CFP: Special Issue of Synthese on the Epistemology of Modality

I am pleased to announce a Call for Papers for a Synthese special issue:

New Directions in the Epistemology of Modality

Guest Editor

Antonella Mallozzi (The Graduate Center - CUNY)

Special Issue Description

The special issue explores new trends in the epistemology of modality. Submissions on the broad category of modal epistemology are invited, especially those that focus on the epistemology of modality. The former category concerns the relationships between the a priori, the a posteriori, necessity, and possibility. The latter concerns the specific question of how we know some particular kind of modality (e.g., de re metaphysical possibility, logical possibility, practical possibility etc.). The aim of the special issue is to bring together a variety of different approaches to the wide problem of how we can come to have knowledge of possibility and necessity, where those might include: a priori conceivability-based accounts and accounts based on broadly imaginative methods; more recent “armchair” as well as empiricist strategies; counterfactual-based accounts; essence-based accounts; but also deflationist approaches as well as outright skeptical stances.

Accordingly, papers are invited to address issues such as the following: under what conditions do we have modal knowledge/are our modal beliefs justified? What is the role of conceivability and other broadly imaginative capacities for modal knowledge? Does modal knowledge depend on essentialist knowledge? What is the relationship between counterfactual reasoning and modal reasoning? How does the acquisition of modal knowledge vary, depending on the different modal sub-areas? Is there a logic of conceivability/imagination? Can we define the a priori in terms of modal notions? How should we think about thought experiments in relation to evidence for modal beliefs?

Submissions that discuss issues in the epistemology of modality from non-western or non-analytic traditions are also encouraged.

Submissions

Contributions must be original and not under review elsewhere. Each submission should include a separate title page containing the contact details for the author(s), a brief abstract and list of five keywords. All papers will be subject to double-anonymous peer-review.

Manuscripts should be submitted online through the Synthese Editorial Manager: https://www.editorialmanager.com/synt.

Please choose the appropriate article type for your submission by selecting S.I.: New Directions in the Epistemology of Modality from the relevant drop down menu.

For further details on how to prepare the manuscripts, please follow the author guidelines available on the journal’s website: http://www.springer.com/philosophy/epistemology+and+philosophy+of+science/journal/11229?detailsPage=pltci_2998239.

For further information, please contact the guest editor: [email protected]

The deadline for submissions is December 31st, 2017.

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Antonella Mallozzi
Philosophy PhD candidate
The Graduate Center - CUNY
365 Fifth Ave., Rm. 7113
New York, NY 10016