Can one gain testimonial knowledge from unsafe testimony? It might seem not, on the grounds that if a piece of testimony is unsafe, then any belief based on it in such a way as to make the belief genuinely testimonial is bound itself to be unsafe: the lack of safety must transmit from the testimony to the testimonial belief. If in addition we accept that knowledge requires safety, the result seems to be that one cannot gain testimonial knowledge from unsafe (...) testimony. In a pair of recent papers, however, Sanford Goldberg has challenged this apparently plausible line of thought. Goldberg presents two examples intended to show that a testimonial belief can be safe, even if the testimony on which it is based is unsafe: the lack of safety need not transmit from the testimony to the testimonial belief. In this paper, I question whether Goldberg’s examples really do show that one can gain safe testimonial belief from unsafe testimony. The problem, I explain, is that both examples appear (for different reasons) to be open to objection. Nevertheless, I argue that although Goldberg’s examples do not establish his conclusion, the conclusion itself is true: one can gain safe testimonial belief from unsafe testimony. I base my argument on an example which differs in structure from Goldberg’s examples, and I argue that due to this difference, my example avoids the problems which Goldberg’s examples face. (shrink)

One interesting and potentially attractive feature of the sensitivity account of knowledge is that it not only preserves knowledge of ordinary propositions, but also concedes the skeptic's intuition that we do not know skeptical hypotheses do not obtain. This paper challenges the sensitivity‐based reply to the skeptic, advocated by Robert Nozick, among others. Sensitivity generates an implausibly bizarre result that although we do not know we are not brains in vats (because a belief to this effect is insensitive), a real (...) BIV who is in a much worse epistemic situation can sensitively believe that it is not in the good case. This result reveals a fundamental problem with the sensitivity conditional: its antecedent is not suitable for picking out possibilities that are relevant for our epistemic evaluation. I then offer a systematic explanation of why it is the safety account—the main competitor of sensitivity—that picks out a more suitable set of possibilities. A consequence of this comparison is that the safety account delivers an overall more satisfying reply to the skeptic than sensitivity does. (shrink)

The epistemicist theory aims to explain ignorance due to vagueness by semantic plasticity: the shiftiness of intensions across close possible worlds resulting from shiftiness in usage. This explanation is challenged by the Omniscient Speaker Puzzle (Sennet in Philos Stud 161(2):273–285, 2012). Suppose that an omniscient speaker, Barney, who knows all the facts about usage and how these facts determine the intensions of expressions, cooks up a scheme to stabilise the intension of a normally semantically plastic term like ‘rich’. It seems (...) that ‘rich’ would display all the phenomena associated with vagueness without being semantically plastic, thus making the epistemicist explanation of ignorance due to vagueness insufficient. In this paper, I present a few choice points for epistemicism that arise as a result of the puzzle. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop and motivate a novel formulation of the safety condition in terms of etiological proper function. After testing this condition against the most pressing objections to safety-theoretic accounts of knowledge in the literature, my conclusion will be the following: once safety is suitably understood in terms of etiological proper function, it stands a better chance as the right anti-Gettier condition on knowledge.

Some authors maintain that anti-intellectualism faces a general epistemic problem of explaining the cognitive aspect of know-how, and answering the question of why know-how as a kind of disposition is to be considered a distinct kind of knowledge. In the present paper, I argue for a solution to this problem, the central idea of which is that there is a broader sense of knowledge to which both knowledge-that and knowledge-how belong. I present two versions of this solution. According to the (...) first version, know-how is a distinct kind of knowledge since there is a general analyzable category of knowledge under which both know-how and know-that fall. This general category is analyzed into three components: a success component, an externalist anti-luck component, and an internalist anti-luck component. According to the second version of the solution, know-how is a distinct kind of knowledge since there is an unanalyzable analogical conception of knowledge that comes first in both the theoretical realm (as propositional knowledge) and the practical realm (as know-how). Both versions of the solution are plausible since they distinguish between know-how and knacks in an anti-intellectualist manner by positing that there is an internal relation between know-how and non-propositional intentionality. (shrink)

Both sensitivity and safety theorists concur that their accounts should be relativized to the same method that one employs in the actual world. However, properly individuating methods has proven to be a tricky matter. In this regard, Nozick (Philosophical Explanations, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1981) proposes a Same-Experience-Same-Method Principle: if the experiences associated with two method tokens are the same, they are of the same type of method. This principle, however, has been widely rejected by recent safety and sensitivity theorists. (...) In this paper, I raise an argument in favor of Nozick: not endorsing the principle leads to some rather implausible consequences when certain skeptical scenarios are considered—i.e., scenarios in which skeptical possibilities are ‘close’. Additionally, this argument reveals some important lessons about skepticism in general and the place of modal accounts of knowledge in the internalism/externalism debate. (shrink)

