Abstract
This paper fortifies and defends the so called Sufficiency Argument (SA) against Classical Invariantism. In Sect. 2, I explain the version of the SA formulated but then rejected by Brown (2008a). In Sect. 3, I show how cases described by Hawthorne (2004), Brown (2008b), and Lackey (forthcoming) threaten to undermine one or the other of the SA’s least secure premises. In Sect. 4, I buttress one of those premises and defend the reinforced SA from the objection developed in Sect. 3.
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Notes
I’ve lightly edited this quotation to make it fit my versions of Low and High.
Writes Brown (2008a, p. 90): “In many senses of propriety, that one knows that P is not sufficient for the propriety of asserting P. For instance, even if one knows that one’s boss is bald, it may not be polite or prudent to say so. So, one might instead phrase the sufficiency claim [underwriting 1] as the claim that if one knows that P, then one is in a good enough epistemic position to assert that P. This leaves it open that one’s assertion is incorrect on grounds other than epistemic ones. It merely claims that, if one knows that P, then there is nothing epistemically wrong with asserting that P.”
For an extended version of this argument against certain common interpretations of the slogan “only knowledge warrants assertion,” see Coffman (forthcoming).
Explicit advocates of the ST include Williamson (2000), DeRose (2002), and Reynolds (2002). Hawthorne (2004, p. 23, fn. 58) shows sympathy for ST with the following remark: “Though insofar as we can distinguish the ‘epistemic correctness’ of an assertion [from] other aspects of propriety, it may be arguable that knowledge suffices for epistemic correctness.”
Williamson is better known as a proponent of the view that you’re positioned to make an epistemically proper—in his terminology, warranted—assertion that P only if you know P. But see his (2000, pp. 241, 252), where he says (respectively) that (a) “If an assertion satisfies the [C rule, which soon becomes the thesis that warranted assertability requires knowledge], whatever derivative norms it violates, it is correct in a salient sense [=warranted]” and (b) “To have the (epistemic) authority [=warrant] to assert p is to know p.”
I assume that an assertion’s having a probability less than 1 on its subject’s (noncircular) evidence for it suffices for the assertion’s having at least one (perhaps very minor) epistemic defect or shortcoming. It’s also worth noting here that hardly anyone is tempted to equate epistemically proper belief with belief having no epistemic defects or shortcomings whatsoever.
I’ve lightly edited Lackey’s text, which is written in the first person.
Nate King pointed out that some will sensibly think Conjunction’s subject’s belief that she’s ignorant of the conjunction prevents her belief in the conjunction from constituting knowledge. I’m inclined to agree, but am granting the subject knowledge of the conjunction for argument’s sake.
For a prominent suggestion to the contrary, see Lackey (forthcoming). Consider the following two quotations in which Lackey articulates her paper’s target (she calls it ‘KNA-S*’):
[P]roponents of the KNA-S* emphasize that knowing that p is sufficient for possessing the requisite epistemic credentials to properly assert that p. (Forthcoming, p. 25 of ms.)
These general considerations provide further reason to reject the thesis that knowledge is sufficient for epistemically proper assertion. Let us now turn to some responses that may be offered on behalf of the KNA-S*. (Forthcoming, p. 17 of ms.)
These and other passages strongly suggest that Lackey (mistakenly, in my view) equates the property of meeting all the epistemic requirements on properly asserting P with the property of being positioned to make an epistemically proper assertion of P.
If need be, we can safely suppose that certain other relevant factors are in place—e.g., reliability on such subject matter, proper function of relevant cognitive faculties, and so on.
The following argument is similar to the argument Brown develops in Sect. 4 of (2008a) against the initial version of the SA explained above.
E.g., moral, prudential, epistemological, professional, conversational, or aesthetic reasons.
E.g., we lack strong reason to think the sense of impropriety surrounding Bob’s assertion doesn’t reliably indicate epistemic impropriety (“undercutter”), or that Bob’s assertion really is epistemically proper after all (“rebutter”).
