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Over the past two decades, modal epistemology has turned its attention to ordinary modal knowledge. This paper brings to the fore a neglected but central form of ordinary modal knowledge: knowledge of agentive modality, and in particular of our own abilities, which I call 'ability knowledge'. I argue that modal epistemology as it is does not account for ability knowledge, by looking at the most promising candidate theories: perception-based, counterfactual-based, and similarity-based modal epistemologies. I then outline a more promising epistemology for our ability knowledge, which relies on the experience of our own agency, and draw out some lessons for modal epistemology in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

José Benardete developed a famous paradox involving a beginningless set of items each member of which satisfies some predicate just in case no earlier member satisfies it. The Grim Reaper version of this paradox has recently been employed in favour of various finitist metaphysical theses, ranging from temporal finitism to causal finitism to the discrete nature of time. Here, I examine a new challenge to these finitist arguments—namely, the challenge of implying that the future cannot be endless. In particular, I develop future-oriented Benardete paradoxes and examine their epistemic symmetry with past-oriented paradoxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the worm theory, persons are (maximal) aggregates of person-stages existing at different times. Personites, on the other hand, are non-maximal aggregates of stages that are very much like persons. Their existence appears to make instances of prudential self-sacrifice morally problematic: the personites that exist at the time of the sacrifice but not at the time of the reward seem not to receive future compensation for their sacrifice. Instances of punishment appear to give rise to a similar problem. We argue that these impressions arise from a mistaken assumption about the primary bearers of properties such as suffering , receiving compensation (in the future) and having (previously) committed a crime. According to the worm theory, stages, rather than persons or personites, possess these properties. Persons and personites have these properties only derivatively. As we show, once this clarification and related ones are made, the apparent moral problems raised by the existence of personites dissolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of this paper is Aristotle's 'proof by refutation' of the Principle of Non-Contradiction (Metaphysics Γ 4, 1006a11–1007a20). I consider a worry which has often been raised in connection with this proof. The worry is that, faced with an opponent who is prepared to tolerate contradictions, the argument is dialectically powerless: it is incapable of getting them to abandon their position. In reply, I argue that the proof needs to be seen in its proper context, that is, as part of Aristotle's response to an opponent who demands a demonstration of the principle. This allows us to clarify the purpose of the argument and answer the worry about its effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his Metaphysical Disputation 5, Francisco Suárez offers a concise argument to the effect that all that does or can possibly exist is singular and individual, and that a commitment to real universals would entail what he calls a 'manifest contradiction'. According to a recent interpretation of this Master Argument against realism, it reveals that Suárez was committed to a hylomorphic version of the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, and ruled out the possibility of perfectly similar yet numerically distinct entities. In this paper, however, I argue that (1) at least for fundamental items in his ontology such as immaterial forms and matter-form compounds, Suárez was not committed to the identity of indiscernibles, and (2) a reading of the Master Argument that does justice to this is available. On the basis of this reading I provide a reappraisal of the argument, and conclude that (3) it rests on a premise that the realist would have good reasons to challenge. Hence, while the argument seems consistent with the possibility of indiscernible yet numerically distinct immaterial forms and matter-form compounds Suárez wishes to allow for, it is doubtful whether it can accomplish what it sets out to do, and undermine the case for realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

William of Ockham (d. 1347) is well known for his commitment to parsimony and for his so-called 'razor' principle. But little is known about attempts among his own contemporaries to deflect his use of the razor. In this paper, I explore one such attempt. In particular, I consider a clever challenge that Ockham's younger contemporary, Walter Chatton (d. 1343) deploys against the razor. The challenge involves a kind of dilemma for Ockham. Depending on how Ockham responds to this dilemma, his razor will, Chatton argues, either prove unacceptably dull when it comes to determining ontological commitment or prove unacceptably sharp when it comes to determining commitments entailed by certain theological doctrines. While Chatton's objection is subtle and interesting in its own right, the broader significance of the debate between these thinkers lies in the light it sheds on medieval approaches to issues surrounding metaphysical methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to clarify one of the deepest questions about the source or ground of normativity, while also presenting an essence-based approach to answering it. We call it the 'Arché Question.' Though all metanormative theories must address this question, very few realists have explicitly grappled with the challenge it poses; those who have appear to deny any need to give an answer. After critically discussing extant realist responses, this paper outlines an essence-based approach to answering the Arché Question that draws on theoretical resources forged in recent advances in post-modal metaphysics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extra-mathematical explanations explain natural phenomena primarily by appeal to mathematical facts. Philosophers disagree about whether there are extra-mathematical explanations, the correct account of them