My thesis is a development and defence of the "Williamsonian" view of time, a temporalmetaphysical theory based on Timothy Williamson’s (1998, 1999, 2000, 2002) views concerning modality. As far as I am aware, the theory has never been developed or defended in print. The Williamsonian view is a version of the "a-theory" of time based on acceptance of the thesis of eternal existence, according to which always, everything always exists (i.e. everything exists eternally). I defend the Williamsonian view by showing that every other plausible temporal-metaphysical theory is subject to serious objections that cannot be raised against the Williamsonian view. I conclude that the Williamsonian view is the only plausible theory of time.

It is widely accepted, amongst epistemologists, that evidence plays an important role in our epistemic life. Crucially, there is no agreement on what evidence is. Following Silins, we can cash out the disagreement around the notion of evidence in terms of the opposition between Evidential Internalism and Evidential Externalism (Silins, 2005). Evidential internalists claim that evidence supervenes on one's non-factive mental states, such as, beliefs, impressions (BonJour, 1999, Audi, 2001). Evidential Externalists deny that. In this Thesis, first, I contrastively assess the plausibility of two prominent contemporary externalist theories: Duncan Pritchard's Epistemological Disjunctivism, the thesis on which one's evidence in perceptual cases is truth-entailing and reflectively accessible (Pritchard, 2012), and Timothy Williamson's E=K, the thesis on which one's evidence is all and only the propositions one knows (Williamson, 2000). Second, I develop a novel externalist account of evidence that I call Ecumenical Evidentialism. I show how Ecumenical Evidentialism is able to bring together some of the benefits of both Pritchard's Disjunctivism and Williamson's E=K. This Thesis is structured into three sections, each of which addresses the following three questions respectively: Does the Access Problem represent a real threat to Evidential Externalism? Is Evidential Externalism committed to a sceptical variety of Infallibilism? How does Evidential Externalism understand the relation between evidence and epistemic justification? I argue that neither Epistemological Disjunctivism nor E=K are fully satisfying Externalist accounts of evidence. On one hand, I argue that Disjunctivism captures the orthodox intuition on which justification is a matter of being evidence-responsive, but it does so on pain of facing the so-called Access Problem. On the other hand, by rejecting any strong accessibility thesis, Williamson's E=K is better positioned to resist both the Access Problem as well as the Infallibility Problem, but it does not vindicate the orthodox intuition on which justification is a matter of being evidence-responsive. Finally, I show that, while retaining the main commitments of Williamson's theory of evidence, such as, E=K, my Ecumenical Evidentialism is able to capture the orthodox responsiveness intuition about epistemic justification.

Moral vagueness is encountered when the alethic value of some moral statement containing a moral predicate is deemed to be vague. One such statement could be “abortion in week 22 is permissible”. Given the metaethical framework of moral realism, there are three standard approaches to understanding the ontology of such vagueness. The semantic approach states that the vagueness is due to our language not being able to adequately refer to the moral reality. The ontic approach states that the vagueness is an intrinsic feature of the moral reality, and as such it will always persist. The epistemic approach states that the vagueness is due to subjects not being able to know the moral reality. In effect, there are things about morality we cannot know, because of our epistemic disposition. In this thesis, I investigate arguments in favor of all three approaches and find that of the three, the epistemic approach – here named moral epistemicism – has the best chances of succeeding. / Moralisk vaghet uppstår när sanningsvärdet av ett moraliskt uttalande, innehållandes ett moraliskt predikat, anses vara vagt. Ett sådant uttalande kan vara "abort i vecka 22 är tillåtet". Givet moralisk realism som metaetiskt ramverk finns det tre vedertagna tillvägagångssätt för att förstå ontologin hos en sådan vaghet. Det semantiska tillvägagångssättet hävdar att vagheten beror på att vårat språk inte kan referera till den moraliska verkligheten på ett adekvat sätt. Det ontiska tillvägagångssättet hävdar att vagheten är en inneboende egenskap hos den moraliska verkligheten, det är verkligheten själv som är vag. Det epistemiska tillvägagångssättet hävdar att vagheten beror på att vi som subjekt inte kan veta allt om den moraliska verkligheten. Det finns moraliska sanningar som vi inte kan veta på grund av vår epistemiska disposition. I denna avhandling undersöker jag argument till förmån för alla tre tillvägagångssätt och finner att det epistemiska tillvägagångssättet – här benämnd moralisk epistemicism – har störst chans att lyckas.

This thesis investigates whether beliefs acquired by way of prophecy are safe. By ‘prophecy’ I have in mind the presentation of the prophetic method as found in the Guide of the Perplexed, which was Moses Maimonides’ philosophical masterpiece. And by ‘safe’ I have in mind the work by Timothy Williamson on the safety condition for knowledge. Both authors have proven to be dominant forces on these respective topics. The significance of this investigation derives from the centrality of prophecy to the three monotheistic religions. My main goal in this thesis is to identify those safety risks associated with the prophetic method. In this manner I aim to undermine any presumption in favor of prophetic beliefs as a whole being safe. Importantly, this general conclusion does not entail of a specific prophetic belief p that p is unsafe. Additionally, the scope of these results is restricted to the model of prophecy found in the Guide. The thesis begins with a critical elucidation of Williamson’s extensive work on the safety condition for knowledge. Particular attention is paid to those issues related to method individuation and Williamson’s cumulative conception of bases. Matters concerning these two topics inform the reading of Maimonides on prophecy found in the second chapter. In particular, I argue that Maimonides should be read as defending a cumulative conception of prophecy. As I emphasize several times during the chapter, the epistemology of prophecy cannot be reduced to the epistemology of testimony since prophecy for Maimonides does not involve the transfer of a proposition from God to the prophet. The third chapter is devoted to identifying those elements of the prophetic method that involve room for error. I argue that while all belief-forming methods in a fallibilist epistemology contain room for error, some are riskier than others. Prophecy should be considered one of the riskier sort. The fourth and final chapter shifts attention to non-standard semantics for ‘knows,’ David Lewis’s in particular. I argue that the interaction between such semantics and the laws governing prophecy in Jewish law is problematic. In particular, I demonstrate that such semantics destabilize the prophetic phenomenon. As such, we must either choose invariantism and gain stability, or choose non-standard semantics for ‘knows’ and live with this lack of stability.