rational credence is closed under conditionalization. A rational agent can become irrational by conditionalizing on new evidence. In place of conditionalization, the paper develops a new account (...)
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  35. From Modal Skepticism to Modal Empiricism.Felipe Leon - 2016 - In Bob Fischer & Felipe Leon (eds.), Modal Epistemology After Rationalism. Cham: Springer.
    This collection highlights the new trend away from rationalism and toward empiricism in the epistemology of modality. Accordingly, the book represents a wide range of positions on the empirical sources of modal knowledge. Readers will find an introduction that surveys the field and provides a brief overview of the work, which progresses from empirically-sensitive rationalist accounts to fully empiricist accounts of modal knowledge. Early chapters focus on challenges to rationalist theories, essence-based approaches to modal knowledge, and the prospects for (...)
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  36. MODAL REALISM AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS: THE CASE OF ISLAND UNIVERSES.Martin Vacek - 2013 - Filozofia 68 (10).
    The paper outlines and immediately discusses the so-called ‘soft’ impossibility, i.e., non-logical impossibility generated by modal realism. It will be shown that although in a particular case genuine modal realism, straightforwardly applied, deems impossible a proposition that other philosophers have claimed to be (intuitively) possible, there is a variety of methodologically acceptable moves available in order to avoid the problem. The impossibility at issue is the existence of island universes. Given the Lewisian analysis there are three points at which we (...)
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  37. The Modal-Epistemic Argument Defended: Reply to Wintein.Emanuel Rutten - 2022 - Sophia 21 (4):775-793.
    Recently, Stefan Wintein published an article in which he presents four objections to my modal-epistemic argument for the existence of God. His first objection is an alleged counterexample to the argument’s first premise, and the second objection is an alleged counterexample to the argument’s second premise. Wintein’s third objection attempts to show that the modal-epistemic argument is circular. Finally, the fourth objection is a parody objection. In this paper, I show that Wintein’s four objections all fail.
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  38. Advanced Modalizing Problems.Mark Jago - 2016 - Mind 125 (499):627-642.
    I present an internal problem for David Lewis’s genuine modal realism. My aim is to show that his analysis of modality is inconsistent with his metaphysics. I consider several ways of modifying the Lewisian analysis of modality, but argue that none are successful. I argue that the problem also affects theories related to genuine modal realism, including the stage theory of persistence and modal fictionalism.
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  39.  26
    Invariance, Modality, and Modelling.Andreas Hüttemann - 2025 - In Tarja Knuuttila, Till Grüne-Yanoff, Rami Koskinen & Ylwa Wirling (eds.), Modeling the Possible. Perspectives from Philosophy of Science. London: Routledge. pp. 103-120.
    This paper explores the relation between natural modality and our modelling practices. It will be argued that some modelling practices such as abstraction and idealization should be understood as presupposing empirical claims about objective modal features of the behavior of target systems. To establish the connection between natural modality on the one hand and modelling practices on the other an analysis of natural modality in terms of empirically accessible invariance relations will be provided.
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  40. Alethic Modalities.Nathan Salmón - 2025 - Philosophical Studies 182 (1):287-304.
    It is widely held that metaphysical modality is the broadest non-epistemic, alethic modality, and that /a posteriori/ modal essentialist truths, like that gold has atomic number 79, enjoy the necessity of the broadest alethic modality. One prominent argument for these conclusions--given by Cian Dorr, John Hawthorne, and Juhani Yli-Vakkuri--rests upon an extremely dubious premise: that certain pairs of properties—e.g., being gold and being made of atoms containing 79 protons—are one and the very same property. The two properties (...)
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  41. Overcoming Modal Skepticism via Conceptual Engineering.Krzysztof Sękowski - 2024 - In Yannic Kappes, Asya Passinsky, Julio De Rizzo & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.), Facets of Reality — Contemporary Debates. Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. pp. 697-707.
    The paper defends the view that that a significant part of metaphysics should be understood as conceptual engineering, and explores its epistemological advantages and metaphysical implications. It discusses the challenge raised by moderate modal skepticism, which points out the lack of reliable methods for verifying modal statements through thought experiments. As I argue, a normative stance on metaphysical methodology, understanding it as engaging in conceptual engineering project, justifies the use of this method. By adopting an approach where the method of (...)
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  42. Naturalised Modal Epistemology.Daniel Nolan - 2016 - In Bob Fischer & Felipe Leon (eds.), Modal Epistemology After Rationalism. Cham: Springer. pp. 7-27.
