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  1. A valid conjunction principle for fallible knowledge.Jude Arnout Durieux - manuscript
    The multi premise closure principle states that the logical conjunction of known facts yields again a known fact. For absolute knowledge this principle holds. We show that for fallible knowledge, assuming knowing requires a minimum level of statistical certainty (whatever else it requires), and that there is a sufficient number of known facts above a given level of uncertainty, it does not hold, for simple statistical reasons. We present a modified version, the dependent conjunctive closure principle, that does hold.
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  2. The memory skepticism solution to the surprise exam paradox.Terence Rajivan Edward - manuscript
    Will a surprise exam happen in the next school week? The memory skepticism solution says, “The students should expect a rational student on the penultimate evening of that week to open themselves up to the possibility that the exam may have happened already, rather than predicting that the exam will happen tomorrow.”.
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  3. Modal Epistemology.Juhani Yli-Vakkuri & John Hawthorne - manuscript
    Some central epistemological notions are expressed by sentential operators O that entail the possibility of knowledge in the sense that 'Op' entails 'It is possible to know that p'. We call these modal-epistemological notions. Using apriority and being in a position to know as case studies, we argue that the logics of modal epistemological notions are extremely weak. In particular, their logics are not normal and do not include any closure principles.
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  4. Knowability Paradox, Decidability Solution?William Bondi Knowles - forthcoming - Ratio.
    Fitch's knowability paradox shows that for each unknown truth there is also an unknowable truth, a result which has been thought both odd in itself and at odds with views which impose epistemic constraints on truth and/or meaningfulness. Here a solution is considered which has received little attention in the debate but which carries prima facie plausibility. The decidability solution is to accept that Fitch sentences are unknowably true but deny the significance of this on the grounds that Fitch sentences (...)
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  5. What can we know about unanswerable questions?Thomas Raleigh - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.
    I present two arguments that aim to establish logical limits on what we can know. More specifically, I argue for two results concerning what we can know about questions that we cannot answer. I also discuss a line of thought, found in the writings of Pierce and of Rescher, in support of the idea that we cannot identify specific scientific questions that will never be answered.
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  6. KK, Knowledge, Knowability.Weng Kin San - 2023 - Mind 132 (527):605-630.
    kk states that knowing entails knowing that one knows, and K¬K states that not knowing entails knowing that one does not know. In light of the arguments against kk and K¬K⁠, one might consider modally qualified variants of those principles. According to weak kk, knowing entails the possibility of knowing that one knows. And according to weakK¬K⁠, not knowing entails the possibility of knowing that one does not know. This paper shows that weak kk and weakK¬K are much stronger than (...)
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  7. Idealism, quietism, conceptual change: Sellars and McDowell on the knowability of the world.Michael R. Hicks - 2022 - Giornali di Metafisica 44 (1):51-71.
    Both Wilfrid Sellars and John McDowell reject Kant’s conclusion that the world is fundamentally unknowable, and on similar grounds: each invokes conceptual change, what I call the diachronic instability of a conceptual scheme. The similarities end there, though. It is important to Sellars that the world is only knowable at “the end of inquiry” – he rejects a commonsense realism like McDowell’s for its inability to fully appreciate diachronic instability. To evaluate this disagreement, I consider Timothy Williamson’s argument that the (...)
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  8. Coherence and Knowability.Luis Rosa - 2022 - The Philosophical Quarterly 72 (4):960-978.
    Why should we avoid incoherence? An influential view tells us that incoherent combinations of attitudes are such that it is impossible for all of those attitudes to be simultaneously vindicated by the evidence. But it is not clear whether this view successfully explains what is wrong with certain akratic doxastic states. In this paper I flesh out an alternative response to that question, one according to which the problem with incoherent combinations of attitudes is that it is impossible for all (...)
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  9. The Poss-Ability Principle, G-cases, and Fitch Propositions.Noah Gordon - 2021 - Logos and Episteme 12 (1):117-125.
    There is a very plausible principle linking abilities and possibilities: If S is able to Φ, then it is metaphysically possible that S Φ’s. Jack Spencer recently proposed a class of counterexamples to this principle involving the ability to know certain propositions. I renew an argument against these counterexamples based on the unknowability of Fitch propositions. In doing so, I provide a new argument for the unknowability of Fitch propositions and show that Spencer’s counterexamples are in tension with a principle (...)