if they exist, and their implications (for example, for the philosophy of scientific explanation and for the metaphysics of mathematics) (Baker 2005 , 2009 ; Bangu 2008 ; Colyvan 1998 ; Craver and Povich 2017 ; Lange 2013 , 2016 , 2018 ; Mancosu 2008 ; Povich 2019 , 2020 ; Steiner 1978). In this discussion, I present three desiderata for any account of extra-mathematical explanation and argue that Baron's (2020) U-Counterfactual theory fails to meet each of them. I conclude with some reasons for pessimism that a successful account will be forthcoming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the notion of grounding arguably prevalent throughout moral philosophy the same as that found in metaphysics? Selim Berker has argued it is. This, he claims, has a 'surprising' consequence: many central claims in normative ethics become claims within both normative ethics and meta-ethics. I argue that whatever important consequences the unity of grounding may have for moral philosophy, it does not, pace Berker, entail anything significant regarding the relationship between normative ethics and meta-ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I will argue that a number of Hume's claims generate a putative inconsistency with regard to complex ideas and independent existence. I first provide a prima facie argument for the existence of this inconsistency. Then, I examine a number of attempts to rescue Hume from this problem, and argue that each of them fails, before proposing my own solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I explore the relationship between a prominent analysis of intrinsic properties, due to Langton and Lewis, and the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. As I argue, the analysis faces a puzzle. The full analysis classifies certain properties of entangled particles as intrinsic. But when combined with an extremely plausible assumption about duplication, the main part of the analysis classifies those properties as non-intrinsic instead. I conclude that much of Lewis's metaphysics is in trouble: Lewis based many of his metaphysical views—his thesis of Humean supervenience, for instance, and his account of recombination—on an analysis of intrinsicality which does not sit well with quantum phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses project of putting powers to work outside a narrow context of fundamental properties. It mentions argument for any kind of powers metaphysics that it can explain a range of phenomena such as causation, modality, laws, and free will; and also mentions both Humeanism and Armstrong's nomological realism can explain just as much as a powers-based theory of causation.

In a series of recent papers, David Rose and Jonathan Schaffer use a number of experiments to show that folk intuitions about composition and persistence are driven by pre-scientific teleological tendencies. They argue that these intuitions are fit for debunking and that the playing field for competing accounts of composition and persistence should therefore be considered even: no view draws more support from folk intuitions than its rivals, and the choice between them should be made exclusively on the basis of theoretical considerations. In this paper I argue that Rose and Schaffer draw the wrong conclusion from their own findings, which should instead push us toward sparse views about composition and persistence. Most metaphysicians (including Schaffer himself, and arguably Rose too) should be worried by this result, since they hold views that are flatly incompatible with it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional epistemological approach towards judgments like BACHELORS ARE UNMARRIED or ALL KNOWLEDGE IS TRUE is that they are justified or known on the basis of understanding alone. In this paper, I develop an understanding-based account which takes understanding to be a sufficient source of epistemic justification for the relevant judgments. Understanding-based accounts face the problem of the rational revisability of almost all human judgments. Williamson has recently developed a reinforced version of this problem: the challenge from expert revisability. This is the problem that even the best candidate judgments for understanding-based justification can be rationally rejected by the relevant experts, who may not even have any disposition or inclination to accept these judgments. (Consider, for instance, Graham Priest, a leading logician who rejects the law of non-contradiction.) However, I argue that expert revisability is fully compatible with the proposed understanding-based epistemology, because expert revisability is true of sufficient sources of epistemic justification in general. A remaining metaphysical worry is that understanding might end up being 'too thin' to play the envisaged epistemological role. This worry can be countered with a novel metaphysics of understanding involving second-order dispositions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 'Essence and Modality', Kit Fine (1994) proposes that for a proposition to be metaphysically necessary is for it to be true in virtue of the nature of all objects. Call this view Fine's Thesis. This paper is a study of Fine's Thesis in the context of Fine's logic of essence (LE). Fine himself has offered his most elaborate defence of the thesis in the context of LE. His defence rests on the widely shared assumption that metaphysical necessity obeys the laws of the modal logic S5. In order to get S5 for metaphysical necessity, he assumes a controversial principle about the nature of all objects. I will show that the addition of this principle to his original system E5 leads to inconsistency with an independently plausible principle about essence. In response, I develop a theory that avoids this inconsistency while allowing us to maintain S5 for metaphysical necessity. However, I conclude that our investigation of Fine's Thesis in the context of LE motivates the revisionary conclusion that metaphysical necessity obeys the principles of the modal logic S4, but not those of S5. I argue that this constitutes a distinctively essentialist challenge to the received view that the logic of metaphysical necessity is S5. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores ways in which one can perform actions that are metaphysically impossible to perform.

