The Epistemology of Modality

This article surveys recent developments in the epistemology of modality

Moderate Modal Skepticism

This paper examines "moderate modal skepticism", a form of skepticism about metaphysical modality defended by Peter van Inwagen in order to blunt the force of certain modal arguments in the philosophy of religion. Van Inwagen’s argument for moderate modal skepticism assumes Yablo's (1993) influential world-based epistemology of possibility. We raise two problems for this epistemology of possibility, which undermine van Inwagen's argument. We then consider how one might motivate moderate modal skepticism by relying on a different epistemology of possibility, which does not face these problems: Williamson’s (2007: ch. 5) counterfactual-based epistemology. Two ways of motivating moderate modal skepticism within that framework are found unpromising. Nevertheless, we also find a way of vindicating an epistemological thesis that, while weaker than moderate modal skepticism, is strong enough to support the methodological moral van Inwagen wishes to draw

On a Priori Knowledge of Necessity

The idea that the epistemology of modality is in some sense a priori is a popular one, but it has turned out to be difficult to precisify in a way that does not expose it to decisive counterexamples. The most common precisifications follow Kripke’s suggestion that cases of necessary a posteriori truth that can be known a priori to be necessary if true ‘may give a clue to a general characterization of a posteriori knowledge of necessary truths’. The idea is that whether it is contingent whether p can be known a priori for at least some broad range of sentences ‘p’. Recently, Al Casullo and Jens Kipper have discussed restrictions of such principles to atomic sentences. We show that decisive counterexamples even to such dramatically restricted Kripke-style principles can be constructed using minimal logical resources. We then consider further restrictions, and show that the counterexamples to the original principles can be turned into counterexamples to the further restricted principles. We conclude that, if there are any true restrictions of Kripke-style principles, then they are so weak as to be of little epistemological interest

The true self: A psychological concept distinct from the self

A long tradition of psychological research has explored the distinction between characteristics that are part of the self and those that lie outside of it. Recently, a surge of research has begun examining a further distinction. Even among characteristics that are internal to the self, people pick out a subset as belonging to the true self. These factors are judged as making people who they really are, deep down. In this paper, we introduce the concept of the true self and identify features that distinguish people’s understanding of the true self from their understanding of the self more generally. In particular, we consider recent findings that the true self is perceived as positive and moral, and that this tendency is actor-observer invariant and cross-culturally stable. We then explore possible explanations for these findings and discuss their implications for a variety of issues in psychology

The Prevalence of Implicit and Explicit Bias in Financial Companies in India

The nature of implicit bias is such that it is more difficult to eradicate. Therefore, it is also difficult to test for implicit bias as it is not something that can be found through direct surveys. This study determines whether companies in India display implicit biases in their hiring practices through indirect methods of soliciting data. By submitting resumes with names that correlate with certain genders of religions, the normal hiring process was observed. Due to the smaller sample size, significant results were not found to corroborate implicit bias. The paper also addresses current legislation in India regarding discrimination and promotion of minority groups. However explicit bias was found due to Indian laws that fail to prohibit private companies from discriminating based on gender. Through analysis of the causes of implicit bias, this paper also offers solutions for companies to minimize the effects of implicit bias on the individual and institution level

The Hedonics of Disgust.

Disgust is a negative emotion, and as such, it is frequently assumed that its only function is to generate negative evaluations. This dissertation aims to demonstrate that disgust can generate positive evaluations in the right context. In Chapter I, we show how the existence of hedonic disgust would be both empirically novel and counter to predictions made by many current theories of emotion. We suggest that the impact of disgust depends on context, consistent with feelings-as- information theory (Schwarz, 2012). To this end, we lay out potential circumstances under which disgust may be experienced as enjoyable. In Chapter II, we show that priming disgust with verbal stimuli leads people to rate both cartoons and moral violations as funnier, and food pictures as less appetizing. We also find that sad verbal stimuli enhance cartoon ratings, helping to rule out arousal level as the sole explanation for these effects. In Chapter III, we show that disgusting verbal stimuli enhance enjoyment of abstract and grotesque art, but not landscape art. We further demonstrate that the effect of these disgust primes changes depending on the probe, with disgust increasing both the likability and offensiveness of judged paintings, while leading to lower ratings of prettiness. In Chapter IV, we use two additional methods of inducing disgust—a noxious odor, and a filthy environment—to see whether this would enhance enjoyment of stand-up comedy and adventurous eating shows. We find that both of these disgust manipulations decrease enjoyment of traditional cooking shows, and increase enjoyment of adventurous eating shows. The experimental condition had no impact on humor judg- ments, counter to both feelings-as-information theory and congruency-based emotion theories. In Chapter V, we discuss the scope and limitations of the current studies. While these studies demonstrate that disgust stimuli can have a positive effect on judgments, this effect is contingent on a variety of factors which are not yet fully understood. Furthermore, the precise mechanism by which incidental disgust leads to enjoyment remains unclear. Overall, this work shows that the influence of disgust is highly context-sensitive, and occasionally favorable, opening up a previously unexplored avenue for emotions research.PHDPsychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97960/1/humean_1.pd

Are We Free to Imagine What We Choose?

It has long been recognized that we have a great deal of freedom to imagine what we choose. This paper explores a thesis—what we call “intentionalism (about the imagination)”—that provides a way of making this evident (if vague) truism precise. According to intentionalism, the contents of your imaginings are simply determined by whatever contents you intend to imagine. Thus, for example, when you visualize a building and intend it to be of King’s College rather than a replica of the college you have imagined the former rather than the latter because you intended to imagine King’s College. This is so even if the visual image you conjure up equally resembles either. This paper proposes two kinds of counterexamples to intentionalism and discusses their significance. In particular, it sketches a positive account of how many sensory imaginings get to be about what they are about, which explains how the causal history of our mental imagery can prevent us from succeeding in imagining what we intended

The MR2: A multi-racial, mega-resolution database of facial stimuli

Faces impart exhaustive information about their bearers, and are widely used as stimuli in psychological research. Yet many extant facial stimulus sets have substantially less detail than faces encountered in real life. In this paper, we describe a new database of facial stimuli, the Multi-Racial Mega-Resolution database (MR2). The MR2 includes 74 extremely high resolution images of European, African, and East Asian faces. This database provides a high-quality, diverse, naturalistic, and well-controlled facial image set for use in research. The MR2 is available under a Creative Commons license, and may be accessed online

Knowledge of objective modality

The epistemology of modality has focused on metaphysical modality and, more recently, counterfactual conditionals. Knowledge of kinds of modality that are not metaphysical has so far gone largely unexplored. Yet other theoretically interesting kinds of modality, such as nomic, practical, and 'easy' possibility, are no less puzzling epistemologically. Could Clinton easily have won the 2016 presidential election—was it an easy possibility? Given that she didn't in fact win the election, how, if at all, can we know whether she easily could have? This paper investigates the epistemology of the broad category of 'objective' modality, of which metaphysical modality is a special, limiting case. It argues that the same cognitive mechanisms that are capable of producing knowledge of metaphysical modality are also capable of producing knowledge of all other objective modalities. This conclusion can be used to explain the roles of counterfactual reasoning and the imagination in the epistemology of objective modality