EDITED VOLUMES:
1. 50 Years of Naming and Necessity, Oxford University Press (with R. Birman, C. Besson, and A. Hattiangadi), forthcoming
2. Special issue of Synthese on “New Directions in the Epistemology of Modality” (Springer, 2021)
ARTICLES:
- “Modalism and Kripke’s Conception of Essence”
50 Years of Naming and Necessity, R. Birman, C. Besson, A. Hattiangadi, and A. Mallozzi (Eds.), Oxford University Press, forthcoming
Kripke’s treatment of essence in Naming and Necessity has often been read by metaphysicians as endorsing so-called modalism, according to which essence is to be defined in terms of de re metaphysical necessity. Kit Fine (1994) has famously raised several counterexamples for modalism and, drawing from traditional Aristotelian metaphysics, has argued that the analysis should rather go the other way around: de re metaphysical necessity should be understood in terms of an entity’s essence or nature. In a recent paper (2022), Fine has also presented some exegetical considerations that cast some doubts over the modalist reading of Kripke’s treatment of essence in Naming and Necessity. In this paper, I argue against the modalist interpretation of Kripke’s conception of essence and contend, based on textual evidence from some familiar Kripkean cases, that this is instead best understood along the lines of the Finean-Aristotelian conception. Particularly, I argue that key examples of essential properties from Naming and Necessity (such as an individual’s origins, or a chemical substance’s constitution) involve, and sometimes explicitly appeal to, the richer Finean-Aristotelian notion of the nature or identity of a thing, as opposed to the thing’s merely metaphysically necessary properties. I further suggest that essence and essential properties seem to play a special explanatory role within Kripke’s broader modal metaphysics, which is key to distinguish them not only from contingent properties, but also from merely necessary properties.
2. “Knowing Reality Through Imagination”
Conference Proceedings of the 45th International Wittgenstein Symposium 2024: Facets of Reality, De Gruyter, forthcoming
Key questions in the traditional debates about our knowledge of reality concern identifying and giving an account of our epistemic sources. In recent times, we have witnessed widespread enthusiasm for the alleged epistemic powers of the imagination, as many authors pursue the view that imagination yields knowledge in a variety of areas, spanning from mundane practical matters to metaphysical possibility and necessity. In this talk, I take issue with such enthusiasm, arguing that imagination does not play any epistemically significant or evidential role for our knowledge of the world, including modal knowledge. I argue against the alleged epistemic powers of both so-called sensory imagination or mental imagery and propositional imagination. Regarding sensoryimagination, I aim to show that this doesn’t play either a necessary or a sufficient role for knowledge. Rather, it is best understood as a cognitive-epistemic tool playing mainly a nonessential, supportive role for our epistemic achievements. Regarding propositional imagination, I argue that it’s implausible that it constitutes an autonomous source of knowledge and that the view rests on a confusion, as this type of imagination seems virtually indistinguishable from inference.
3. “The Role of Essence in the Epistemology of Grounding“
The Epistemology of Grounding, D. Aleksiev and Y. Kappes (Eds.), Cambridge University Press (with M. Wallner), forthcoming
In this paper we aim to address some crucial questions in the epistemology of grounding by drawing on current debates in the epistemology of modality. Contemporary debates in the epistemology of modality usually distinguish two different types of accounts of modal knowledge: mental capacity accounts (MC), and subject matter accounts (SM). While the former aim to identify specific mental capacities for gaining modal knowledge, the latter seek to explain our knowledge of modality in terms of philosophical knowledge of some further subject matter that is more developed. In this paper, we similarly investigate both (MC) and (SM) approaches to the epistemology of grounding, arguing that both contribute to a complete account of knowledge of grounding. Regarding (SM), we aim to show that the epistemology of grounding can in the following sense be reduced to the epistemology of essence. When we know (i) some essence fact, as well as (ii) the metaphysical connection between ground and essence, that might yield knowledge of associated grounding facts. In relevant cases, the epistemology of grounding might reduce to the epistemology of essence in the sense that knowledge of essence together with knowledge of the metaphysical connection between ground and essence suffices for knowledge of ground. Regarding (MC), we discuss candidate faculties and methods for coming to know grounding relationships as well as structural properties of grounding. We investigate in particular the role of traditional a priori methods for knowledge of grounding.
4. “Introduction to 50 Years of Naming and Necessity“
Oxford University Press (with C. Besson and A. Hattiangadi), forthcoming
The introduction to this volume provides a reception study of Naming and Necessity, charting its influence across major areas in contemporary philosophy. It starts with a characterisation of the impact of the lectures on those who were in the audience when the lectures were first delivered. This is based on interviews with Michael Devitt, Hartry Field, and others. Furthermore, the introduction incorporates and discusses excerpts from previously unpublished materials from the archives held at the Saul Kripke Center, including passages from a Q&A session with Kripke on Naming and Necessity held in 2005 at UCLA, as well as passages from an exchange between Kripke and Dummett that (according to some sources) took place at Rockefeller University in 1973. Finally, the introduction offers a historical context for the essays in the volume, organized around four main themes: philosophy of language, metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind.