The ancient puzzle of Dion and Theon has given rise to a surprising array of apparently implausible views. For example, in order to solve the puzzle, several philosophers have been led to deny the existence of their own feet, others have denied that objects can gain and lose parts, and large numbers of philosophers have embraced the thesis that distinct objects can occupy the same space, having all their material parts in common. In this paper, I argue for an alternative approach: I claim that human beings have ordinary parts—hands, heads, feet, and so on—but no extraordinary parts, such as 'foot-complements', the existence of which is essential to the puzzle. I rebut three objections to this approach: an objection that it is unacceptably metaphysically arbitrary, an objection that the view is incompatible with versions of the puzzle involving decapitation, and an objection concerning masses of matter. If we can believe that there are such things as hands and feet without involving ourselves in paradox, and without accepting large numbers of co-located material objects that share all their material parts, then that is what we should do. My view is the only known alternative which allows this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it impossible for a person to do something intentionally without knowing that she is doing it? The phenomenon of self-deceived agency might seem to show otherwise. Here the agent is not (at least in a straightforward sense) lying, yet disavows a correct description of her intentional action. This disavowal might seem expressive of ignorance. However, I show that the self-deceived agent does know what she's doing. I argue that we should understand the factors that explain self-deception as masking rather than negating the practical knowledge characteristic of intentional action. This masking takes roughly the following form: when we are deceiving ourselves about what we are intentionally doing, we don't think about our action because it's painful to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two ways interpreters have tended to understand the nature of the laws of Kant's pure general logic. On the first, these laws are unconditional norms for how we ought to think, and will govern anything that counts as thinking. On the second, these laws are formal criteria for being a thought, and violating them makes a putative thought not a thought. These traditions are in tension, in so far as the first depends on the possibility of thoughts that violate these laws, and the second makes violation impossible. In this essay I develop an interpretation of Kant's pure general logic that overcomes this tension. It accounts for the possibility of logical mistakes, as the first tradition does, while still establishing the absolute impossibility of logical aliens, as the second tradition does. I then argue that the formalist insight that illogical exercises of the understanding are not alternative ways coherent thoughts could have been, but are mere confusions, is fundamental for achieving a proper understanding of the absolute normativity of the laws of pure general logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although idealism was widely defended in the history of philosophy, it is nowadays almost universally considered a non-starter. This holds in particular for a strong form of idealism, which asserts that not just minds or the mental in general, but our human minds in particular are metaphysically central to reality. Such a view seems to be excessively anthropocentric and contrary to what we by now know about our place in the universe. Nonetheless, there is reason to think that such a strong form of idealism is indeed correct. In this paper, I will present an argument for idealism of this kind through considerations about a harmony between our thought and reality. The central argument in favour of idealism will come from a possibly unexpected source: we can see that a strong form of idealism is true simply from considerations about our language alone. I shall argue that thinking about how we represent reality allows us to conclude that idealism is true, and thus that reality must be a certain way. But no argument of this kind seems to allow for a metaphysical conclusion like idealism, since considerations about our language alone only show how we represent reality, not how reality is. And thus idealism can't possibly follow, since it concerns how reality is, not just how we represent it to be. A good part of the second half of the paper is devoted to showing how such an argument is possible after all, and that it really does establish idealism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for a novel solution to the Cartesian Circle by emphasising the important epistemic role of the Second Meditation and Descartes' faculty epistemology. I argue that, for Descartes: doubt requires a 'good reason' to doubt (§2.1); whether a reason qualifies as a 'good reason' depends on which faculty produces that reason (§2.2); and for distinct metaphysical perceptions from the faculty of the intellect, no other faculty can provide 'good reasons' to doubt (§2.3). The upshot of §2 is that the doubts raised up to the Third Meditation do not apply to the distinct metaphysical perceptions of the intellect, and in particular do not apply to the premises of the proof of the existence of God. I present the role of God as primarily to secure clear and distinct perceptions beyond the intellect, and knowledge of conclusions when those conclusions are no longer being clearly and distinctly perceived (§3.1). Finally, I give an account of Descartes' use of ' cognoscere ', ' scire ', and ' scientia ' as three distinct epistemic levels, providing a valuable structure within which one can see the meditator progress (§3.2). