In this paper it is argued that sensitivity theory suffers from a fatal defect. Sensitivity theory is often glossed as: (1) S knows that p only if S would not believe that p if p were false. As Nozick showed in his pioneering work on sensitivity theory, this formulation needs to be supplemented by a further counterfactual condition: (2) S knows that p only if S would believe p if p were true. Nozick further showed that the theory needs a (...) qualification on the method used to form the belief. However, when these complications are spelled out in detail, it becomes clear that the two counterfactuals are in irresolvable tension. To jibe with the externalist intuitions that motivate sensitivity theory in the first place, (1) needs a fine-grained grouping of belief-formation methods, but (2) needs coarse-grained grouping. It is therefore suggested that sensitivity theory is in dire straits: either its proponents need to provide a workable principle of method individuation or they must retrench and give up their claims to providing sufficient conditions for knowledge. (shrink)

Foundationalist epistemologies, whether internalist or externalist, ground noetic structures in beliefs that are said to be foundational, or properly basic. It is essential to such epistemologies that they provide clear criteria for proper basicality. This proves, I argue, to be a thorny task, at least insofar as the goal is to provide a psychologically realistic reconstruction of our actual doxastic practices. I examine some of the difficulties, and suggest some implications, in particular for the externalist epistemology of Alvin Plantinga.

Overview Setting the Stage Consistency Redundancy Goodbye ? Conclusion & References Overview Setting the Stage Consistency Redundancy Goodbye ? Conclusion & References..

Let us say that the proposition that p is transparent just in case it is known that p, and it is known that it is known that p, and it is known that it is known that it is known that p, and so on, for any number of iterations of the knowledge operator ‘it is known that’. If there are transparent propositions at all, then the claim that any man with zero hairs is bald seems like a good candidate. (...) We know that any man with zero hairs is bald. And it also does not seem completely implausible that we know that we know it, and that we know that we know that we know it, and so on. (shrink)

The Swamping Problem is one of the standard objections to reliabilism. If one assumes, as reliabilism does, that truth is the only non-instrumental epistemic value, then the worry is that the additional value of knowledge over true belief cannot be adequately explained, for reliability only has instrumental value relative to the non-instrumental value of truth. Goldman and Olsson reply to this objection that reliabilist knowledge raises the objective probability of future true beliefs and is thus more valuable than mere true (...) belief. I argue against their proposed solution to the Swamping Problem that the conditional probability of future true beliefs given knowledge is not clearly higher than given mere true belief. (shrink)

The Swamping Problem is one of the standard objections to reliabilism. If one assumes, as reliabilism does, that truth is the only non instrumental epistemic value, then the worry is that the additional value of knowledge over true belief cannot be adequately explained, for reliability only has instrumental value relative to the non instrumental value of truth. Goldman and Olsson reply to this objection that reliabilist knowledge raises the objective probability of future true beliefs and is thus more valuable than (...) mere true belief. I argue against their proposed solution to the Swamping Problem that the conditional probability of future true beliefs given knowledge is not clearly higher than given mere true belief. (shrink)

Harman’s lottery paradox, generalized by Vogel to a number of other cases, involves a curious pattern of intuitive knowledge ascriptions: certain propositions seem easier to know than various higher-probability propositions that are recognized to follow from them. For example, it seems easier to judge that someone knows his car is now on Avenue A, where he parked it an hour ago, than to judge that he knows that it is not the case that his car has been stolen and driven (...) away in the last hour. Contextualists have taken this pattern of intuitions as evidence that ‘knows’ does not always denote the same relationship; subject-sensitive invariantists have taken this pattern of intuitions as evidence that non-traditional factors such as practical interests figure in knowledge; still others have argued that the Harman Vogel pattern gives us a reason to abandon the principle that knowledge is closed under known entailment. This paper argues that there is a psychological explanation of the strange pattern of intuitions, grounded in the manner in which we shift between an automatic or heuristic mode of judgment and a controlled or systematic mode. Understanding the psychology behind the pattern of intuitions enables us to see that the pattern gives us no reason to abandon traditional intellectualist invariantism. The psychological account of the paradox also yields new resources for clarifying and defending the single premise closure principle for knowledge ascriptions. (shrink)

