The man broke in to say that indeed the tale was a true one. He said that they had no desire to entertain him nor yet even to instruct him. He said that it was their whole bent only to tell what was true and that otherwise they had no purpose at all. (Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing, 2002, p. 596)
Abstract
The view that truth is the norm of assertion has fallen out of fashion. The recent trend has been to think that knowledge is the norm of assertion. Objections to the knowledge view proceed almost exclusively by appeal to alleged counterexamples. While it no doubt has a role to play, such a strategy relies on intuitions concerning hypothetical cases, intuitions which might not be shared and which might shift depending on how the relevant cases are fleshed out. In this paper, I reject the knowledge view on principled grounds. More specifically, by appeal to a principle which is motivated independently of the debate over the norms of assertion and which is already accepted by many proponents of the knowledge view, I show the knowledge view to be false while simultaneously accounting for why it might seem to be true. In doing so, I provide a novel defence of the unfashionable truth view.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
See Whiting (2010) for defence of the claim that statements about what it is (in)correct to do entail statements about what one may (not) do.
If one does not accept this, nothing in what follows hangs on it. The focus is on the considerations for and against (T), whatever its relationship to (C).
Note that ‘may’ here has narrow scope. So, if it is not true that p, it follows from (T) that it is not the case that one may assert that p (and so one should not do so). In contrast, if ‘may’ has wide scope, then, if it is false that p, it no longer follows from (T) that it is not the case that one may assert that p, only that one may either not assert that p or (somehow!) make it the case that p.
This is consistent with thinking that qua contribution to a conversation an assertion is subject to additional standards (see Sect. 3).
Weiner (2005, p. 227) and Williamson (2000, pp. 423–424), for example, both move between talk of when one should or must assert something and when there is warrant for doing so.
Some participants in the debate formulate the relevant norms, not in terms of when one may assert that p or when there is warrant for doing so, but in terms of when doing so is proper, permitted, entitled, and so forth. For present purposes, these differences do not make a difference and the remarks that follow should make it clear how such vocabulary maps on to that which is used here.
Cf. Gert’s distinction between “requiring” and “justifying” reasons (2004).
For endorsements of (K–nec) (to use obvious labelling), see Adler (2002, 2009), Engel (2002, §3.5), Fricker (2006), Hawthorne and Stanley (2008), Reynolds (2002), Stanley (2005, pp. 10–11), Turri (2010) and Unger (1975, pp. 252 ff). For an endorsement of (K–suff), see (Fantl and McGrath 2009).
With the exception of DeRose (2002), advocates of (K) are more difficult to pin down. Hawthorne (2004, pp. 21–24) explicitly advances (K–nec), but a cautious footnote (n58) suggests he might also accept (K–suff). Williamson (2000) focuses on (K–nec), but seems to accept (K–suff) when he writes, “the propositions which one is permitted to assert outright are exactly those which” one knows (2000, p. 11). It is possible to read Brandom (1994, ch. 4) as arguing for (K). Bird’s remarks (2007, §5) strongly suggest he would accept (K). Finally, Sutton (2007, pp. 44–48) explicitly endorses (K–nec) but, given his view that justification is knowledge, a commitment to (K–suff) might follow.
(JB) is really a schema which can be filled in various ways depending on how one understands justification. On certain ways of filling it in, (JB) is simply a restatement of (K) (e.g. Sutton 2007). Typically, however, justification for believing that p is understood as requiring less than knowledge. Defenders of some version of (JB–nec) include Hill and Schechter (2007), Douven (2006), for whom justification is rational credibility, Kvanvig (2009, 2011), for whom justification must be knowledge-affording, and Lackey (2007), for whom justification is reasonableness.
See Bach (2008).
I do not know of anyone who advances (BK). Should one be tempted, see Williamson (2000, §11.5).
Koethe (2009) defends something like this principle.
