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Chapter 8 - Denying Premise 4

Warrant by Background Information

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2019

Marc Alspector-Kelly
Affiliation:
Western Michigan University
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Summary

This chapter concerns the proposal that S’s background information warrants Q. I first consider this proposal with respect to wholesale skeptical hypotheses, concluding that appeal to background information is either superfluous for or incapable of protecting ordinary knowledge from wholesale skeptical attack. I then turn to piecemeal skeptical hypotheses, focusing on the “lottery proposition” that S knows that she will lose the lottery. It’s widely recognized that we intuit that this isn’t known. I consider and reject a variety of proposed explanations for that intuition, including John Hawthorne’s “parity reasoning” explanation. I then offer a different explanation: warrant is infallible. That is, if S is warranted in believing P then P is true. I point out that, when a putatively known proposition P turns out to be false, we expect an explanation for how it could be false notwithstanding our having a basis that, in normal circumstances, delivers knowledge. Warrant infallibilism explains this. Trenton Merricks has also argued for warrant infallibilism; I present and defend his arguments. The upshot is that background information can’t deliver a warrant for Q in, at least, many Dretske cases because such a warrant would be fallible. But there are no fallible warrants.
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • Denying Premise 4
  • Marc Alspector-Kelly, Western Michigan University
  • Book: Against Knowledge Closure
  • Online publication: 04 May 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108604093.008
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  • Denying Premise 4
  • Marc Alspector-Kelly, Western Michigan University
  • Book: Against Knowledge Closure
  • Online publication: 04 May 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108604093.008
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Denying Premise 4
  • Marc Alspector-Kelly, Western Michigan University
  • Book: Against Knowledge Closure
  • Online publication: 04 May 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108604093.008
Available formats
×