Abstract

This chapter introduces the epistemological puzzle to be examined in this volume. In essence, the puzzle consists of a tension between various ordinary claims to know and our apparent incapacity to know whether or not someone will lose a lottery. It discusses why we are inclined to think that lottery propositions are unknowable. These unknowable intuitions are linked to other intuitions concerning our assertoric and deliberative dispositions with regard to lottery propositions. It then discusses the epistemic closure, which is vital to the force of the puzzle.