    The philosophy of necessity and possibility has flourished in the last half-century, but much less attention has been paid to the question of how we know what can be the case and what must be the case. Many friends of modal metaphysics and many enemies of modal metaphysics have agreed that while empirical discoveries can tell us what is the case, they cannot shed much light on what must be the case or on what non-actual possibilities there are. In this (...)
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  43. Supervaluationism, Modal Logic, and Weakly Classical Logic.Joshua Schechter - 2024 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 53 (2):411-61.
    A consequence relation is strongly classical if it has all the theorems and entailments of classical logic as well as the usual meta-rules (such as Conditional Proof). A consequence relation is weakly classical if it has all the theorems and entailments of classical logic but lacks the usual meta-rules. The most familiar example of a weakly classical consequence relation comes from a simple supervaluational approach to modelling vague language. This approach is formally equivalent to an account of logical consequence according (...)
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  44. A Modality Called ‘Negation’.Francesco Berto - 2015 - Mind 124 (495):761-793.
    I propose a comprehensive account of negation as a modal operator, vindicating a moderate logical pluralism. Negation is taken as a quantifier on worlds, restricted by an accessibility relation encoding the basic concept of compatibility. This latter captures the core meaning of the operator. While some candidate negations are then ruled out as violating plausible constraints on compatibility, different specifications of the notion of world support different logical conducts for negations. The approach unifies in a philosophically motivated picture the following (...)
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  45. Modal Empiricism Made Difficult: An Essay in the Meta-Epistemology of Modality.Ylwa Sjölin Wirling - 2019 - Dissertation, University of Gothenburg
    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 (...)
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  46. Genuine modal realism and the empty world.David Efird & Tom Stoneham - 2005 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 1 (1):21-37.
    We argue that genuine modal realism can be extended, rather than modified, so as to allow for the possibility of nothing concrete, a possibility we term ‘metaphysical nihilism’. The issue should be important to the genuine modal realist because, not only is metaphysical nihilism itself intuitively plausible, but also it is supported by an argument with pre-theoretically credible premises, namely, the subtraction argument. Given the soundness of the subtraction argument, we show that there are two ways that the genuine modal (...)
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  47. A modal theory of discrimination.Guido Melchior - 2021 - Synthese 198 (11):10661-10684.
    Discrimination is a central epistemic capacity but typically, theories of discrimination only use discrimination as a vehicle for analyzing knowledge. This paper aims at developing a self-contained theory of discrimination. Internalist theories of discrimination fail since there is no compelling correlation between discriminatory capacities and experiences. Moreover, statistical reliabilist theories are also flawed. Only a modal theory of discrimination is promising. Versions of sensitivity and adherence that take particular alternatives into account provide necessary and sufficient conditions on discrimination. Safety in (...)
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  48. Kant, Modality, and the Most Real Being.Andrew Chignell - 2009 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 91 (2):157-192.
    Kant's speculative theistic proof rests on a distinction between “logical” and “real” modality that he developed very early in the pre-critical period. The only way to explain facts about real possibility, according to Kant, is to appeal to the properties of a unique, necessary, and “most real” being. Here I reconstruct the proof in its historical context, focusing on the role played by the theory of modality both in motivating the argument (in the pre-critical period) and, ultimately, in (...)
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  49. Moderate Modal Skepticism.Margot Strohminger & Juhani Yli-Vakkuri - 2018 - In Matthew A. Benton, John Hawthorne & Dani Rabinowitz (eds.), Knowledge, Belief, and God: New Insights in Religious Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 302-321.
    This paper examines "moderate modal skepticism", a form of skepticism about metaphysical modality defended by Peter van Inwagen in order to blunt the force of certain modal arguments in the philosophy of religion. Van Inwagen’s argument for moderate modal skepticism assumes Yablo's (1993) influential world-based epistemology of possibility. We raise two problems for this epistemology of possibility, which undermine van Inwagen's argument. We then consider how one might motivate moderate modal skepticism by relying on a different epistemology of possibility, (...)
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  50. Modal inferences in science: a tale of two epistemologies.Ilmari Hirvonen, Rami Koskinen & Ilkka Pättiniemi - 2021 - Synthese 199 (5-6):13823-13843.
    Recent epistemology of modality has seen a growing trend towards metaphysics-first approaches. Contrastingly, this paper offers a more philosophically modest account of justifying modal claims, focusing on the practices of scientific modal inferences. Two ways of making such inferences are identified and analyzed: actualist-manipulationist modality and relative modality. In AM, what is observed to be or not to be the case in actuality or under manipulations, allows us to make modal inferences. AM-based inferences are fallible, but the (...)
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