I ON THE PRIMITIVE TERM OF LOGISTICf IN this article I propose to establish a theorem belonging to logistic concerning some connexions, not widely known, ...

Rieber 1998 proposes an account of "S knows that p" that generates a contextualist solution to Closure. In this paper, I’ll argue that Rieber’s account of "S knows that p" is subject to fatal objections, but we can modify it to achieve an adequate account of "S knows that p" that generates a unified contextualist solution to all four puzzles. This is a feat that should matter to those philosophers who have proposed contextualist solutions to Closure: all of them have (...) motivated their contextualism by appeal to the fact that they can explain the plausibility of each of the statements in Closure taken individually, and they can do this without having to deny that each of those statements is true, at least in the context in which it is plausible. But notice that this consideration would equally well motivate a contextualist approach to the other puzzles. Nonetheless, no contextualist has yet suggested how a contextualist solution to the other puzzles might go. (shrink)

The Problem of Doxastic Shift may be stated as a dilemma: on the one hand, the distribution of nominal complements of the form `the ψ that p’ strongly suggests that `that’-clauses cannot be univocally assigned propositionaldenotations; on the other hand, facts about quantification strongly suggest that `that’-clauses must be assigned univocal denotations. I argue that the Problem may be solved by defining the extension of a proposition to be a set of facts or, more generally, conditions. Given this, the logical (...) operation of descriptive predication can be introduced in a way that resolves the dilemma withoutsacrificing the singular term analysis of `that’-clauses. (shrink)

The Knower Paradox has had a brief but eventful history, and principles of epistemic closure (which say that a subject automatically knows any proposition she knows to be materially implied, or logically entailed, by a proposition she already knows) have been the subject of tremendous debate in epistemic logic and epistemology more generally, especially because the fate of standard arguments for and against skepticism seems to turn on the fate of closure. As far as I can tell, however, no one (...) working in either area has emphasized the result I emphasize in this paper: the Knower Paradox just falsifies even the most widely accepted general principles of epistemic closure. After establishing that result, I discuss five of its more important consequences. (shrink)

Where is the justificatory boundary between a true belief's not being knowledge and its being knowledge? Even if we put to one side the Gettier problem, this remains a fundamental epistemological question, concerning as it does the matter of whether we can provide some significant defence of the usual epistemological assumption that a belief is knowledge only if it is well justified. But can that question be answered non-arbitrarily? BonJour believes that it cannot be -- and that epistemology should therefore (...) abandon the concept of knowledge. More optimistically, this paper does attempt to answer that question, by applying -- and thereby refining -- a non-absolutist theory of knowledge. (shrink)

Pode o conhecimento de uma dada verdade admitir gradações? Sim, de fato, segundo o gradualismo deste artigo. O artigo introduz o conceito do saber-como que p – isto é, o conceito de saber como é que p. Saber-como que p é claramente gradual – admitindo gradações, dado que se pode saber mais ou menos como é que p. E a vinculação que este artigo faz entre sabercomo que p e saber que p revela que este último tipo de conhecimento também (...) é gradual (mesmo que disfarçadamente). A teoria dos criadores-deverdade [truthmakers] é, então, invocada para enriquecer a análise, e a análise é aplicada às tarefas de fazer sentido do fundacionismo e de barrar uma certa forma de ceticismo. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Conhecimento. Gradualismo. Absolutismo. Ceticismo. Fundacionismo, Criadores-de-verdade. BSTRACT Can knowledge of a particular truth admit of degrees? Indeed so, according to this paper’s gradualism. The paper introduces the concept of how-knowledge that p – that is, the concept of knowing how it is that p. Howknowledge that p is clearly gradational – admitting of degrees, as one can know more or less of how it is that p. And this paper’s linking of how-knowledge that p with knowledge that p reveals the latter kind of knowledge, too, to be gradational (even if covertly so). Truthmaker theory is then called upon to enrich the analysis, and the analysis is applied to the tasks of understanding foundationalism and of thwarting one form of scepticism. KEY WORDS – Knowledge. Gradualism. Absolutism. Scepticism. Foundationalism. Truthmakers. (shrink)

Pode o conhecimento de uma dada verdade admitir gradações? Sim, de fato, segundo o gradualismo deste artigo. O artigo introduz o conceito do saber-como que p – isto é, o conceito de saber como é que p. Saber-como que p é claramente gradual – admitindo gradações, dado que se pode saber mais ou menos como é que p. E a vinculação que este artigo faz entre sabercomo que p e saber que p revela que este último tipo de conhecimento também (...) é gradual. A teoria dos criadores-deverdade [truthmakers] é, então, invocada para enriquecer a análise, e a análise é aplicada às tarefas de fazer sentido do fundacionismo e de barrar uma certa forma de ceticismo. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Conhecimento. Gradualismo. Absolutismo. Ceticismo. Fundacionismo, Criadores-de-verdade. BSTRACT Can knowledge of a particular truth admit of degrees? Indeed so, according to this paper’s gradualism. The paper introduces the concept of how-knowledge that p – that is, the concept of knowing how it is that p. Howknowledge that p is clearly gradational – admitting of degrees, as one can know more or less of how it is that p. And this paper’s linking of how-knowledge that p with knowledge that p reveals the latter kind of knowledge, too, to be gradational. Truthmaker theory is then called upon to enrich the analysis, and the analysis is applied to the tasks of understanding foundationalism and of thwarting one form of scepticism. KEY WORDS – Knowledge. Gradualism. Absolutism. Scepticism. Foundationalism. Truthmakers. (shrink)