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An account of the distinction between singular and general propositions should reflect the core ideas that have motivated the distinction. Those core ideas can be appreciated independently of many commitments regarding the metaphysics of propositions, but theorists with differing views on the latter have given quite different explanations of what it is for a proposition to be singular or general. Many of those explanations turn out not to reflect the core ideas adequately after all, either by misclassifying certain propositions or by failing to be sufficiently informative. A more satisfactory account can be formulated by more directly elaborating on the background ideas motivating the distinction. The resulting account not only does better than its competitors, but is compatible with various views on the metaphysics of propositions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epistemic Permissivists face a special problem about the relationship between our first- and higher-order attitudes. They claim that rationality often permits a range of doxastic responses to the evidence. Given plausible assumptions about the relationship between your first- and higher-order attitudes, I show that you can't be on the edge of the range, so there can't be a range at all. Permissivism, in its traditional form, can't be right. I consider new ways of developing Permissivism to avoid my argument, but they have problems of their own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important motivation for believing in the modal realist's ontology of other concrete possible worlds and their inhabitants is its theoretical utility, centrally the reduction of ordinary modal talk to counterpart theory as showcased by David Lewis's 1968 translation scheme. In a recent paper Harold Noonan, following the lead of John Divers, argues that Lewis's scheme is not strictly adequate by the modal realist's own lights, and that nothing short of jettisoning de dicto contingency will help. In this paper, I argue that this is a serious overreaction. First, I show that Noonan's problem does not touch Lewis's proposal, since his translation scheme is not even concerned with the relevant sentences. Thus, Noonan's problem only points to a limit in scope. I then go on to propose a straightforward extension of the translation scheme that provides translations for the allegedly problematic sentences, but does so endangering neither adequacy nor de dicto contingency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive partitions are useful. The notion of numerical identity helps us induce them. Consider, for instance, the role of identity in representing an equivalence relation like taking the same train. This expressive function of identity has been largely overlooked. Other possible functions of the concept have been over-emphasized. It is not clear that we use identity to represent individual objects or quantify over collections of them (numerically or otherwise). Understanding what the concept is good for looks especially urgent in light of the fact that numerical identities themselves are tangibly trifling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We often speak as if there are merely possible people--for example, when we make such claims as that most possible people are never going to be born. Yet most metaphysicians deny that anything is both possibly a person and never born. Since our unreflective talk of merely possible people serves to draw non-trivial distinctions, these metaphysicians owe us some paraphrase by which we can draw those distinctions without committing ourselves to there being merely possible people. We show that such paraphrases are unavailable if we limit ourselves to the expressive resources of even highly infinitary first-order modal languages. We then argue that such paraphrases are available in higher-order modal languages only given certain strong assumptions concerning the metaphysics of properties. We then consider alternative paraphrase strategies, and argue that none of them are tenable. If talk of merely possible people cannot be paraphrased, then it must be taken at face value, in which case it is necessary what individuals there are. Therefore, if it is contingent what individuals there are, then the demands of paraphrase place tight constraints on the metaphysics of properties: either (i) it is necessary what properties there are, or (ii) necessarily equivalent properties are identical, and having properties does not entail even possibly being anything at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Todd (2016) proposes an analysis of future-directed sentences, in particular sentences of the form 'will(φ)', that is based on the classic Russellian analysis of definite descriptions. Todd's analysis is supposed to vindicate the claim that the future is metaphysically open while retaining a simple Ockhamist semantics of future contingents and the principles of classical logic, i.e. bivalence and the law of excluded middle. Consequently, an open futurist can straightforwardly retain classical logic without appeal to supervaluations, determinacy operators, or any further controversial semantical or metaphysical complication. In this paper, we will show that this quasi-Russellian analysis of 'will' both lacks linguistic motivation and faces a variety of significant problems. In particular, we show that the standard arguments for Russell's treatment of definite descriptions fail to apply to statements of the form 'will(φ)'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that the interpreters of philosopher Bertrand Russell have mistakenly attribute to Russell the received view of acquaintance. Topics covered include Russell's discussions of phenomenal continua cases, the possibility of misidentifying the objects of acquaintance given underappreciated aspects of Russell's overall theory of knowledge and acquaintance, and how Russell's Theory of Descriptions provides resources for solving Frege's Puzzle.

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]