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Introduction to Modal Epistemology After Rationalism

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Modal Epistemology After Rationalism

Part of the book series: Synthese Library ((SYLI,volume 378))

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Abstract

We’re justified in believing some alethic modal claims: the losing team could have won; that bridge could collapse; two and two couldn’t equal five; etc. The epistemology of modality is concerned with the nature of this justification. How can we get it? How can we lose it? And what, exactly, explains why it’s available to us at all? The goal of this book is to give a hearing to those who are moving away from the purer strains of rationalism in modal epistemology, finding room for experience to play a larger justificatory role—or even the only role. At the same time, it makes room for those who want to construct modal epistemologies that answer primarily to ordinary modal claims rather than the ones that have been of interest to metaphysicians and philosophers of mind—e.g., teletransportation, disembodied minds, etc.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For some helpful overviews of the standard answers to these questions, see McLeod (2005), Evnine (2008), and Vaidya (2015).

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Correspondence to Bob Fischer .

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Fischer, B., Leon, F. (2017). Introduction to Modal Epistemology After Rationalism . In: Fischer, B., Leon, F. (eds) Modal Epistemology After Rationalism. Synthese Library, vol 378. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44309-6_1

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