This paper propounds a systematic examination of the link between the Knower Paradox and provability interpretations of modal logic. The aim of the paper is threefold: to give a streamlined presentation of the Knower Paradox and related results; to clarify the notion of a syntactical treatment of modalities; finally, to discuss the kind of solution that modal provability logic provides to the Paradox. I discuss the respective strength of different versions of the Knower Paradox, both in the framework of first-order (...) arithmetic and in that of modal logic with fixed point operators. It is shown that the notion of a syntactical treatment of modalities is ambiguous between a self-referential treatment and a metalinguistic treatment of modalities, and that these two notions are independent. I survey and compare the provability interpretations of modality respectively given by Skyrms, B. (1978, The Journal of Philosophy 75: 368–387) Anderson, C.A. (1983, The Journal of Philosophy 80: 338–355) and Solovay, R. (1976, Israel Journal of Mathematics 25: 287–304). I examine how these interpretations enable us to bypass the limitations imposed by the Knower Paradox while preserving the laws of classical logic, each time by appeal to a distinct form of hierarchy. (shrink)

Since Edmund L. Gettier reminded us recently of a certain important inadequacy of the traditional analysis of "S knows that p," several attempts have been made to correct that analysis. In this paper I shall offer still another analysis (or a sketch of an analysis) of "S knows that p," one which will avert Gettier's problem. My concern will be with knowledge of empirical propositions only, since I think that the traditional analysis is adequate for knowledge of nonempirical truths.

Michael Dummett; VIII.—Truth, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 59, Issue 1, 1 June 1959, Pages 141–162, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/59.1.

In this essay I present a new version of the Paradox of the Knower and show that this new paradox vitiates a certain argument against epistemic closure. I then prove a theorem that relates the new paradox to epistemological scepticism. I conclude by assessing the use of the Knower in arguments against syntactical treatments of knowledge.

In “The Paradox of the Knower without Epistemic Closure”, MIND 110:319-33, 2001, I develop a version of the Knower Paradox which does not assume epistemic closure, and I use it to argue that the original Knower Paradox does not support an argument against epistemic closure. In “The Paradox of the Knower without Epistemic Closure?”, MIND 113:95-107, 2004, Gabriel Uzquiano, using his own result, argues that my rebuttal to the anti-closure argument is not successful. I respond here by arguing that in (...) order to use Uzquiano’s result in an argument against closure, one must assume an implausible skepticism about arithmetic. (shrink)

The pragmatic logic of assertions shows a connection between ignorance and decidability. In it, we can express pragmatic factual ignorance and first-order ignorance as well as some of their variants. We also show how some pragmatic versions of second-order ignorance and of Rumsfeld-ignorance may be formulated. A specific variant of second-order ignorance is particularly relevant. This indicates a strong pragmatic version of ignorance of ignorance, irreducible to any previous form of ignorance, which defines limits to what can justifiably be asserted (...) about higher-order ignorance. Finally, we relate the justified assertion of second-order ignorance with scientific assertions. (shrink)

I have argued that without an adequate solution to the knower paradox Fitch's Proof is- or at least ought to be-ineffective against verificationism. Of course, in order to follow my suggestion verificationists must maintain that there is currently no adequate solution to the knower paradox, and that the paradox continues to provide prima facie evidence of inconsistent knowledge. By my lights, any glimpse at the literature on paradoxes offers strong support for the first thesis, and any honest, non-dogmatic reflection on (...) the knower paradox provides strong support for the second. Whether verificationists want to go the route I've suggested is not for me todecide. As in the previous section my aim has been that of defending the mere viability of verificationism in the face of what many, many philosophers have taken to be its death-knell, namely Fitch's Proof. But, as the final objection makes clear, showing that verificationism can live in the face of Fitch's Proof is one thing; showing that it should live is another project. If nothing else, I hope that this papershows that verificationists still have a project to pursue; Fitch's Proof, contrary to popular opinion, need not bury verificationism.13. (shrink)

Nozick analyzes fundamental issues, such as the identity of the self, knowledge and skepticism, free will, the foundations of ethics, and the meaning of life.

What is knowledge? How hard is it for a person to have knowledge? Good Knowledge, Bad Knowledge confronts contemporary philosophical attempts to answer those classic questions, offering a theory of knowledge that is unique in conceiving of knowledge in a non-absolutist way.

I offer a two-tiered critique of epistemological contrastivism as developed by Jonathan Schaffer. First, I investigate the cornerstone of contrastivism, the notion of knowing the selected proposition p rather than the eliminated, or contrast, proposition q. Contrastivism imposes the ternicity constraint that the knowledge relation should span a knower and two propositions. However, contrastivism has yet to explain how to square this constraint with the required contrast between the selected and the eliminated propositions, and it is not immediately obvious how (...) to accomplish this. I offer up for consideration the binary proposal that to know that p rather than q is to know that the conjunction of p and the negation of q is true. Second, I argue that contrastivist objects of knowledge ought to be hyperpropositions rather than functions from possible worlds to truth-values, as assumed by Schaffer. (shrink)