5. “The Epistemology of Essence”
in the Routledge Handbook of Essence, K. Koslicki and M. Raven (eds.), Routledge, 2024
Final draft here: https://philpapers.org/rec/MALTEO-30
The chapter discusses the issue of how we may achieve knowledge of essence. It offers a critical survey of the main theories of knowledge of essence that have been proposed within contemporary debates, particularly by Lowe, Hale, Oderberg, Elder, and Kment.
6. “What Is Absolute Modality?”
Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, (2023): https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2023.2221670
Final draft here: https://philpapers.org/rec/MALWIA-8
Talk of metaphysical modality as “absolute” is ambiguous, as it appears to convey multiple ideas. Metaphysical possibility is supposedly completely unrestricted or unqualified; metaphysical necessity is unconditional and exceptionless. Moreover, metaphysical modality is thought to be absolute in the sense that it’s real or genuine and the most objective modality: metaphysical possibility and necessity capture ways things could and must have really been. As we disentangle these ideas, certain talk of metaphysical modality qua “absolute” turns out to be misguided. Metaphysical possibility isn’t completely unrestricted or most inclusive compared to the other modalities; metaphysical necessity, like all kinds of necessities, is relative to or conditional upon a specific framework of reference. Still, metaphysical modality captures how things could and must have really been most generally because it deals with reality and the nature of things or their essence. That’s the chief interest of metaphysics. Arguments against the alleged absoluteness of metaphysical modality may not thereby undermine its philosophical significance.
7. “Semantic Rules, Modal Knowledge, and Analyticity”
in The Epistemology of Modality and Philosophical Methodology, D. Prelevic and A. Vaidya (Eds.), Routledge, (2023)
Final draft here: https://philpapers.org/rec/MALSRM
According to Amie Thomasson’s Modal Normativism (MN), knowledge of metaphysical modality is to be explained in terms of a speaker’s mastery of semantic rules, as opposed to one’s epistemic grasp of independent modal facts. In this chapter, I outline (MN)’s account of modal knowledge (§1) and argue that more than semantic mastery is needed for knowledge of metaphysical modality. Specifically (§2), in reasoning aimed at gaining such knowledge, a competent speaker needs to further deploy essentialist principles and information. In response, normativists might contend that a competent speaker will only need to appeal to specific independence counterfactuals, on analogy with quasi-realism about morality. These conditionals fix the meaning of our terms at the actual world, independently of the particular context in which a statement is evaluated. However, I show that this strategy causes several problems for the account (§3). While those problems might perhaps be avoided by endorsing a certain picture of modal metaphysics (Modal Monism), such a picture involves notorious issues that normativists will have to address (§4). It is thus doubtful that (MN) can explain knowledge of metaphysical modality. Still, it may explain some modal knowledge without committing to Modal Monism. As I show (§5), semantic mastery may suffice for gaining knowledge of logical-conceptual modality or analyticity.
8. “The Epistemology of Modality”
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2021 Edition (with A. Vaidya & M. Wallner)
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/modality-epistemology
9. “Imagination, Inference, and Apriority”
in The Epistemic Uses of Imagination, A. Kind and C. Badura (eds.), Routledge (2021)
Final draft here: htts://philpapers.org/archive/MALIIA-5.pdf
Is imagination a source of knowledge? Timothy Williamson has recently argued that our imaginative capacities can yield knowledge of a variety of matters, spanning from everyday practical matters to logic and set theory. Furthermore, imagination for Williamson plays a similar epistemic role in cognitive processes that we would traditionally classify as either a priori or a posteriori, which he takes to indicate that the distinction itself is shallow and epistemologically fruitless. In this chapter, I aim to defend the a priori-a posteriori distinction from Williamson’s challenge by questioning his account of imagination. I distinguish two notions of imagination at play in Williamson’s account – sensory vs. belief-like imagination – and show that both face empirical and normative issues. Sensory imagination seems neither necessary nor sufficient for knowledge. Whereas, belief-like imagination isn’t adequately disentangled from inference. Additionally, Williamson’s examples are ad hoc and don’t generalize. I conclude that Williamson’s case against the a priori-a posteriori distinction is unconvincing, and so is the thesis that imagination is an epistemic source.
10. “Superexplanations for Counterfactual Knowledge”
Philosophical Studies (2021): https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01477-0
Penultimate draft here: https://philpapers.org/archive/MALSFC-2.pdf
I discuss several problems for Williamson’s counterfactual-theory of modal knowledge and argue that they have a common source, in that the theory neglects to elucidate the proper constraints on modal reasoning. Williamson puts forward an empirical hypothesis that rests on the role of counterfactual reasoning for modal knowledge. But he overlooks central questions of normative modal epistemology. In order for counterfactual reasoning to yield correct beliefs about modality, it needs to be suitably constrained. I argue that what is needed is, specifically, information concerning the nature or essence of things. By integrating this information, essentialist deduction arguably provides a better account of our knowledge of modality. Furthermore, I argue that essences have distinctive causal and explanatory powers—indeed, essences are superexplanatory for how things are. Compared to Williamson’s counterfactual-theory, superexplanatory essentialism clarifies what the proper constraints on modal reasoning are, and why they have such a special status.