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  10. Knowability Relative to Information.Peter Hawke & Franz Berto - 2021 - Mind 130 (517):1-33.
    We present a formal semantics for epistemic logic, capturing the notion of knowability relative to information (KRI). Like Dretske, we move from the platitude that what an agent can know depends on her (empirical) information. We treat operators of the form K_AB (‘B is knowable on the basis of information A’) as variably strict quantifiers over worlds with a topic- or aboutness- preservation constraint. Variable strictness models the non-monotonicity of knowledge acquisition while allowing knowledge to be intrinsically stable. Aboutness-preservation models (...)
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  11. Anti-Realism and Modal-Epistemic Collapse: Reply to Marton.Jan Heylen - 2021 - Erkenntnis 88 (1):397-408.
    Marton ( 2019 ) argues that that it follows from the standard antirealist theory of truth, which states that truth and possible knowledge are equivalent, that knowing possibilities is equivalent to the possibility of knowing, whereas these notions should be distinct. Moreover, he argues that the usual strategies of dealing with the Church–Fitch paradox of knowability are either not able to deal with his modal-epistemic collapse result or they only do so at a high price. Against this, I argue that (...)
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  12. Transcendental Knowability and A Priori Luminosity.Andrew Stephenson - 2021 - History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 25 (1):134-162.
    This paper draws out and connects two neglected issues in Kant’s conception of a priori knowledge. Both concern topics that have been important to contemporary epistemology and to formal epistemology in particular: knowability and luminosity. Does Kant commit to some form of knowability principle according to which certain necessary truths are in principle knowable to beings like us? Does Kant commit to some form of luminosity principle according to which, if a subject knows a priori, then they can know that (...)
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  13. Introduction to Conditionals, Paradox, and Probability: Themes from the Philosophy of Dorothy Edgington.Lee Walters - 2021 - In Lee Walters & John Hawthorne (eds.), Conditionals, Paradox, and Probability: Themes from the Philosophy of Dorothy Edgington. Oxford University press.
    Dorothy Edgington’s work has been at the centre of a range of ongoing debates in philosophical logic, philosophy of mind and language, metaphysics, and epistemology. This work has focused, although by no means exclusively, on the overlapping areas of conditionals, probability, and paradox. In what follows, I briefly sketch some themes from these three areas relevant to Dorothy’s work, highlighting how some of Dorothy’s work and some of the contributions of this volume fit in to these debates.
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  14. Counterfactual Knowledge, Factivity, and the Overgeneration of Knowledge.Jan Heylen - 2020 - Erkenntnis 87 (5):2243-2263.
    Antirealists who hold the knowability thesis, namely that all truths are knowable, have been put on the defensive by the Church-Fitch paradox of knowability. Rejecting the non-factivity of the concept of knowability used in that paradox, Edgington has adopted a factive notion of knowability, according to which only actual truths are knowable. She has used this new notion to reformulate the knowability thesis. The result has been argued to be immune against the Church-Fitch paradox, but it has encountered several other (...)
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  15. Factive knowability and the problem of possible omniscience.Jan Heylen - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (1):65-87.
    Famously, the Church–Fitch paradox of knowability is a deductive argument from the thesis that all truths are knowable to the conclusion that all truths are known. In this argument, knowability is analyzed in terms of having the possibility to know. Several philosophers have objected to this analysis, because it turns knowability into a nonfactive notion. In addition, they claim that, if the knowability thesis is reformulated with the help of factive concepts of knowability, then omniscience can be avoided. In this (...)
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  16. Fitch's Paradox and Level-Bridging Principles.Weng Kin San - 2020 - Journal of Philosophy 117 (1):5-29.
    Fitch’s Paradox shows that if every truth is knowable, then every truth is known. Standard diagnoses identify the factivity/negative infallibility of the knowledge operator and Moorean contradictions as the root source of the result. This paper generalises Fitch’s result to show that such diagnoses are mistaken. In place of factivity/negative infallibility, the weaker assumption of any ‘level-bridging principle’ suffices. A consequence is that the result holds for some logics in which the “Moorean contradiction” commonly thought to underlie the result is (...)