Adler (2009) presents an argument against a version of (JB), according to which justification is rational credibility. Very roughly, he considers a case in which A asserts that p or q, and B asserts that not-q. B’s assertion, Adler points out, does not constitute a challenge to A’s but is complimentary to it; in light of it, A might proceed to assert that p. This is not what one would expect if rational credibility were the standard for assertion, since its being rationally credible that not-p weakens the rational credibility of p or q. Adler suggests that this supports the knowledge view, though it equally supports the truth view.
Several of the attempts to account for the relevant data consistently with the justification view appeal to the (Gricean) pragmatic norms governing conversational exchange. In Sect. 3, I argue that this kind of strategy does not look very promising.
For versions of this argument, see Adler (2002, p. 36), Reynolds (2002, p. 140), Unger (1975, p. 263), Sutton (2007, p. 44), and Williamson (2000, pp. 252–253). Brown (2008, p. 4, 2010, §3) and Kvanvig (2009) raise doubts about whether the conversational data supports the knowledge view. For a response to those doubts, see Turri (2010).
For appeals to lottery cases in support of the knowledge view, see Hawthorne (2004, pp. 21–24), Sutton (2007, p. 44), Unger (1975, p. 261), and Williamson (2000, pp. 244–249). Dudman (1992) uses lottery cases to argue against the view that high (subjective) probability is sufficient for warranted assertion.
Lackey (2007, p. 618) and Hill and Schechter (2007) claim that assertions of lottery propositions can be warranted, pointing to cases like the following. Having bought a lottery ticket and convinced it won, despite not having seen the result, I express my intention to quit my job. It appears it would be appropriate for you to say, “Don’t be crazy: your ticket didn’t win”.
Such examples are not decisive. First, it seems legitimate to respond to the assertion by saying, “You don’t know that!” Second, if the assertion is appropriate, this might be due to the high practical stakes overriding (K).
Douven (2006, p. 480), Hill and Schechter (2007, p. 109), Lackey (2007, pp. 596, 607) and Levin (2008, pp. 367–380) complain that (T–nec) is too strong on the grounds that there can be warrant to assert falsehoods, for example, when one has misleading evidence that suggests that the assertion is true. Other than to note that the suggestion that one might derive (JB) from (T) goes some way to meeting this concern, I shall not address it. My principal focus is the dispute between the proponents of the truth view and of the knowledge view; both agree that, according to whatever norm fundamentally governs assertion, one may assert that p only if it is true that p.
Williamson also complains that being subject to (T) does not distinguish assertion from other speech acts, such as conjecture (2000, p. 244). I shall set this aside, since the present focus is not whether one can distinguish assertion from all other speech acts by appeal only to the norms governing it.
The notion of having a reason this principle concerns should not be confused with that which Skorupski introduces (2009, §5). For Skorupski, that p might be a reason one “has” to φ, what he calls a “warranted reason”, though it is false that p or one does not believe that p (when, relative to what Skorupski calls one’s “epistemic state”, there is sufficient reason for one to believe that there is reason for one to φ, whether or not there is or one so believes). Whatever the significance of Skorupski’s notion of having a reason, it does not correspond to that which I employ here and in what follows.
Williamson claims that that p can be one’s evidence if and only if one knows that p (2000, ch. 9). So, he would certainly endorse (Possession) in the case of theoretical reasons. Moreover, Williamson says that it is “plausible” to think that “One knows that A if and only if one’s reason for doing something can be A” (2000, p. 64n1; cf. p. 200n10).
Greco (2010), for example, accepts (KPR–nec).
For the point to follow, and the example, see Hawthorne (2004, p. 30) and Hawthorne and Stanley (2008, §1).
Hawthorne and Stanley make a similar point in passing (2008, §2).
To echo a point made earlier, one might allow that there is a sense in which a person can φ with a certain warrant, namely, that p, although it is false that p and so she does not know that p, so long as she believes that p and that p would have been a warrant for φing had it been the case. Be that as it may, (Possession), restricted to the warrants which there actually are, suffices for present purposes.