The notion of individualised evidence holds the key to solve the puzzle of statistical evidence, but there’s still no consensus on how exactly to define it. To make progress on the problem, epistemologists have proposed various accounts of individualised evidence in terms of causal or modal anti-luck conditions on knowledge like appropriate causation, sensitivity and safety. In this paper, I show that each of these fails as satisfactory anti-luck condition, and that such failure lends abductive support to the following conclusion: (...) once the familiar anti-luck intuition on knowledge is extended to individualised evidence, no single causal or modal anti-luck condition on knowledge can succeed as the right anti-luck condition on individualised evidence. This conclusion casts serious doubts on the fruitfulness of the move from anti-luck conditions on knowledge to anti-luck conditions on individualised evidence. I expand on these doubts and point out further aspects where epistemology and the law come apart: epistemic anti- luck conditions on knowledge do not adequately characterise the legal notion of individualised evidence. (shrink)

In this paper I will compare two competing accounts of assertion: the knowledge account and the justified belief account. When it comes to the evidence that is typically used to assess accounts of assertion – including the evidence from lottery propositions, the evidence from Moore’s paradoxical propositions and the evidence from conversational patterns – I will argue that the justified belief account has at least as much explanatory power as its rival. I will argue, finally, that a close look at (...) the ways in which assertions can be challenged and retracted reveals a certain advantage for the justified belief account. The paper will touch upon a number of further topics along the way, including the logical interaction between knowledge and justified belief, the nature of defeat, and the hypothesis that knowledge and justified belief are normatively coincident goals. (shrink)

Despite the substantial appeal of the safety condition, Kelp (J Philos Res 34:21–31, 2009; Am Philos Q 53:27–37; Good Thinking. A Knowledge First Virtue Epistemology, Routledge, London, 2018) has raised a difficult challenge for safety-theoretic accounts of knowledge. By combining Gettier-style fake barn cases with epistemic Frankfurt cases, he concludes that no formulation of safety can be strong enough to predict ignorance in the former and weak enough to accommodate knowledge in the latter. In this note, my contribution is two-fold. (...) Firstly, I take up Kelp’s challenge and I show that, once properly understood, safety successfully rises to it. Secondly, I draw a more general lesson on the safety condition: a satisfactory solution to Kelp’s challenge calls for a revision of the standard formulation of safety, which must be indexed to both methods and environments. My conclusion will be that an environment-relative version of safety not only meets Kelp’s challenge, but it also advances our understanding of the safety condition on knowledge. (shrink)

Is knowledge consistent with literally any credence in the relevant proposition, including credence 0? Of course not. But is credence 0 the only credence in p that entails that you don’t know that p? Knowledge entails belief (most epistemologists think), and it’s impossible to believe that p while having credence 0 in p. Is it true that, for every value of ‘x,’ if it’s impossible to know that p while having credence x in p, this is simply because it’s impossible (...) to believe that p while having credence x in p? If so, is it possible to believe that p while having (say) credence 0.4 in p? These questions aren’t standard epistemological fare, at least in part because many epistemologists think their answers are obvious, but they have unanticipated consequences for epistemology. Let ‘improbabilism’ name the thesis that it’s possible to know that p while having a credence in p below 0.5. Improbabilism will strike many epistemologists as absurd, but careful reflection on these questions reveals that, if improbabilism is false, then all of the most plausible theories of knowledge are also false. Or so I argue in this paper. Since improbabilism is widely rejected by epistemologists (at least implicitly), this paper reveals a tension between all of the most plausible theories of knowledge and a widespread assumption in epistemology. (shrink)

Suppose you’d like to believe that p, whether or not it’s true. What can you do to help? A natural initial thought is that you could engage in Intentionally Biased Inquiry : you could look into whether p, but do so in a way that you expect to predominantly yield evidence in favour of p. This paper hopes to do two things. The first is to argue that this initial thought is mistaken: intentionally biased inquiry is impossible. The second is (...) to show that reflections on intentionally biased inquiry strongly support a controversial ‘access’ principle which states that, for all p, if p is part of our evidence, then that p is part of our evidence is itself part of our evidence. (shrink)

White, Christensen, and Feldman have recently endorsed uniqueness, the thesis that given the same total evidence, two rational subjects cannot hold different views. Kelly, Schoenfield, and Meacham argue that White and others have at best only supported the weaker, merely intrapersonal view that, given the total evidence, there are no two views which a single rational agent could take. Here, we give a new argument for uniqueness, an argument with deliberate focus on the interpersonal element of the thesis. Our argument (...) is that the best explanation of the value of promoting rationality is an explanation that entails uniqueness. (shrink)

When spelled out properly infallibilism is a viable and even attractive view. Because it has long been summary dismissed, however, we need a guide on how to properly spell it out. The guide has to fulfil four tasks. The first two concern the nature of knowledge: to argue that infallible belief is necessary, and that it is sufficient, for knowledge. The other two concern the norm of belief: to argue that knowledge is necessary, and that it is sufficient, for justified (...) certainty. With such a guide in hand infallibilism can be evaluated on its own merits. The most controversial parts are the first and fourth. The idea that knowledge requires infallible belief is thought to be excessively sceptical. The idea that knowledge warrants certainty is thought to be excessively dogmatic. The present paper addresses the first. It argues that knowledge requires infallible belief. (shrink)

