Consciousness and Cognition 83:102950 (2020)
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Abstract |
Approximation involves representing things in ways that might be close to the truth but are nevertheless false. Given the widespread reliance on approximations in science and everyday life, here we ask whether it is conceptually possible for false approximations to qualify as knowledge. According to the factivity account, it is impossible to know false approximations, because knowledge requires truth. According to the representational adequacy account, it is possible to know false approximations, if they are close enough to the truth for present purposes. In this paper, we adopt an experimental methodology to begin testing these two theories. When an agent provides a false and practically inadequate answer, both theories predict that people will deny knowledge. But the theories disagree about an agent who provides a false but practically adequate answer: the factivity hypothesis again predicts knowledge denial, whereas the representational adequacy hypothesis predicts knowledge attribution. Across two experiments, our principal finding was that people tended to attribute knowledge for false but practically adequate answers, which supports the representational adequacy account. We propose an interpretation of existing findings that preserves a conceptual link between knowledge and truth. According to this proposal, truth is not necessary for knowledge, but it is a feature of prototypical knowledge.
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Keywords | knowledge truth approximation epistemology folk epistemology action practical interests theory of mind |
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DOI | 10.1016/j.concog.2020.102950 |
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References found in this work BETA
Knowledge in an Uncertain World.Jeremy Fantl & Matthew McGrath - 2009 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Theory of Knowledge.Roderick Milton Chisholm - 1966 - Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA: Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall.
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Citations of this work BETA
Bubbles and Chambers: Post-Truth and Belief Formation in Digital Social-Epistemic Environments.Massimiliano Badino - 2022
A Guide to Thought Experiments in Epistemology.Wesley Buckwalter - forthcoming - In Ernest Sosa, Matthias Steup, John Turri & Blake Roeber (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, 3rd edition. Wiley-Blackwell.
Knowing Falsely: the Non-factive Project.Adam Michael Bricker - 2022 - Acta Analytica 37 (2):263-282.
Abilism, Ableism, and Reliabilism’s Achievement Gap: A Normative Argument for A New Paradigm in Epistemology.John Turri - 2022 - Philosophia 50 (3):1495-1501.
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