MoL-2025-41: Stan, Alex Silviu (2025) Perceiving What Could Be. A Critique of Perception-Based Epistemologies of Possibility. [Report]
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Abstract
This thesis is a critique of the claim that perception can lead us to knowledge of possibilities and an attempt to offer an alternative view, based on the knowledge of our own abilities. First, I discuss and analyze available, perception-based epistemologies of possibility and I argue that all of them fail. I identtify three types of issues with those accounts: they face the problem of modal epistemic friction and collapse into ability-based epistemologies of possibility, they run into circularity problems, or their proposed version of modal knowledge falls short of full-blown, actual world knowledge of possibility. Second, I propose a new ability-based epistemology of possibility, grounded in bodily awareness, that manages to avoid the problems that arise in the case of perception-based accounts and of the other available ability-based modal epistemology, namely the one proposed by Barbara Vetter. In particular, in contrast to Vetter’s theory, the account that I propose can explain the phenomenon of intrapersonal imitation, which I argue is crucial in the process of ability knowledge acquisition.
| Item Type: | Report |
|---|---|
| Report Nr: | MoL-2025-41 |
| Series Name: | Master of Logic Thesis (MoL) Series |
| Year: | 2025 |
| Subjects: | Logic Philosophy |
| Depositing User: | Dr Marco Vervoort |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Sep 2026 16:59 |
| Last Modified: | 17 Sep 2026 16:59 |
| URI: | https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/2445 |
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