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- How Infallibilists Can Have It All
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Pages: 363 - 380 Abstract: AbstractI advance a novel argument for an infallibilist theory of knowledge, according to which we know all and only those propositions that are certain for us. I argue that this theory lets us reconcile major extant theories of knowledge, in the following sense: for any of these theories, if we require that its central condition (evidential support, reliability, safety, etc.) obtains to a maximal degree, we get a theory of knowledge extensionally equivalent to infallibilism. As such, the infallibilist can affirm that, when their conditions are suitably interpreted, most post-Gettier theories of knowledge offer necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge. The infallibilist can thus reconcile major theories of knowledge, and is in a better position to explain the intuitive appeal of these theories than the fallibilist who only accepts one of them, and rejects the rest. PubDate: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/monist/onad020 Issue No: Vol. 106, No. 4 (2023)
- A Safe Road to Infallibilism'
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Pages: 381 - 393 Abstract: AbstractIn “How to Be an Infallibilist,” Julien Dutant (2016, 149) presents a simple and seemingly plausible argument that knowledge requires infallible belief—roughly, belief that could not be mistaken. As Dutant recognizes, infallibilism is almost universally dismissed, in large part because it seems to rule out any knowledge of the physical world. He seeks to show how we can be an Infallibilist without being a skeptic, based on the assumption that knowledge has a safety condition. I critically examine each line of Dutant’s argument, showing that the argument is unsound on any plausible interpretation. I also question the idea that knowledge cannot be the conjunction of true belief and a nonfactive condition, that any belief about the physical world could not be false, and that any nonskeptical alternative to infallibilism would have to allow knowledge of chancy outcomes. I briefly suggest that a fallibilist account can be strict enough to satisfy the Infallibilist’s quest for certainty. PubDate: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/monist/onad019 Issue No: Vol. 106, No. 4 (2023)
- Really Knowing: A Collocational Argument for an Infallibilist Sense of
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Pages: 394 - 408 Abstract: AbstractCollocations are recurrent combinations of words where one lexical item occurs near another lexical item with a frequency far greater than chance. Collocations can be used to study meaning. I argue that the collocational phrase ‘really know’, in conjunction with some reasonable interpretive conclusions, provides us with evidence that the verb ‘know’ has an infallibilist sense. I make my case, first, by arguing that ‘really’ when part of the phrase ‘really know’ is best understood as synonymous with ‘truly’. I then argue that there are two plausible interpretations of the function that ‘really’ plays in the phrase ‘really know’. On the first interpretation, ‘really’ helps distinguish claims about genuine infallibilist knowing from loose talk about ‘knowing’. On the second interpretation, ‘really’ is often used to disambiguate an infallibilist sense of ‘know’ from a fallibilist sense of ‘know’. On either interpretation, there is an infallibilist sense of ‘know’. PubDate: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/monist/onad021 Issue No: Vol. 106, No. 4 (2023)
- Cartesian Infallibilism and a Guarantee of Truth
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Pages: 409 - 422 Abstract: AbstractThis paper draws a line of demarcation between fallibilism and infallibilism. Taking Cartesian Infallibilism as a guide, it advances a picture of infallibilism whereby infallible knowledge requires, among other conditions, luminosity of a truth-guaranteeing property. Some implications for contemporary theories of knowledge are explored. PubDate: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/monist/onad023 Issue No: Vol. 106, No. 4 (2023)
- How Not to Be a Fallibilist
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Pages: 423 - 440 Abstract: AbstractI develop one partial explanation of the origins of our fallibilist intuitions about knowledge in ordinary language fallibilism and argue that this explanation indicates that our epistemic methodology should be more impartial and theory-neutral. First, I explain why the so-called Moorean constraint (cf. Hawthorne 2005, 111) that encapsulates fallibilist intuitions is fallibilism’s cornerstone. Second, I describe a pattern of fallibilist reasoning in light of the influential dual processing and heuristics and biases approach to cognition (cf. Kahneman 2011; Thaler and Sunstein 2008; Evans 2017). I suggest that this pattern of reasoning involves the question-substitution heuristic, the availability and representativeness heuristics, the focusing bias as well as framing effects, priming and the anchoring and adjusting heuristic. Third, I argue that this fallibilist pattern of reasoning is methodologically dubious because it involves a vicious circularity and briefly outline an alternative, more impartial and theory-neutral abductive methodology for the theory of knowledge. Finally, I briefly explain how this analysis sheds light on the ordinary language fallibilism of Moore (1939), Austin (1961), Wittgenstein (1969) and Chisholm (1982). PubDate: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/monist/onad022 Issue No: Vol. 106, No. 4 (2023)
- Knowledge-First Inferential Evidence: A Response to Dunn
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Pages: 441 - 445 Abstract: AbstractThis paper is a response to “Inferential Evidence” by Jeffrey Dunn, in which he argues that my account of evidence is internally inconsistent, and that any form of Bayesian epistemology excludes evidence gained by inductive inference (which my account allows). In response, I show how the alleged inconsistency dissolves once the process of gaining evidence by inductive inference is fully articulated into the relevant stages, with due attention to the potential role of recognitional capacities. PubDate: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/monist/onad024 Issue No: Vol. 106, No. 4 (2023)
- Disingenuous Infallibilism
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Pages: 446 - 460 Abstract: AbstractSome recent epistemologists propose that certainty is the norm of action and assertion. This proposal is subject to skeptical worries. If, as is usually supposed, certainty is very hard to come by, legitimate action and assertion will be rare. To remedy this, some have conjoined their certainty-norms with a context-sensitive semantics for ‘certainty’. For a proposition to be certain for you, you only need to be able to exclude relevant alternatives. I argue that, depending on what makes an alternative relevant, this kind of view is disingenuous. In particular, if an alternative can be made relevant by being relevant to rational action, it allows an escape from the skeptical consequences only by licensing David Lewis-style utterances of the form, “You know that p only if there is no probability, no matter how small, that not-p—Psst!—Unless that probability is really small.” While there are legitimate ways to exclude some possibilities from relevance, it is disingenuous, I argue, to exclude possibilities from relevance on the basis of the very characteristic—low but nonzero probability—that is claimed to be incompatible with certainty. PubDate: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/monist/onad025 Issue No: Vol. 106, No. 4 (2023)
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