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  17. Disappearing Diamonds: Fitch-Like Results in Bimodal Logic.Weng Kin San - 2019 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 48 (6):1003-1016.
    Augment the propositional language with two modal operators: □ and ■. Define ⧫ to be the dual of ■, i.e. ⧫=¬■¬. Whenever (X) is of the form φ → ψ, let (X⧫) be φ→⧫ψ . (X⧫) can be thought of as the modally qualified counterpart of (X)—for instance, under the metaphysical interpretation of ⧫, where (X) says φ implies ψ, (X⧫) says φ implies possibly ψ. This paper shows that for various interesting instances of (X), fairly weak assumptions suffice for (...)
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  18. Counterfactual knowability revisited.Julian J. Schlöder - 2019 - Synthese (2):1-15.
    Anti-realism is plagued by Fitch’s paradox: the remarkable result that if one accepts that all truths are knowable, minimal assumptions about the nature of knowledge entail that every truth is known. Dorothy Edgington suggests to address this problem by understanding p is knowable to be a counterfactual claim, but her proposal must contend with a forceful objection by Timothy Williamson. I revisit Edgington’s basic idea and find that Williamson’s objection is obviated by a refined understanding of counterfactual knowability that is (...)
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  19. Hope, knowledge, and blindspots.Jordan Dodd - 2017 - Synthese 194 (2):531-543.
    Roy Sorensen introduced the concept of an epistemic blindspot in the 1980s. A proposition is an epistemic blindspot for some individual at some time if and only if that proposition is consistent but unknowable by that individual at that time. In the first half of this paper, I extend Sorensen work on blindspots by arguing that there exist blindspots that essentially involve hopes. In the second half, I show how such blindspots can contribute to and impair different pursuits of self-understanding. (...)
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  20. What Do Paraconsistent, Undecidable, Random, Computable and Incomplete mean? A Review of Godel's Way: Exploits into an undecidable world by Gregory Chaitin, Francisco A Doria , Newton C.A. da Costa 160p (2012).Michael Starks - 2017 - Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization -- Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 3rd Ed 686p(2017).
    In ‘Godel’s Way’ three eminent scientists discuss issues such as undecidability, incompleteness, randomness, computability and paraconsistency. I approach these issues from the Wittgensteinian viewpoint that there are two basic issues which have completely different solutions. There are the scientific or empirical issues, which are facts about the world that need to be investigated observationally and philosophical issues as to how language can be used intelligibly (which include certain questions in mathematics and logic), which need to be decided by looking at (...)
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  21. On a New Tentative Solution to Fitch’s Paradox.Alessandro Giordani - 2016 - Erkenntnis 81 (3):597-611.
    In a recent paper, Alexander argues that relaxing the requirement that sound knowers know their own soundness might provide a solution to Fitch’s paradox and introduces a suitable axiomatic system where the paradox is avoided. In this paper an analysis of this solution is proposed according to which the effective move for solving the paradox depends on the axiomatic treatment of the ontic modality rather than the limitations imposed on the epistemic one. It is then shown that, once the ontic (...)
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  22. Science Generates Limit Paradoxes.Eric Dietrich & Chris Fields - 2015 - Axiomathes 25 (4):409-432.
    The sciences occasionally generate discoveries that undermine their own assumptions. Two such discoveries are characterized here: the discovery of apophenia by cognitive psychology and the discovery that physical systems cannot be locally bounded within quantum theory. It is shown that such discoveries have a common structure and that this common structure is an instance of Priest’s well-known Inclosure Schema. This demonstrates that science itself is dialetheic: it generates limit paradoxes. How science proceeds despite this fact is briefly discussed, as is (...)
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  23. Kant, the Paradox of Knowability, and the Meaning of ‘Experience’.Andrew Stephenson - 2015 - Philosophers' Imprint 15 (27):1-19.
