Modal Skepticism and Its Applications

This dissertation is an examination of the epistemology of modality and its application to debates in metaphysics and the philosophy of religion. I first give a novel argument for a moderate modal skepticism. The argument is a generalization and improvement upon van Inwagen (1998)'s influential argument for a close cousin to my thesis. It also brings to bear highly-relevant, recent results in mainstream epistemology that have surprisingly gone overlooked in the otherwise thoroughgoing developments in modal epistemology, a sub-discipline that has burgeoned in the last two decades in response to van Inwagen's original, influential argument. I consider implications for modal skepticism in metaphysics and philosophy of religion, showing that divine revelation can play the role that "secular" modal epistemology cannot in advancing those debates. In particular, I argue from divine revelation against permanentism and for an attenuated divine omnisubjectivity.