Speaking freely: on free will and the epistemology of testimony

Synthese 191 (7):1587-1603 (2014)
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Abstract

Peter Graham has recently given a dilemma purportedly showing the compatibility of libertarianism about free will and the anti-skeptical epistemology of testimony. In the first part of this paper I criticize his dilemma: the first horn either involves a false premise or makes the dilemma invalid. The second horn relies without argument on an implausible assumption about testimonial knowledge, and even if granted, nothing on this horn shows libertarianism does not entail skepticism about testimonial justification. I then argue for the incompatibility of (i) a view entailed by Open Theism, viz., that there are no true counterfactuals of freedom, (ii) a popular form of process reliabilism about justification and knowledge, and (iii) a weak anti-skepticism about testimonial justification and knowledge. I conclude that there is a costly tension between certain views about testimony and about free will

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Matthew Frise
Milwaukee School of Engineering

Citations of this work

The reliability problem for reliabilism.Matthew Frise - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (4):923-945.

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References found in this work

Epistemology and cognition.Alvin I. Goldman - 1986 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
The Nature of Necessity.Alvin Plantinga - 1974 - Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
The Significance of Free Will.Robert Kane - 1996 - New York, US: Oxford University Press USA.
Living Without Free Will.Derk Pereboom - 2001 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Living without Free Will.Derk Pereboom - 2001 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (211):308-310.

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