    It is often claimed that anti-realism is a form of transcendental idealism or that Kant is an anti-realist. It is also often claimed that anti-realists are committed to some form of knowability principle and that such principles have problematic consequences. It is therefore natural to ask whether Kant is so committed, and if he is, whether this leads him into difficulties. I argue that a standard reading of Kant does indeed have him committed to the claim that all empirical truths (...)
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  24. Two Reformulations of the Verificationist Thesis in Epistemic Temporal Logic that Avoid Fitch’s Paradox.Alexandru Dragomir - 2014 - Romanian Journal of Analytic Philosophy 8 (1):44-62.
    1) We will begin by offering a short introduction to Epistemic Logic and presenting Fitch’s paradox in an epistemic‑modal logic. (2) Then, we will proceed to presenting three Epistemic Temporal logical frameworks creat‑ ed by Hoshi (2009) : TPAL (Temporal Public Announcement Logic), TAPAL (Temporal Arbitrary Public Announcement Logic) and TPAL+P ! (Temporal Public Announcement Logic with Labeled Past Operators). We will show how Hoshi stated the Verificationist Thesis in the language of TAPAL and analyze his argument on why this (...)
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  25. On the factivity of implicit intersubjective knowledge.Alessandro Giordani - 2014 - Synthese 191 (8):1909-1923.
    The concept of knowledge can be modelled in epistemic modal logic and, if modelled by using a standard modal operator, it is subject to the problem of logical omniscience. The classical solution to this problem is to distinguish between implicit and explicit knowledge and to construe the knowledge operator as capturing the concept of implicit knowledge. In addition, since a proposition is said to be implicitly known just in case it is derivable from the set of propositions that are explicitly (...)
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  26. Chalmers' Blueprint of the World.Panu Raatikainen - 2014 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 22 (1):113-128.
    A critical notice of David J. Chalmers, Constructing the World (Oxford University Press,2012).
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  27. An axiomatic version of Fitch’s paradox.Samuel Alexander - 2013 - Synthese 190 (12):2015-2020.
    A variation of Fitch’s paradox is given, where no special rules of inference are assumed, only axioms. These axioms follow from the familiar assumptions which involve rules of inference. We show (by constructing a model) that by allowing that possibly the knower doesn’t know his own soundness (while still requiring he be sound), Fitch’s paradox is avoided. Provided one is willing to admit that sound knowers may be ignorant of their own soundness, this might offer a way out of the (...)
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  28. A purely epistemological version of Fitch's Paradox.Samuel Alexander - 2012 - The Reasoner 6 (4):59-60.
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  29. New Essays on the Knowability Paradox.Jens Christian Bjerring - 2012 - History and Philosophy of Logic 33 (1):101 - 104.
    History and Philosophy of Logic, Volume 33, Issue 1, Page 101-104, February 2012.
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  30. Constructing the World.David John Chalmers (ed.) - 2012 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Inspired by Rudolf Carnap's Der Logische Aufbau Der Welt, David J. Chalmers argues that the world can be constructed from a few basic elements. He develops a scrutability thesis saying that all truths about the world can be derived from basic truths and ideal reasoning. This thesis leads to many philosophical consequences: a broadly Fregean approach to meaning, an internalist approach to the contents of thought, and a reply to W. V. Quine's arguments against the analytic and the a priori. (...)
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  31. Fitch’s Paradox, Stumbling Block or Touchstone for Knowability.Bruno Maret - 2012 - Dissertation, Paris 1
    If we want to say that all truths are knowable Fitch’s Paradox leads us to conclude that all truths are known. Is it a real philosophical problem or a mere modeling problem? Is it possible to express the idea of knowability using modal logic? The Knowability Principle is expressed by the formula: if Phi is true then it is possible to know that Phi. But what is the meaning of possibility in this context? Using standard modal operators under what condition (...)
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  32. Unknowable Truths.Paul Humphreys - 2011 - Logos and Episteme 2 (4):543-555.
    This paper addresses a solution due to Michael Fara to the Church/Fitch paradox of knowability. Fara’s solution has significant interest but the paradox can beresurrected within his approach by considering a slightly more complex sentence. The issue of what counts as an epistemological capability for enhanced agents is then discussed with some emphasis on the developmental heritage of agents and their ability to transcend conceptual frameworks.