Fred Dretske holds that if one knows something, one need not eliminate every alternative to it but only the relevant alternatives. Besides defending this view in "The Pragmatic Dimension of Knowledge" ("Phil. Stud.", 40, 363-378, n 81), he makes some tentative suggestions about determining when an alternative is relevant. I discuss these suggestions and conclude that there are problems yet to be solved. I do not conclude that there are insoluble problems or that Dretske's approach is on the wrong track. (...) It is, I believe, on the right track. (shrink)

_A growing body of empirical literature challenges philosophers’ reliance on intuitions as evidence based on the fact that intuitions vary according to factors such as cultural and educational background, and socio-economic status. Our research extends this challenge, investigating Lehrer’s appeal to the Truetemp Case as evidence against reliabilism. We found that intuitions in response to this case vary according to whether, and which, other thought experiments are considered first. Our results show that compared to subjects who receive the Truetemp Case (...) first, subjects first presented with a clear case of knowledge are less willing to attribute knowledge in the Truetemp Case, and subjects first presented with a clear case of nonknowledge are more willing to attribute knowledge in the Truetemp Case. We contend that this instability undermines the supposed evidential status of these intuitions, such that philosophers who deal in intuitions can no longer rest comfortably in their armchairs. (shrink)

In this paper we propose to argue for two claims. The first is that a sizeable group of epistemological projects – a group which includes much of what has been done in epistemology in the analytic tradition – would be seriously undermined if one or more of a cluster of empirical hypotheses about epistemic intuitions turns out to be true. The basis for this claim will be set out in Section 2. The second claim is that, while the jury is (...) still out, there is now a substantial body of evidence suggesting that some of those empirical hypotheses are true. Much of this evidence derives from an ongoing series of experimental studies of epistemic intuitions that we have been conducting. A preliminary report on these studies will be presented in Section 3. In light of these studies, we think it is incumbent on those who pursue the epistemological projects in question to either explain why the truth of the hypotheses does not undermine their projects, or to say why, in light of the evidence we will present, they nonetheless assume that the hypotheses are false. In Section 4, which is devoted to Objections and Replies, we’ll consider some of the ways in which defenders of the projects we are criticizing might reply to our challenge. Our goal, in all of this, is not to offer a conclusive argument demonstrating that the epistemological projects we will be criticizing are untenable. Rather, our aim is to shift the burden of argument. (shrink)

Vogel (2000) argues that bootstrapping poses a novel problem for reliabilist theories of knowledge. According to the reliabilist, a true belief is knowledge just in case it was formed by a reliable process, even if one does not know that the process is reliable. Vogel argues that reliabilism allows one to gain knowledge of a source’s reliability in an intuitively illicit way, using the deliverances of the source itself. Cohen (2002; 2005), Van Cleve (2003), and others have argued that bootstrapping (...) actually poses a more general problem, one that afflicts any view that allows for basic knowledge, i.e. any view that allows one to gain knowledge from a source without prior knowledge that the source is reliable. For example, a foundationalist view that allows one to gain knowledge from perception without prior knowledge that perception is reliable will, like reliabilism, allow one to bootstrap into knowledge that their perception is reliable. I will argue that bootstrapping poses a much more general challenge. Versions of the bootstrapping problem can be constructed even on strongly internalist theories of knowledge; even if one must always know that one’s source is reliable to gain knowledge from it, bootstrapping is still possible. I will then consider some possible solutions to the bootstrapping problem that the internalist might offer. Of particular interest will be the question whether the more plausible solutions are distinctly internalist. I will close by considering whether there are plausible solutions that are equally available to the reliabilist and/or the basic knowledge theorist. (shrink)