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Information, Closure, And Knowledge: On Jäger’s Objection To Dretske

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Abstract

Christoph Jäger (2004) argues that Dretske’s information theory of knowledge raises a serious problem for his denial of closure of knowledge under known entailment: Information is closed under known entailment (even under entailment simpliciter); given that Dretske explains the concept of knowledge in terms of “information”, it is hard to stick with his denial of closure for knowledge. Thus, one of the two basic claims of Dretske would have to go. Since giving up the denial of closure would commit Dretske to skepticism, it would most probably be better to rather give up the information-theoretic account of knowledge. But that means that one of the best externalist views of knowledge has to be given up. I argue here that Jäger is mistaken and that there is no problem for Dretske. There is a rather easy way out of Jäger’s problem.

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References

  • Dretske F. (1981). Knowledge and the Flow of Information. Blackwell, Oxford

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  • Jäger C. (2004). Skepticism, Information and Closure: Dretske’s Theory of Knowledge. Erkenntnis 61: 187–201

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  • Shackel, N.: 2005, ‘Shutting Dretske’s Door for Jäger’, Ms.

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Correspondence to P. Baumann.

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Baumann, P. Information, Closure, And Knowledge: On Jäger’s Objection To Dretske. Erkenntnis 64, 403–408 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-005-6193-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-005-6193-0

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