A defense of modal appearances
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A defense of modal appearances C. A. McIntosh1 Received: 17 July 2020 / Accepted: 12 October 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract I argue that beliefs about what appears possible are justified in much the same way as beliefs about what appears actual. I do so by chisholming, and then modalizing, the epistemic principle associated with phenomenal conservatism. The principle is tested against a number of examples, and it gives the intuitively correct results. I conclude by considering how it can be used to defend two controversial modal arguments, a Cartesian argument for dualism and an ontological argument for the existence of God. Keywords Phenomenal Conservatism · Conceivability · Modal epistemology · Dualism · Ontological argument
Introduction Many philosophers have suggested there is a strong similarity between the faculties of perception and conception. The similarity is strong enough that some go so far as to say that just as perceiving that p prima facie justifies one’s belief that p, conceiving that p likewise prima facie justifies one’s belief that possibly p.1 The suggestion has proven to be a popular way to defend modal arguments. But it is, as are most things in philosophy, controversial: important differences concerning the conditions 1 Where ‘p’ is the content of a truth-apt proposition. Two big picture issues to note from the start. First, it should be clear that I, as do most philosophers, favor an approach to modal epistemology where we should presume in favor of metaphysical possibility unless we have reason not to do so, as opposed to a more stingy approach of presuming against metaphysical possibility unless we have reason not to do so. The former approach ties possibilities to conceivability, the latter to something like chance in the actual world. The present reflection will therefore be off to a rough start to those sympathetic to the stingy approach. Thanks to a referee for pointing this out. Second, we might say, following Senor (1996), that a belief is prima facie justified when it bears the appropriate relation to a state or process that will make the belief ultima facie justified if there is no other state or process relevant to the justificatory evaluation of the belief.
* C. A. McIntosh [email protected] 1
Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion
in which perceptual and modal beliefs are thought to be reliable has cast doubt on how strong the similarity really is. Whatever other differences there may be, I argue that the faculties of perception and conception are similar at least in this important respect: the same characteristic phenomenology, that of being ‘appeared to’ a certain way, prima facie justifies beliefs formed on the basis thereof, be they perceptual or modal. But a difficulty emerges. A plausible analysis of when S is prima facie justified (hereafter pf-justified) in believing p on the basis of its appearing to S that p includes the following condition: if i
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