There are three theories in the epistemology of modality that have received sustained attention over the past 20 years (1998-2018): conceivability-theory, counterfactualtheory, and deduction-theory. In this paper we argue that all three face what we call the problem of modal epistemic friction (PMEF). One consequence of the problem is that for any of the three accounts to yield modal knowledge, the account must provide an epistemology of essence. We discuss an attempt to fend off the problem within the context of the internalism versus externalism debate about epistemic justification. We then investigate the effects that the PMEF has on reductive and non-reductive theories of the relation between essence and modality.

Modal rationalism includes the thesis that ideal primary positive conceivability entails primary possibility. Modal monism is the thesis that the space of logically possible worlds is coextensive with the space of metaphysically possible worlds. In this paper I explore the relation between the two theses. My aim is to show that the former thesis implies the latter thesis, and that problems with the latter make the former implausible as a complete picture of the epistemology of modality. My argument explores the relation between logical modality and metaphysical modality.

Modal epistemology has been dominated by a focus on establishing an account either of how we have modal knowledge or how we have justified beliefs about modality. One component of this focus has been that necessity and possibility are basic access points for modal reasoning. For example, knowing that P is necessary plays a role in deducing that P is essential, and knowing that both P and ¬P are possible plays a role in knowing that P is accidental. Chalmers (2002) and Williamson (2007) provide two good examples of contrasting views in modal epistemology that focus on providing an account of modal knowledge where necessity and possibility are basic access points for modal knowledge, and Yablo (1993) provides a good account of how we have justified beliefs about modality. In contrast to this tradition I argue for and outline a modal epistemology based on objectual understanding and essence, rather than knowledge or justification and necessity and possibility. The account employs a non-modal conception of essence and takes objectual understanding of essence, rather than knowledge of essence to be basic in modal reasoning. I begin by articulating Kvanvig's (2003) account of objectual understanding, on which objectual understanding of F is not equivalent to propositional knowledge of F. I then argue that an epistemology of essence that uses property variation-in-imagination is better construed as a model that delivers objectual understanding of essence rather than knowledge of essence. I argue that this is so, since the latter and not the former runs into a version of the Meno paradox. I show how this account can be applied to two issues in modal epistemology: the Benacerraf problem for modality, and the architecture of modal knowledge.

In this paper I develop a cross‐cultural critique of contemporary critical thinking education in the United States, the United Kingdom, and those educational systems that adopt critical thinking education from the standard model used in the US and UK. The cross‐cultural critique rests on the idea that contemporary critical thinking textbooks completely ignore contributions from non‐western sources, such as those found in the African, Arabic, Buddhist, Jain, Mohist and Nyāya philosophical traditions. The exclusion of these traditions leads to the conclusion that critical thinking educators, by using standard textbooks are implicitly sending the message to their students that there are no important contributions to the study of logic and argumentation that derive from non‐western sources. As a case study I offer a sustained analysis of the so‐called Hindu Syllogism that derives from the Nyāya School of classical Indian philosophy. I close with a discussion of why contributions from non‐western sources, such as the Hindu Syllogism, belong in a Critical Thinking course as opposed to an area studies course, such as Asian Philosophy.

The thesis that error asymmetrically depends on truth is the thesis that veridicality and truth is conceptually prior to non-veridicality and error with respect to cognition and perception. Epistemic disjunctivism is the thesis that there is no common kind of experience between veridical and non-veridical states that is of robust explanatory value for the purposes of philosophical investigation into perception. In what follows the issue is explored whether Nyāya perceptual theory endorses epistemic disjunctivism or anti-individualism. It is explored against the background of examining Matthew Dasti’s (2012) argument for the view that Nyāya perceptual theory does anticipate contemporary epistemic disjunctivism on the basis of its endorsement of the parasitism of error on truth. In the present account, exploration of the issue is enhanced and better situated for further investigation by paying attention to the intricate debate between Tyler Burge and John McDowell on epistemic disjunctivism, perceptual antiindividualism, and the relevance of the vision sciences to the philosophy of perception. Following Dasti, the view is accepted that Nyāya perceptual theory endorses the idea that error is asymmetrically dependent on truth. However, the claim is drawn into question that they would genuinely accept McDowell’s form of epistemic disjunctivism. Instead, it is argued that Nyāya perceptual theory is amenable to Tyler Burge’s (2005) Perceptual Anti-individualism . The present investigation discusses the Nyāya Misplacement Theory of Illusion and closes with how this account could enhance contemporary research in epistemology and perceptual theory.