The arguments to follow might also provide a defence of the view that a norm of truth fundamentally governs belief and a challenge to the view that a norm of knowledge fundamentally governs belief, insofar as the arguments against the former and for the latter mirror those philosophers advance in the debate concerning assertion. For an overview of the debate concerning belief, and a rather different defence of the truth view with respect to belief, see Whiting (forthcoming).
One might wonder how there can be warrant which no subject could have. If one finds this idea problematic, one could suggest that it is a constraint on a fact’s being a reason or warrant that it could be a person’s reason or warrant. I have no quarrel with this.
One might doubt that the considerations in light of or on the basis of which a person asserts typically concern whatever warrants doing so. What warrants or entitles a person to make an assertion is a quite different matter, one might think, from what moves her to do so or what she takes into account when doing so. When I assert that the train arrives at 8 pm, for example, I might do so on the grounds that so-and-so needs to catch the train and does not have a timetable to hand—I do not usually give a thought to whether the warrant for performing this speech act is present. This might suggest that one should not typically expect a subject asserting something to be doing so in light of whatever warrants doing so, which might in turn cause problems for my defence of the truth view. (Thanks to a referee for this journal for raising a version of this point.)
If my account were to assume that one should expect a subject to make an assertion simply on the grounds that the warrant for doing so obtains, it might be in trouble. But it need only assume that one should expect that whether or not there is warrant for doing so is something a subject takes into account when asserting something, that the fact that the warrant for doing so exists is among the considerations in light of which she makes an assertion, and that whether or not the subject satisfies this expectation makes a difference to how one evaluates her performance. This assumption seems unproblematic.
Furthermore, note that the assumption seems especially unproblematic on the truth view. According to (Truth), what warrants asserting that the train leaves at 8 p.m. is simply the fact that the train leaves at 8 p.m. It is surely plausible to think that, when a subject asserts that the train leaves at 8 p.m., she typically takes into account whether or not it is 8 p.m. By the same token, it seems legitimate to expect a subject making this assertion to be doing so in light of such considerations.
I shall defend this claim in the following section (Sect. 6).
One might think that some version of the truth view in conjunction with (Possession) delivers some version of the knowledge view. Suppose that the warrant to assert that p is the fact that p. Suppose further that one should not φ unless one has (in the relevant sense) the warrant for φing. It follows, given (Possession), that one should not assert that p unless one knows that p.
If this line of thought is correct, then a proponent of the truth view might still claim to have shown, contra the knowledge view as it is usually presented (see Williamson (2000, p. 11)), that truth provides the fundamental norm for assertion and so that the knowledge norm is at best derivative. However, I think that the proponent of the truth view should reject the line of thought on the grounds that the principle that one should not φ unless one possesses the warrant for φing is false.
Again, Williamson states that “knowledge is what justifies belief [and assertion]” (2000, p. 10). Here knowledge is the justification (or warrant), not what enables one to possess the justification or warrant.
Recall also that proponents of the knowledge view do not say of a lottery case in which one (truly) asserts that one’s ticket lost that, though there is warrant for the assertion, it is not warrant one asserts in light of—the position I defend in Sect. 5—but that in such cases warrant is simply lacking.
To make a related point in a somewhat tendentious way, the objection at hand seems to turn the knowledge view from a thesis concerning the normative reasons for and against asserting that p into a thesis concerning what can be a subject’s motivating reasons for asserting that p, when the debate at hand was supposed to be precisely over the norms of assertion.
References
Adler, J. (2002). Belief’s own ethics. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Adler, J. (2009). Another argument for the knowledge norm. Analysis, 69, 407–412.
Alston, W. (2000). Illocutionary acts and sentence meaning. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Bach, K. (2008). Applying pragmatics to epistemology. Philosophical Issues, 18, 68–88.
Bird, A. (2007). Justified judging. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 74, 81–110.
Brandom, R. (1994). Making it explicit. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Brown, J. (2008). The knowledge norm for assertion. Philosophical Issues, 18, 89–103.
