Mentalism and Epistemic Transparency

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (4):723-741 (2012)
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Abstract

Questions about the transparency of evidence are central to debates between factive and non-factive versions of mentalism about evidence. If all evidence is transparent, then factive mentalism is false, since no factive mental states are transparent. However, Timothy Williamson has argued that transparency is a myth and that no conditions are transparent except trivial ones. This paper responds by drawing a distinction between doxastic and epistemic notions of transparency. Williamson's argument may show that no conditions are doxastically transparent, but it fails to show that no conditions are epistemically transparent. Moreover, this reinstates the argument from the transparency of evidence against factive mentalism.

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Declan Smithies
Ohio State University

Citations of this work

The Basing Relation.Ram Neta - 2019 - Philosophical Review 128 (2):179-217.
Should we be dogmatically conciliatory?Clayton Littlejohn - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (5):1381-1398.
Epistemic Cans.Tim Kearl & Christopher Willard-Kyle - forthcoming - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.

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References found in this work

Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Knowledge and lotteries.John Hawthorne - 2004 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - Philosophy 76 (297):460-464.
Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (210):105-116.

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