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  33. Closure on knowability.Mark Jago - 2010 - Analysis 70 (4):648-659.
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  34. Three epistemic paralogisms, one logic of utterances.Fabien Schang - 2010 - In P.-E. Bour & M. Rebuschi & L. Rollet (ed.), Construction. Festschrift for Gerhard Heinzmann. pp. 407-416.
    Assuming that a paralogism is an unintentionally invalid reasoning, we give an exampli.
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  35. Possible girls.Neil Sinhababu - 2008 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 89 (2):254–260.
    I argue that if David Lewis’ modal realism is true, modal realists from different possible worlds can fall in love with each other. I offer a method for uniquely picking out possible people who are in love with us and not with our counterparts. Impossible lovers and trans-world love letters are considered. Anticipating objections, I argue that we can stand in the right kinds of relations to merely possible people to be in love with them and that ending a trans-world (...)
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  36. Philosophie des modalités épistémiques (la logique assertorique revisitée).Fabien Schang - 2007 - Dissertation, Nancy Université
    The relevance of any logical analysis lies in its ability to solve paradoxes and trace conceptual troubles back; with this respect, the task of epistemic logic is to handle paradoxes in connection with the concept of knowledge. Epistemic logic is currently introduced as the logical analysis of crucial concepts within epistemology, namely: knowledge, belief, truth, and justification. An alternative approach will be advanced here in order to enlighten such a discourse, as centred upon the word assertion and displayed in terms (...)
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  37. Fitch's Paradox and the Problem of Shared Content.Thorsten Sander - 2006 - Abstracta 3 (1):74-86.
    According to the “paradox of knowability”, the moderate thesis that all truths are knowable – ... – implies the seemingly preposterous claim that all truths are actually known – ... –, i.e. that we are omniscient. If Fitch’s argument were successful, it would amount to a knockdown rebuttal of anti-realism by reductio. In the paper I defend the nowadays rather neglected strategy of intuitionistic revisionism. Employing only intuitionistically acceptable rules of inference, the conclusion of the argument is, firstly, not ..., (...)
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  38. Conceptions of truth in intuitionism.Panu Raatikainen - 2004 - History and Philosophy of Logic 25 (2):131--45.
    Intuitionism’s disagreement with classical logic is standardly based on its specific understanding of truth. But different intuitionists have actually explicated the notion of truth in fundamentally different ways. These are considered systematically and separately, and evaluated critically. It is argued that each account faces difficult problems. They all either have implausible consequences or are viciously circular.
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  39. Situations, Truth and Knowability: A Situation-Theoretic Analysis of a Paradox by Fitch.Sten Lindström - 1997 - In Eva Ejerhed & Sten Lindström (eds.), Logic, Action and Cognition: Essays in Philosophical Logic. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
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  40. Logic and limits of knowledge and truth.Patrick Grim - 1988 - Noûs 22 (3):341-367.
    Though my ultimate concern is with issues in epistemology and metaphysics, let me phrase the central question I will pursue in terms evocative of philosophy of religion: What are the implications of our logic-in particular, of Cantor and G6del-for the possibility of omniscience?
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  41. The Forbidden Fruit and The History of Science.Marcos Wagner Da Cunha - manuscript
    The Myth of the Forbidden Fruit as Allegory on The Limits of Human Knowledge. The history of science points out to the fact that all theories are born to be surmonted by yet to come better ones. Notwithstanding this, paradigmatic developments stay for us as truth as if ultimate, absolute ones. What a fake news! We are allowed to infere that in a coming future, impossible to know how far from now, even Einstein's great theoretical achievements will sound as a (...)
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  42. Paradox is Here to Stay: A Review of Graham Priest's Beyond the Limits of Thought[REVIEW]Blaine Snow - manuscript
    Get used to it: paradox and contradiction are inherent in human experience. Australian philosopher of logic Graham Priest takes us on a historical tour of paradox and limitation in human conception, expression, cognition, and calculation. Along the way we meet the many, mostly western, philosophers who've struggled with expressing the inexpressible and conceiving the inconceivable. Priest arrives at a general schema for representing these limit encounters from the standpoint of contemporary logic.
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