Abstract

Recently Colin Radford attempted to show primarily by examples that the entailment thesis that knowing entails believing is false. Both D. M. Armstrong and Keith Lehrer replied by suggesting, in effect, that Radford cannot justify his failure to consider unconscious belief. Here I show that neither Armstrong nor Lehrer succeeded in refuting Radford. But my exploration of their suggestion about unconscious belief leads to a complete reconstruction of Armstrong's principal example in terms of belief-constituting abilities. This reconstruction not only provides grounds for defending the entailment thesis, but also renders the thesis immune to Radford's examples and arguments.