Epistemicism and response-dependence

Synthese 199 (3-4):9109-9131 (2021)
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Abstract

Epistemicists claim that if it is vague whether p, it is unknowable whether p. Some contest this on epistemic grounds: vague intuitions about vague matters need not fully preclude knowledge, if those intuitions are response-dependent in some special sense of enabling vague knowledge. This paper defends the epistemicist principle that vagueness entails ignorance against such objections. I argue that not only is response-dependence an implausible characterization of actual vague matters, its mere possibility poses no threat to epistemicism and is properly accounted for by the epistemicist’s own principles.

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Citations of this work

Vagueness.Roy Sorensen - 2012 - In Peter Adamson (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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References found in this work

Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Vagueness.Timothy Williamson - 1994 - New York: Routledge.
Knowledge and its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 64 (1):200-201.
Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (210):105-116.
Vagueness, truth and logic.Kit Fine - 1975 - Synthese 30 (3-4):265-300.

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