Modal Epistemology, Modal Concepts and the Integration Challenge

Abstract

The paper argues against Peacocke's moderate rationalism in modality. In the first part, I show, by identifying an argumentative gap in its epistemology, that Peacocke's account has not met the Integration Challenge. I then argue that we should modify the account's metaphysics of modal concepts in order to avoid implausible consequences with regards to their possession conditions. This modification generates no extra explanatory gap. Yet, once the minimal modification that avoids those implausible consequences is made, the resulting account cannot support Peacocke's moderate rationalism. IntroductionModal epistemology has flourished. A lot has been written since van Inwagen wrote (1998) that "Modal epistemology is a subject about which little is known" (75). One way to motivate the question that modal epistemologists are trying to answer is by analogy to Benacerraf's dilemma for mathematics.1 Let us assume modal mindindependence. 2 If we assume further that we have modal knowledge, the challenge arises as to how we are able to obtain knowledge of the extra-mental modal realm. For our senses give us access to what is actually the case, but it is not clear that they give us access to what is merely possible, necessary, or impossible. This challenge has traditionally been presented in the literature as involving the need for a necessitysensitive faculty that would enable us to recognize modal facts, followed by the claim that we cannot make sense of such a faculty. 3 The idea behind the alleged need for this faculty is the so-called 'causal account of knowledge', which would require all knowledge to be fundamentally grounded in causal affection. (Benacerraf 1973, 661). One might dislike this way of motivating the challenge. However, the idea of a potential need for this faculty is still dominant in the literature, to the extent that some-most notably the rationalists-are explicitly interested in denying that we need it (e.g., (Peacocke 1999, 189)) while others are explicitly interested in naturalizing it, thereby reducing its mysteriousness (e.g., -2 -inferred from conceivability knowledge with the aid of a thesis that would appropriately link p's conceivability and p's possibility. And there are understandingbased accounts (e.g., (Bealer 1999(Bealer , 2002, (Peacocke 1999 and), according to which possession of concepts and understanding of contents is the main source of modal knowledge. 4 Counterfactual-and conceivability-based accounts have received most attention in the recent years, and one can find in the literature several criticisms against them. 5While those criticisms are not decisive, the initial unreflective enthusiasm for these kinds of accounts is no longer in good health. This decrease in optimism makes the exploration of alternative approaches a somehow urgent task.One such alternative-the target of this paper-is Peacocke's understandingbased account which, despite its numerous attractive features, has not received due attention. Something that the epistemologies mentioned hitherto have ...

Lowe on Modal Knowledge

“…The failure of Lowe's account is not only the failure of a very suggestive reductive explanation of modal knowledge in terms of knowledge of essences, but it also provides a (further) case study that illustrates how elusive reductive explanations of our knowledge of metaphysical modalities really are (see also Jenkins ; Roca‐Royes ). What motivates such reductive explanations in the first place is that many philosophers consider our modal knowledge as knowledge of an especially problematic kind .…”

“…And it is by no means clear that, for example, explaining our knowledge of essential truths is any easier than explaining our knowledge of metaphysical modalities (cf. Peacocke , p. 166; Roca‐Royes ). But for present purposes, I will simply grant Lowe this point (see below).…”

“…Roca‐Royes (, pp. 335–36) speculates that these worries about our modal knowledge arise from considerations that are analogous to Benacerraf's dilemma for mathematics (cf.…”

Modalism and theoretical virtues: toward an epistemology of modality

“…2 Roca-Royes has raised serious objections to the rationalist program (Roca-Royes [2010] and [2011]), and Jenkins [2010] defends the view that the senses ground our concepts, which in turn constrain what is 1 Our thanks go to David Chalmers, Bob Fischer, Bob Hale, Sonia Roca-Royes, and Anand Vaidya for thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this work. Thanks are also due to an anonymous reviewer for Philosophical Studies for insightful and helpful comments.…”

On Modal Knowledge

“…This does not as such raise a circularity worry since Peacocke has it that constitutive truths are not modal in content, rather they have to do with the identity of a thing, what makes it the thing it is. Yet, the feeling remains that Peacocke's modal epistemology would not honor its agenda if it did not elucidate constitutive knowledge, in which modal knowledge originates [Heathcote 2001], [Wright 2002], [Roca- Royes 2010].…”