Necessity and Universality

Abstract

Abstract In Chapter 11, the author addresses the metaphysical status of his nine principles of epistemic rationality and irrationality and, more generally, of the fundamental principles of epistemic rationality. He begins with a series of ten modal example to set the stage for an argument that not even God, if there is one, could alter those fundamental principles: they are true in all possible worlds. He then explains why the necessity of those principles is not the seemingly trivial necessity of Kripke-Putnam a posteriori necessity, but genuine metaphysical necessity. He contrasts his view with various forms of relativism and non-cognitivism about epistemic rationality. He concludes by identifying the final, seemingly insuperable hurdle that his account of epistemic rationality must overcome: to provide a non-Platonist account of the sensitivity of our normative epistemic beliefs to the metaphysically necessary fundamental principles of epistemic rationality. That problem is addressed in Chapter 12.