Brown, J. (2010). Knowledge and assertion. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 81, 549–566.
DeRose, K. (2002). Assertion, knowledge and context. Philosophical Review, 111, 167–203.
Douven, I. (2006). Assertion, knowledge and rational credibility. Philosophical Review, 111, 167–203.
Dudman, V. (1992). Probability and assertion. Analysis, 52, 204–211.
Dummett, M. (1958–1959). Truth. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 59, 141–162.
Engel, P. (2002). Truth. Chesham: Acumen.
Fantl, J., & McGrath, M. (2009). Knowledge in an uncertain world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fricker, E. (2006). Second-hand knowledge. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 73, 592–618.
Gert, J. (2004). Brute rationality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Greco, J. (2010). Achieving knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Grice, P. (1989). Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hawthorne, J. (2004). Knowledge and lotteries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hawthorne, J., & Stanley, J. (2008). Knowledge and action. Journal of Philosophy, 105, 571–590.
Hill, C., & Schechter, J. (2007). Hawthorne’s lottery puzzle and the nature of belief. Philosophical Issues, 17, 102–122.
Hornsby, J. (2008). Acting from reasons: A disjunctivist thesis. In A. Haddock & F. Macpherson (Eds.), Disjunctivism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Horwich, P. (1998). Meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hyman, J. (1999). How knowledge works? Philosophical Quarterly, 49, 433–451.
Hyman, J. (2006). Knowledge and evidence. Mind, 115, 891–916.
Hyman, J. (2010). The road to Larissa. Ratio, 23, 393–414.
Koethe, J. (2009). Knowledge and the norms of assertion. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 87, 625–638.
Kvanvig, J. (2009). Assertion, knowledge, and lotteries. In P. Greenough & D. Pritchard (Eds.), Williamson on knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kvanvig, J. (2011). Norms of assertion. In J. Brown & H. Cappelen (Eds.), Assertion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lackey, J. (2007). Norms of assertion. Noûs, 41, 594–626.
Lackey, J. (2011). Assertion and isolated second-hand knowledge. In J. Brown & H. Cappelen (Eds.), Assertion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Levin, J. (2008). Assertion, practical reasoning, and pragmatic theories of knowledge. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 76, 359–384.
McCarthy, C. (2002). The border trilogy. London: Picador.
McDowell, J. (2000). Towards rehabilitating objectivity. In R. Brandom (Ed.), Rorty and his critics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Neta, R. (2009). Treating something as a reason for action. Noûs, 43, 684–699.
Reynolds, S. (2002). Testimony, knowledge, and epistemic goals. Philosophical Studies, 110, 139–161.
Skorupski, J. (2009). The unity and diversity of reasons. In S. Robertson (Ed.), Spheres of reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stanley, J. (2005). Knowledge and practical interests. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sutton, J. (2007). Without justification. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Turri, J. (2010). Prompting challenges. Analysis, 70, 456–462.
Unger, P. (1975). Ignorance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Weiner, M. (2005). Must we know what we say? Philosophical Review, 114, 227–251.
Weiner, M. (2007). Norms of assertion. Philosophy Compass, 2, 187–195.
Whiting, D. (2010). Should I believe the truth? Dialectica, 64, 213–224.
Whiting, D. (forthcoming). Nothing but the truth: On the norms and aims of belief. In T. Chan (Ed.), The aim of belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williamson, T. (2000). Knowledge and its limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williamson, T. (2005). Contextualism, subject-sensitive invariantism, and knowledge of knowledge. Philosophical Quarterly, 55, 213–235.
Wright, C. (1992). Truth and objectivity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Conor McHugh, Jonathan Way, an audience at Edinburgh, and two anonymous referees for this journal for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. I am grateful to Philosophy and the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Southampton for supporting a period of leave during which I was able to work on this material.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Whiting, D. Stick to the Facts: On the Norms of Assertion. Erkenn 78, 847–867 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-012-9383-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-012-9383-6