Timothy KIRSCHENHEITER ABSTRACT: In this paper, I explain Neil Feit and Andrew Cullison’s two proposed theories of knowledge, their initial No Essential Falsehood-Justifying Grounds account and their ultimate ‘Doesn’t Justify the Denial of a Defeater’ account. I then offer original counterexamples against both of these theories. In the process of doing so, I both explain Feit and Cullison’s motivation for …
Read More »Education and Knowledge (pages 245-263)
Elliott R. CROZAT ABSTRACT: In this paper, I challenge a traditional assumption concerning the nature and aims of education. According to epistemic infallibilism, propositional knowledge requires epistemic certainty. Though some philosophers accept infallibilism, others consider it implausible because it does not recognize ordinary cases of supposed knowledge. On this objection, we possess many items of propositional knowledge, notwithstanding the fallibleness …
Read More »Further Reflections on Quasi-factivism: A Reply to Baumann (pages 207-215)
Michael J. SHAFFER ABSTRACT: This paper is a constructive response to Peter Baumann’s comments concerning the argument from inconsistency and explosion that was originally introduced in “Can Knowledge Really be Non-factive?” Specifically, this paper deals with Baumann’s two suggestions for how quasi-factivists might avoid this argument and it shows that they are both problematic. As such, his paper extends and …
Read More »TRUE KNOWLEDGE (pages 455-461)
Peter BAUMANN ABSTRACT: That knowledge is factive, that is, that knowledge that p requires that p, has for a long time typically been treated as a truism. Recently, however, some authors have raised doubts about and arguments against this claim. In a recent paper in this journal, Michael Shaffer presents new arguments against the denial of the factivity of knowledge. …
Read More »CONSISTENCY AND SHIFTS IN GETTIER CASES (pages 331-343)
Andreas STEPHENS ABSTRACT: Two Gettier cases are described in detail and it is shown how they unfold in terms of reflective and reflexive desiderata. It is argued that the Gettier problem does not pose a problem for conceptions of knowledge as long as we are consistent in how we understand justification and knowledge. It is only by reading the cases …
Read More »WHAT IS THE RELATION BETWEEN SEMANTIC AND SUBSTANTIVE EPISTEMIC CONTEXTUALISM? (pages 345-366)
Ron WILBURN ABSTRACT: Epistemic Contextualism is generally treated as a semantic thesis that may or may not have epistemological consequences. It is sometimes taken to concern only knowledge claims (as the assertion that the word “know” means different things in different contexts of use). Still, at other times it is taken to regard the knowledge relation itself (as the assertion …
Read More »CAN KNOWLEDGE REALLY BE NON-FACTIVE? (pages 215-226)
Michael J. SHAFFER ABSTRACT: This paper contains a critical examination of the prospects for analyses of knowledge that weaken the factivity condition so that knowledge implies only approximate truth. Download PDF
Read More »LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE AND SUBSTANTIVE EPISTEMIC CONTEXTUALISM (pages 53-76)
Ron WILBURN ABSTRACT: Epistemic contextualism (EC) is the thesis that the standards that must be met by a knowledge claimant vary with (especially conversational) contexts of utterance. Thus construed, EC may concern only knowledge claims (“Semantic EC”), or else the knowledge relation itself (“Substantive EC”). Herein, my concern is with “Substantive EC.” Let’s call the claim that the sorts of …
Read More »CONTEXT-SENSITIVE OBJECTIVISM: GOING DEEPER INTO DESCRIPTION OF SITUATIONS (pages 481-494)
Nuno VENTURINHA ABSTRACT: This paper outlines the major topics addressed in my book Description of Situations: An Essay in Contextualist Epistemology (Springer, 2018), anticipates some possible misunderstandings and discusses issues that warrant further investigation. Download PDF
Read More »EMPATHY AS A TOOL FOR LEARNING ABOUT EVALUATIVE FEATURES OF OBJECTS (pages 355-367)
Diana SOFRONIEVA ABSTRACT: It is generally agreed that empathy can give us knowledge about others. However, the potential use of empathy as a tool to learn about features of objects in the world more generally, as opposed to learning only about others’ internal states, has not been discussed in the literature. In this paper I make the claim that empathy …
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