11. “Essential Properties are Super-Explanatory. Taming Metaphysical Modality”
The Journal of the American Philosophical Association (2020) (with M. Godman and D. Papineau) https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2019.48
Penultimate draft here: https://philpapers.org/archive/MALEPA-3.pdf
This paper aims to build a bridge between two areas of philosophical research, the structure of kinds and metaphysical modality. Our central thesis is that kinds typically involve super-explanatory properties, and that these properties lie behind all substantial cases of metaphysical necessity.
12. “Introduction to New Directions in the Epistemology of Modality“ (Special Issue of Synthese)
Synthese (2019): https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02358-8
Penultimate draft here: https://philpapers.org/archive/MALNDI.pdf
The fourteen papers in this collection offer a variety of original contributions to the epistemology of modality. In seeking to explain our knowledge of possibility and necessity, they raise some novel questions, develop some unfamiliar theoretical perspectives, and make some intriguing proposals. Collectively, they advance our understanding of the field. In Part I of this Introduction, I give some general background about the contemporary literature in the area, by sketching a timeline of the main tendencies of the past twenty-five years or so, up to the present debates. Next, I focus on four features that largely characterize the latest literature, and the papers in the present collection in particular: (i) an endorsement of the importance of essentialism; (ii) a shift to a “metaphysics-first” approach to modal epistemology; (iii) a focus on metaphysical modality as opposed to other kinds of modality; and (iv) a preference for non-uniform modal epistemology. In Part II, I present the individual papers in the volume. These are organized around the following four chapters, based on their topic: (A) Skepticism & Deflationism; (B) Essentialism; (C) Non-Essentialist Accounts; (D) Applications.
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS: Francesco Berto; Stephen Biggs & Jessica Wilson; Justin Clark-Doane; Philip Goff; Bob Hale; Frank Jackson; Mark Jago; Boris Kment; Antonella Mallozzi; Graham Priest; Gabriel Rabin; Amie Thomasson; Anand Vaidya & Michael Wallner; Jennifer Wang.
The volume is dedicated to the memory of Bob Hale.
13. “Putting Modal Metaphysics First”
Synthese (2018): https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1828-2
Penultimate draft here: https://philpapers.org/archive/MALPMM.pdf
I propose that we approach the epistemology of modality by putting modal metaphysics first and, specifically, by investigating the metaphysics of essence. Following a prominent Neo-Aristotelian view, I hold that metaphysical necessity depends on the nature of things, namely their essences. I further clarify that essences are core properties having distinctive superexplanatory powers. In the case of natural kinds, which is my focus in the paper, superexplanatoriness is due to the fact that the essence of a kind is what causes all the many properties and behaviors that are typically shared by all the instances of the kind. Accordingly, we know what is necessarily true of kinds by knowing what is essential to them in the sense of actually playing such causal-explanatory roles. Modal reasoning aimed at discovering metaphysical necessity thus proceeds via essentialist deduction: we move from essentialist truths to reach necessary truths.
14. “Two Notions of Metaphysical Modality”
Synthese (2018): https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1702-2
Penultimate draft here: https://philpapers.org/archive/MALTNO-14.pdf
The paper explores the project of an ambitious modal epistemology that attempts to combine the a priori methods of Chalmers’ 2D semantics with Kripke’s modal metaphysics. I argue that such a project is not viable. The ambitious modal epistemology involves an inconsistent triad composed of (1) Modal Monism, (2) Two-Dimensionalism, and what I call (3) “Metaphysical Kripkeanism”. I present the three theses and show how only two of those can be true at a time. There is a fundamental incompatibility between Chalmers’ Modal Rationalism and Kripke’s modal metaphysics. Specifically, Chalmers’ conceivability entails possibilities that a Kripkean rejects as genuinely metaphysical. However, three positive stances in modal epistemology emerge from the combinations that the triad allows. One of those offers a promising way forward for 2D modal epistemologies. But it comes with a cost, as it requires abandoning modal monism and reshaping the scope of what a priori conceivability can give us access to.
15. [a paper on a priori knowledge of essence]
(in progress)
In some cases, we seem to be able to access the nature or essence of an entity purely a priori. How so? The paper explores possible a priori routes for knowledge of essence, by focusing in particular on whether this knowledge might be analytic or reducible to knowledge of meaning. I raise a problem for such a reduction aimed to show that knowledge of meaning isn’t sufficient for knowledge of essence—what I call the “Transparency Problem”—and lay out two alternative approaches to explain a priori knowledge of essence going forward. I emphasize in particular the distinctive explanatory power of essence.