Modal Epistemology for Modalists

Crucial to an account of modality is the explanation of how one comes to know the items that are posited by this account. Modal rationalists invoke distinctive devices to this effect, including intuitions, properly idealized conceivability, or reasoning from suitable principles. Non-rationalists employ different tools, relying on inference to the best explanation, similarity relations, or inductive principles. Both families of views face significant challenges. We sketch an epistemology of modality that charts a middle ground between them. Rationalists are right to emphasize the role played by reasoning from certain principles, but we insist that these principles are local, dependent on the particularities of each domain, and do not emerge from intuitions, conceivability, or meaning. Non-rationalists are right to highlight the local character and domain-specificity of modal knowledge and the importance of not idealizing the account beyond what humans can achieve, but inference to the best explanation, similarity considerations, or inductive principles are all dispensable. In contrast, we favor a modal epistemology that focuses on primitive modality and the modal properties of the relevant objects within a metaphysically deflationary stance. By identifying the implicit modal character of properties and empirical regularities, we argue, modalists are able to delineate a modest account of modal knowledge.