Multi-Path vs. Single-Path Replies to Skepticism

Journal of Philosophical Logic 51 (2):383-412 (2021)
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Abstract

In order to reply to the contemporary skeptic’s argument for the conclusion that we don’t have any empirical knowledge about the external world, several authors have proposed different fallibilist theories of knowledge that reject the epistemic closure principle. Holliday, 1–62 2015a), however, shows that almost all of them suffer from either the problem of containment or the problem of vacuous knowledge or both. Furthermore, Holliday suggests that the fallibilist should allow a proposition to have multiple sets of relevant alternatives, each of which is sufficient while none is necessary, if all its members are eliminated, for knowing that proposition. Not completely satisfied with Holliday’s multi-path reply to the skeptic, the author suggests a new single-path relevant-possibility theory of knowledge and argues that it can avoid both the problem of containment and the problem of vacuous knowledge of a certain sort while rejecting skepticism about the external world.

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References found in this work

Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Elusive knowledge.David K. Lewis - 1996 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74 (4):549 – 567.
Knowledge and its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 64 (1):200-201.
Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism.Peter K. Unger - 1975 - Oxford [Eng.]: Oxford University Press.
Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (210):105-116.

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