STILL STUCK ON THE BACKWARD CLOCK: A REJOINDER TO CLARKE, ADAMS AND BARKER (pages 243-269)

John N. WILLIAMS

ABSTRACT: Neil Sinhababu and I presented Backward Clock, an original counterexample to Robert Nozick’s truth-tracking analysis of propositional knowledge. In their latest defence of the truth-tracking theories, “Methods Matter: Beating the Backward Clock,” Murray Clarke, Fred Adams and John A. Barker try again to defend Nozick’s and Fred Dretske’s early analysis of propositional knowledge against Backward Clock. They allege failure of truth-adherence, mistakes on my part about methods, and appeal to charity, ‘equivocation,’ reliable methods and unfair internalism. I argue that these objections all fail. They are still stuck with the fact that the tracking theories fall to Backward Clock, an even more useful test case for other analyses of knowledge than might have first appeared.

application-pdf Download PDF

Check Also

WHAT ARE EXPLANATORY VIRTUES INDICATIVE OF? (pages 179-193)

Miloud BELKONIENE ABSTRACT: This paper discusses an assumption on which explanationist accounts of the evidential …