Abstract
Causal analyses of one’s knowing that p have recently emphasized the involvement of cognitive virtues in coming to believe that p. John Greco suggests that in order to deal with Gettier-type cases, a virtue analysis of knowing should include a requirement that one’s knowing does not in a certain way involve abnormality. Yet Greco’s emphasis on statistical abnormality either renders his analysis subject to a generality problem or to objections regarding certain Gettier-type cases. When we instead consider abnormality in the sense of a causally differentiating factor in relation to a causal contrast situation, the account remains unclear concerning its application to an interesting non-Gettier-type case concerning chance. The exploration of these shortcomings casts doubt on the epistemological usefulness of the schema, ‘If you know, then there is no abnormality in your being right.’
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Shope, R.K. Abnormality, cognitive virtues, and knowledge. Synthese 163, 99–118 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-008-9313-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-008-9313-y