Comments and criticism nobody bodily knows possibility

Traditional accounts of modal epistemology, which may be subsumed under the label of modal rationalism or neo-rationalism, are nowadays faced with empiricist alternatives.1 Very recently, Manolo Martínez has made a radical proposal. He points out that empiricists like Otávio Bueno and Scott Shalkowski draw on "moderately sophisticated cognitive abilities" of knowing modality. However, Martínez points out, even "mice and monkeys are able to estimate probabilities" and thus to modalize.2 Martínez presents a model of how primitive bodily mechanisms of modalizing work. He aims to rebut a claim that has been endorsed by Stephen Yablo and Christopher Peacocke, among others. They find a bodily mechanism purportedly attuned to modal features of the world "dubiously intelligible."3 In a weak sense, Martínez clearly has rebutted the doubts of rationalists. Given two assumptions that he straightforwardly accepts, there are bodily mechanisms attuned to modal features of the world. The assumptions are, first, that his exemplary bodily process indeed tracks probabilities and, second, that probabilities correspond to possibilities.4 However, the key question that lurks in the background of the doubts of rationalists is whether cognizers like us can know metaphysical modalities without using rational capacities. Martínez's results are of only limited interest in modal epistemology if they do not bear on answering this key question. Hence, the claim endorsed by rationalists may be read as follows: (NoBody): It is doubtful that cognizers like us can know metaphysical modalities purely by virtue of bodily mechanisms and without using rational capacities.