Punishing someone for a crime before they have committed it is widely considered morally abhorrent. But there is little agreement on what exactly is supposed to be wrong with it. In this paper, I critically evaluate several objections to the permissibility of prepunishment, making points along the way about the connections between time, knowledge, desert, deterrence and duty. I conclude that, although the conditions under which it could permissibly be administered are unlikely ever to arise in practice, nevertheless in principle, (...) nothing is wrong with prepunishment after all. (shrink)

According to the safety principle, if one knows that p, then one’s belief in p could not easily have been false. In this paper, I pose a dilemma for safety theorists by asking the following question: In evaluating whether or not a belief is safe, must we only examine the error-possibilities of the same belief as formed in the actual world? If ‘yes’, safety meets a familiar objection regarding necessary truths and the objection also extends to contingent propositions. If ‘no’, (...) however, there is no necessity of safety for knowledge. It is argued that this dilemma poses a threat for a number of safety principles from the recent literature. In the end, I draw implications of my arguments for the debate between robust and anti-luck virtue epistemologies. The result is that anti-luck virtue epistemology suffers from the difficulty with the safety principle whereas the robust variant remains intact. (shrink)

The safety principle is the view that, roughly, if one knows that p, p could not easily have been false. It is common for safety theorists to relativize safety to belief-formation methods. In this paper, I argue that there is no fixed principle of method-individuation that can stand up to scrutiny. I examine various ways to individuate methods and argue that all of them are subject to serious counterexamples. In the end, I conclude by considering some alternative ways to preserve (...) the insight behind safety without invoking a fixed principle of method-individuation. (shrink)

According to the sensitivity account of knowledge, if one knows that p, then (roughly) were p false, one would not believe that p. One important issue regarding sensitivity is whether or not it preserves inductive knowledge. Critics including Jonathan Vogel, Ernest Sosa, and Duncan Pritchard argue that it does not. Proponents including Kevin Wallbridge insist that it does. In this paper, I first draw attention to an often-neglected distinction between two different versions of sensitivity—a distinction that has important implications for (...) the debate regarding inductive knowledge. In particular, I distinguish between the sensitivity principle originally defended by Robert Nozick and another version that has been the focus of many recent discussions. With the distinction in place, it is shown that a sensitivity theorist cannot preserve inductive knowledge while being unscathed. For neither account can simultaneously preserve inductive knowledge while properly handling the Gettier problem. Overall, sensitivity theorists are in trouble. (shrink)

This thesis investigates the nature of the relation between mental representations in successful verbal communication, thought attribution, agreement, and disagreement — a relation which I call “samethinking”. The nature of samethinking raises several foundational questions about the nature of (non-natural) meaning, and the cognitive underpinnings of the emergence of culture. It bears on long-lasting puzzles in the philosophy of mind and language (such as Frege’s puzzle and Kripke’s puzzle about belief). Samethinking does not amount to sharing a reference (with “sharing" (...) I refer to two or more thinkers having something in common): it is more demanding. How can we explain and characterize this relation, more stringent than coreference, that is instantiated by a pair of thoughts when samethinking takes place? It is often assumed that this relation involves sharing a thought content more fine-grained than reference. In this thesis, I argue that the issue is more complex than what has been commonly assumed, and I suggest an alternative model in which sharing thought content is not necessary. (shrink)

Sensitivity account of knowledge states that if one knows that _p_ (via method M), then were _p_ false, one would not believe that _p_ via M. This account has been highly controversial. However, even its critics tend to agree that the account enjoys an important advantage of solving the Gettier problem—that is, it explains why Gettierized beliefs are not knowledge. In this paper, I argue that this purported advantage of sensitivity is merely illusory. The account cannot, in principle, solve the (...) Gettier problem. Moreover, another formulation of sensitivity—which is fully in line with Nozick’s original account—is not unscathed either. (shrink)

Facts about moral disagreement and human evolution have both been said to exclude the possibility of moral knowledge, but the question of how these challenges interact has largely gone unaddressed. The paper aims to present and defend a novel version of the evolutionary “debunking” argument for moral skepticism that appeals to both types of considerations. This argument has several advantages compared to more familiar versions. The standard debunking strategy is to argue that evolutionary accounts of moral beliefs generate skeptical implications (...) because they attribute those beliefs to factors that are unrelated to their truth. That strategy is vulnerable to “third-factor” responses, which invoke first-order moral claims to challenge the assumption that Darwinian factors and the moral truths are really unrelated in that way. In contrast, our version is immune to those responses, as it does not proceed via assumptions about how Darwinian factors relate to the moral facts. Instead, it focuses on what evolutionary accounts of moral beliefs have to say about the fact that people often reach divergent moral beliefs. The argument thereby illustrates how the debunking strategy can join forces with the argument from moral disagreement. The combination of those strategies presents, we think, a challenge that is more formidable than when they are considered separately. (shrink)