According to the deductive-nomological account of ground, a fact A grounds another fact B in case the laws of metaphysics determine the existence of B on the basis of the existence of A. Accounts of grounding of this particular variety have already been developed in the literature. My aim in this paper is to sketch a new version of this account. My preferred account offers two main improvements over existing accounts. First, the present account is able to deal with necessitarian (...) as well as non-necessitarian cases of grounding by acknowledging the existence of two types of metaphysical laws. I will argue that we should assume that metaphysical laws come in the necessitarian as well as in the non-necessitarian varietyclosely paralleling the distinction between strict and non-strict laws in the philosophy of science. The second main improvement of the present account is that this account is able to provide an explanation of why the laws of metaphysics have a direction built into them. I will argue that we should characterize metaphysical laws with the help of Theodore Sider’s (2011) notion of structure, which is a descendent of David Lewis’s (1983) notion of naturalness. According to the account of metaphysical laws developed in this paper, metaphysical laws express in their antecedents either perfectly structural truths or more structural truths than in their consequents. Since on Sider’s account structural features of reality are fundamental features of reality, the account is able to explain as to why the laws of metaphysics take us from the fundamental to the derivative. (shrink)

One influential response to apparent higher-order dilemmas implies that agents can rationally both believe p on the basis of their evidence and simultaneously believe that their evidence does not support believing p. This possibility of rational epistemic akrasia seems to call into question the Enkratic Requirement, which prohibits believing a proposition p according to one’s lower-level evidence, while believing that one’s lower-level evidence does not support believing p. In this chapter, we explore two ways to defend the Enkratic Requirement. First, (...) evidentialists about epistemic justification are committed to holding that an ex post (or doxastically) justified belief, as part and parcel of being ex post justified, is accompanied by a corresponding higher-order belief that the first-order belief is supported by the evidence. In a dilemma case, this higher-order belief comes into direct rational conflict with the subject’s other higher-order belief, that her evidence does not support the belief – so the subject has contradictory beliefs. In this way, the so-called ‘level-splitting’ strategy for the claim that being akratic is not per se irrational is called into question. Our second argument for the Enkratic Requirement presupposes normativism about belief and appeals to the conditions of having epistemically permissible beliefs. We sketch an argument starting from an influential view about the normativity of belief: that irrational beliefs are impermissible beliefs. From this claim, together with some widely held as-sumptions about the notion of rationality, we show that agents who display akratic combi-nations of attitudes hold impermissible beliefs. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend Moorean Dogmatism against a novel objection raised by Adam Leite. Leite locates the defectiveness of the Moorean reasoning explicitly not in the failure of the Moorean argument to transmit warrant from its premises to its conclusion but rather in the failure of an epistemic agent to satisfy certain epistemic responsibilities that arise in the course of conscious and deliberate reasoning. I will first show that there exist cases of Moorean reasoning that are not put into (...) jeopardy by the considerations that Leite presents. Second, I will argue that certain commitments of Leite’s concerning the notion of warrant are in tension with his verdict that the Moorean reasoning is defective. (shrink)

Die Erkenntnistheorie zählt zu den wichtigsten Teildisziplinen der theoretischen Philosophie. Seit 2000 hat sich die Disziplin sehr stark entwickelt. In diesem Zeitraum wurden in der Forschungsliteratur viele neue Antworten auf klassische erkenntnistheoretischen Fragen hervorgebracht und auch gänzlich neue Fragen und Probleme behandelt. Das Handbuch liefert einen Überblick über die aktuelle Entwicklung der Disziplin.