Resumo em Inglês:

ABSTRACT Drawing inspiration from Fred Dretske, L. S. Carrier, John A. Barker, and Robert Nozick, we develop a tracking analysis of knowing according to which a true belief constitutes knowledge if and only if it is based on reasons that are sensitive to the fact that makes it true, that is, reasons that wouldn’t obtain if the belief weren’t true. We show that our sensitivity analysis handles numerous Gettier-type cases and lottery problems, blocks pathways leading to skepticism, and validates the epistemic closure thesis that correct inferences from known premises yield knowledge of the conclusions. We discuss the plausible views of Ted Warfield and Branden Fitelson regarding cases of knowledge acquired via inference from false premises, and we show how our sensitivity analysis can account for such cases. We present arguments designed to discredit putative counterexamples to sensitivity analyses recently proffered by Tristan Haze, John Williams and Neil Sinhababu, which involve true statements made by untrustworthy informants and strange clocks that sometimes display the correct time while running backwards. Finally, we show that in virtue of employing the paradox-free subjunctive conditionals codified by Relevance Logic theorists instead of the paradox-laden subjunctive conditionals codified by Robert Stalnaker and David Lewis.

Resumo em Inglês:

ABSTRACT According to the fallibilist, it is possible for us to know things when our evidence doesn't entail that our beliefs are correct. Even if there is some chance that we're mistaken about p, we might still know that p is true. Fallibilists will tell you that an important virtue of their view is that infallibilism leads to skepticism. In this paper, we'll see that fallibilist impurism has considerable skeptical consequences of its own. We've missed this because we've focused our attention on the high-stakes cases that they discuss in trying to motivate their impurism about knowledge. We'll see this once we think about the fallibilist impurist's treatment of low-stakes cases. […] when error would be especially disastrous, few possibilities are properly ignored (Lewis 1996: 556, n. 12).

Resumo em Inglês:

ABSTRACT Timothy Williamson offers the ordinary practice, the lottery and the Moorean argument for the ‘knowledge account’ that assertion is the only speech-act that is governed by the single rule that one must know its content. I show that these fail to support it and that the emptiness of the knowledge account renders mysterious why breaking the knowledge rule should be a source of criticism. I argue that focussing exclusively on the sincerity of the speech-act of letting one know engenders a category mistake about the nature of constraints on assertion. After giving an analysis of assertion I propose that the norm of a type of assertion is the epistemic state one needs for one’s speech-act to succeed in being an assertion of that type and that the epistemic state in question is determined by the point of the type of assertion. One is practically irrational in violating the norm.

Resumo em Inglês:

ABSTRACT First, I consider a few motivations to idealize epistemic logics1 in such a degree that brings up the problem of logical omniscience [LOP]. I argue that the main motivation to hold omniscience is of a philosophical-scientific2 background (Stalnaker 1991), in the sense philosophers have a not so peculiar way of investigating underlying mechanisms, i.e., the interaction of several different components of complex systems may be better understood in isolation, even if such components are not found isolated in a realistic context. It is defended that the implicit and explicit knowledge distinction (Fagin and Halpern 1988) is compatible that view since idealizations made by modal epistemic logic are so strong that the agents they describe hardly have anything in common with real agents. I conclude by showing how LOP can be accommodated in the logic of being informed (Floridi 2006) using the Inverse Relationship Principle (Barwise and Seligman 1997). 1Epistemic modal logics and the logic of being informed may collapse in many scenarios, as shown in previous articles (blind review omitted). 2Does not necessarily imply in a naturalized epistemology a la (Quine 1981). For a plea for non-naturalism as constructionism see (Floridi 2017).

Resumo em Inglês:

ABSTRACT According to G.E. Moore’s ‘Open Question’ argument (OQA), moral facts cannot be reduced or analyzed in non-normative natural terms. Does the OQA apply equally in the epistemic domain? Does Moore’s argument have the same force against reductionist accounts of epistemic facts and concepts? In a recent article, Daniel Greco has argued that it does. According to Greco (2015), an epistemological version of the OQA is just as promising as its moral cousin, because the relevant questions in epistemology are just as ‘open’ as those in ethics. In this paper, I offer a two-part reply to Greco. First, I argue that his argument in favor of the openness of epistemology is not persuasive. Second, I offer a case against the openness of epistemology. Unlike claims linking natural and moral properties, claims linking natural and epistemological properties do give rise to closed questions. An epistemological OQA is therefore not as promising as its moral cousin.

Resumo em Inglês:

ABSTRACT In contemporary epistemology, there are a number of particular internalism/externalism debates. My concern here is with the internalism/externalism controversy about some specific positive epistemic status required for knowledge which is normally understood in terms of epistemic responsibility. I argue that, given our pervasive epistemic interdependence, such particular debate needs to be reformulated in anti-individualistic terms if it is to be an interesting one.

Resumo em Inglês:

ABSTRACT This essay presents the chief reasons for making a distinction between propositional and doxastic justification and, also, points out two things: (1) no theory of propositional justification implies a theory of doxastic justification; (2) infinitism is, essentially, a theory of propositional justification. Additionally, this paper tries to shed some light on the three conjointly sufficient conditions for a proper infinitist view of propositional justification.

Resumo em Inglês:

ABSTRACT This paper is on the justification of (PC), the epistemic principle defended by M. Huemer in his Phenomenal Conservatism theory. Put in a straightforward way, we can (and should) ask: what reasons are there for thinking that (PC) is true, that is, for thinking that appearances justify beliefs? This question corresponds - to use L. BonJour’s vocabulary - to the demand for a “metajustification”. The pursuit of this metajustification can take different directions, depending on the general conception or nature of epistemic justification we are working with and on who is supposed to satisfy the demand. Unfortunately, all of these directions seem to lead (PC) to a dead end. In other words, the apparently fair and even essential demand for a metajustification of (PC) cannot be met by the theory, at least in a satisfactory way. If we are right about that, it will remain the difficult question whether Phenomenal Conservatism is the only one (or even the right one!) to be blamed for this failure. We will briefly talk about that in the conclusion.

Resumo em Inglês:

ABSTRACT This is a review of David Bronstein's book "Aristotle on Knowledge and Learning: The Posterior Analytics" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016)