Knowing How One Knows

Logos and Episteme 10 (2):195-205 (2019)
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Abstract

In this paper, I argue that knowledge is dimly luminous. That is: if a person knows that p, she knows how she knows that p. The argument depends on a safety-based account of propositional knowledge, which is salient in Williamson’s critique of the ‘KK’ principle. I combine that account with non-intellectualism about knowledge-how – according to which, if a person knows how to φ, then in nearly all (if not all) nearby possible worlds in which she φes in the same way as in the actual world, she only φes successfully. Thus, the possession of first-order propositional knowledge implies secondorder practical knowledge, and this can be iterated. Because of the assumed nonintellectualism about know-how, dim luminosity does not imply bright luminosity about knowledge, which is expressed by the traditional KK principle. I conclude by considering some potential counterexamples to the view that knowledge is dimly luminous.

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Giovanni Rolla
Universidade Federal da Bahia

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References found in this work

Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge.Lawrence BonJour - 2000 - In Sven Bernecker & Fred I. Dretske, Knowledge: readings in contemporary epistemology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Luminosity and the KK thesis.Robert Stalnaker - 2015 - In Sanford Goldberg, Externalism, Self-Knowledge, and Skepticism: New Essays. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 19-40.
Knowledge in Practice.David Carr - 1981 - American Philosophical Quarterly 18 (1):53 - 61.
How visual perception yields reasons for belief.Alan Millar - 2011 - Philosophical Issues 21 (1):332-351.

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