Possibility, Necessity and Probability: A Meditation on Underdetermination and Justification [Book Review]

Erkenntnis 79 (3):639-667 (2013)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

After providing some historical and systematic background, I introduce the structure of a very natural and influential sceptical underdetermination argument. The argument assumes that it is metaphysically possible for a deceived subject to have the same evidence that a non-deceived subject has, and tries to draw consequences about justification from that assumption of metaphysical possibility. I first variously object to the transition from the assumption to its supposed consequences. In the central part of the paper, I then critically consider some influential ways of bridging the gap between the assumption and its supposed consequences, which generally consist in strengthening the assumption from one of metaphysical possibility into one of either counterfactual implication or entailment. The discussion indicates that epistemic facts are much more independent from metaphysically modal facts than the sceptical underdetermination argument requires

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,401

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2013-10-06

Downloads
84 (#257,751)

6 months
3 (#1,061,821)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Elia Zardini
Complutense University of Madrid

Citations of this work

K ⊈ E.Elia Zardini - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94 (3):540-557.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Philosophical explanations.Robert Nozick - 1981 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Knowledge and lotteries.John Hawthorne - 2004 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Sense and Sensibilia.John Langshaw Austin - 1962 - Oxford University Press. Edited by G. Warnock.
Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (210):105-116.

View all 34 references / Add more references