I can imagine someone proposing the following line of reasoning as a rebutter we have for the belief that Bob’s assertion in High is epistemically improper:
Knowledge suffices for epistemically proper assertion (=ST). And Bob’s epistemic position relative to the bank proposition in High is as strong as it is in a different case where he knows the bank proposition (viz., Low). So Bob knows the bank proposition in High, and his assertion of it is epistemically proper.
Reckoning this line of reasoning a rebutter of the indicated belief assumes that the view that knowledge doesn’t supervene on practical facts—often called intellectualism (Stanley 2005b, p. 6) or purism (Fantl and McGrath 2007, p. 558)—has a presumption in its favor, that it’s “innocent until proven guilty”. By contrast, I’m assuming here that neither side of the indicated debate has a presumption in its favor: if this dispute can be rationally resolved, that will happen only via substantive argumentation. That’s how things seem to me, anyway. Those who disagree may understand my assessment of the above Principle-based argument for the reasonableness of 2* as having a conditional form: “If the two sides of the debate over intellectualism/purism are initially on a par, then…” (Thanks to Mylan Engel for suggesting this kind of rebutter in conversation.)
You might (reasonably) think, e.g., that epistemically improper assertions are typically (though not necessarily) conversationally improper as well. (Thanks to an anonymous referee for suggesting this basis for the indicated worry.)
It’s worth noting, at least in passing, that an assertion’s being epistemically improper doesn’t entail that it’s also conversationally improper (cf. Lackey 2007, p. 617). Suppose, for argument’s sake, that any epistemically improper assertion generates the false implicature that the assertion is epistemically proper. Still, that an assertion generates such a false implicature doesn’t entail that it’s conversationally improper. For an assertion is conversationally improper due to a false implicature only if the implicature is misleading relative to the purpose(s) of the conversation in which the assertion is made. But there can be conversations whose purpose is actually furthered—or at least, not thwarted—by the generation of a false implicature that a given assertion is epistemically proper. So, even if an assertion generates a false implicature that it’s epistemically proper, it may yet be conversationally proper.
Thanks to Nathan Ballantyne and Mark Jensen for suggesting this strategy.
The rule of conversational propriety generating this implicature might be something like: “Don’t say that for which you lack evidence making it prudent (rational) for you and your audience to act as if the proposition in question is true.” (Thanks to Matt McGrath for this suggestion.)
We can even have Bob close with something like “In fact, it’d be imprudent not to stop now.” With this extra detail in place, Bob’s assertion is sandwiched between (a) an accurate description of the grounds he’s basing the relevant belief on and (b) a concession that it’d be imprudent not to stop now. By so “sandwiching” his assertion, Bob cancels various false implicatures concerning his evidence that might have been generated otherwise. (Would the suggested closing line make Bob’s speech in High incoherent? Not that I can sense. Adding such a line would make Bob’s speech quite similar to, e.g., Friend’s perfectly coherent speech in Affair [see Sect. 3]. For other relevantly similar speeches that seem perfectly coherent, see the cases Brown [2008b, pp. 176–177] calls Surgeon and Result.)
Thanks to an anonymous referee for suggesting the following principle, and the objection it enables. Notably, some may want to weaken the upcoming principle by inserting ‘you know that’ (or ‘you [justifiedly] believe that’, or ‘you have [good] reason to believe that’) between ‘if’ and clause (i) so that an epistemic operator governs the entire antecedent. The reply I’ll eventually offer will also work against such a weakening of the upcoming principle.
Embellished, remember, with Bob’s (a) “sensitive follow-up” and (b) knowledge that clause (ii) of the antecedent of the principle proposed above doesn’t obtain.
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Acknowledgements
I presented this paper at the University of Tennessee and at a meeting of the Central States Philosophical Association (2009). Thanks to those in attendance for stimulating discussion and helpful feedback. Special thanks to Richard Aquila, Nathan Ballantyne, Jessica Brown, Heather Douglas, Mylan Engel, Alicia Finch, Mark Jensen, Nate King, Dan Korman, Matt McGrath, John Nolt, Casey Swank, and some anonymous referees.
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Coffman, E.J. Does knowledge secure warrant to assert?. Philos Stud 154, 285–300 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9544-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9544-x