Perceptual knowledge of nonactual possibilities

Margot Strohminger (University of Antwerp)

Abstract:

It is widely assumed that sense perception cannot deliver knowledge of nonactual (metaphysical) possibilities. We are not supposed to be able to know that a proposition p is necessary or that p is possible (if p is false) by sense perception. My aim in the talk will be to convince you that the role of sense perception is not so limited. I will argue that we can know lots of modal facts by perception. While the most straightforward examples concern possibility and contingency, others concern necessity and impossibility. The possibility of a perceptual route to some modal knowledge is not as radical as it may at first sound. On the contrary, acknowledging it has benefits.

This is a joint event between the New Directions in the Study of the Mind Project and the Serious Metaphysics Group.

http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/seminars-phil/SMG