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1 Introduction: Lessons from Gettier Notes 1 Introduction: Lessons from Gettier 1 . See Hazlett (2010) for examples. Contrary to a misinterpretation one some- times encounters, Hazlett only draws the more modest conclusion that linguistic arguments for factivity aren’t to be trusted. 2 . For a recent example, see Kornblith (2009), and see Kornblith (2009: 5fn1) for references to some other deniers of the justification requirement. 3 . It’s only very recently that philosophers have really tried to spell out how the thought experiment feeds into a refutation of the account; see, for example, Williamson (2007: chapter 6) and Malmgren (2011). 4 . See Hawthorne (2004: 32–6) for a recent discussion of how to best formulate a closure principle for knowledge. 5 . There are other, perhaps more demanding, conceptions of infallibilism that are not entailed by this characterization. For example, Unger (1975) argues that one cannot know P unless one is absolutely certain that P, and this might be regarded as a variety of infallibilism. 6 . Littlejohn (2012) offers a battery of arguments designed to show that justi- fied belief is factive. 7 . See Goldman (1976: 772–3), though he credits the example to Carl Ginet. As Goldman describes the case, it’s specified that Henry has not yet encoun- tered any of the barn façades, but DeRose has suggested that the example is stronger if we instead stipulate that Henry has already mistakenly believed a number of the façades in the region to be barns (2009: 23fn24). 8 . I’m somewhat sympathetic to the modal account of luck defended in Pritchard (2005), though I don’t think that it’s problem-free as it stands. 9 . The causal condition is often presented as a replacement for the justification condition, rather than as a supplement to the JTB account. This complica- tion won’t matter here. 10 . Jenkins (2006: 140–4) argues convincingly that earlier explanation-based accounts were too weak, succumbing to simple variants of Gettier’s original examples. 11 . Also worth considering in this connection is Harman’s (1973: 143–4) well- known case involving a subject who reads of a political assassination in a reli- able newspaper, and only by luck misses the massive cover-up that follows, which includes an insincere retraction by that newspaper. 12 . In particular, any serious overview of this debate would give some attention to defeasibility theories, reliabilist theories, and sensitivity theories. For discus- sions of these, see the references at the end of this paragraph in the main text. 13 . This label comes from Vogel (1990). We will also occasionally consider variants in which the draw hasn’t even taken place yet (for example, in Chapter 5), but in general I’ll avoid these since they raise complications about how knowledge of the contingent future is possible. 196 Notes 197 14 . The claim that lottery beliefs can be justified is a premise of one version of the so-called lottery paradox. Avoiding this paradox while keeping the premise looks like it forces one to give up a closure principle for justification that applies to inferences with more than one premise: a ‘multi-premise’ closure principle, in now standard terminology. This might be reckoned a significant cost, not least because it’s unclear that one can coherently give up multi- premise closure for justification while retaining the single-premise restriction adopted in the introduction (see DeRose 1999: 23fn14 and Lasonen-Aarnio 2008). These are important issues, but they will have to wait for a more appropriate occasion. 15 . For endorsements, see, for example, Sainsbury (1997), Sosa (1999), Williamson (2000), Pritchard (2005), and Manley (2007). 16 . Williamson (2000) holds that the relevant notion of closeness cannot be understood except in terms of knowledge. 17 . For this kind of treatment of the problem raised by necessary truths, see Williamson (2000), Pritchard (2009), Manley (2007), Horvath (2008), and McGlynn (2012b). See Roland and Cogburn (2011) for an objection. Sainsbury (1997) and Weatherson (2004) offer a similar but more radical proposal, which we will discuss in Chapter 7. 18 . See, for example, Brueckner and Fiocco (2002), Neta and Rohrbaugh (2004), Comesaña (2005), Kelp (2009), and Bogardus (2014). 19 . For a recent terrific overview of the debate, see the first chapter of Littlejohn 2012. 20 . As mentioned in the preface, I don’t here consider these issues about how content is fixed here, but see McGlynn (2012b) for an extended discussion. 21 . Ichikawa has made this point a number of times in talks and on his blog; see also Ichikawa and Jenkins (in progress). 22 . This aspect of the knowledge first approach has its roots in Unger (1975), and also in Stoic responses to the Sorites paradox, which were a big influence on Williamson’s own response – on the latter, see the discussion in the first chapter of Williamson (1994). 23 . I’m not suggesting that any of these authors deny the sixth thesis. Rather, my claim is that it doesn’t seem to figure at all centrally in their conception of the knowledge first approach. 2 Belief 1 . I discuss two exceptions in McGlynn (2013: 402n6). See also Comesaña (2009: 7), which only came to my attention after I had written that paper. 2 . Compare Pritchard (2008: 439–40) and Comesaña (2009: 7). 3 . Unfortunately, this point was nowhere near as clear as it should have been in McGlynn 2013; indeed, the section on the so-called Russellian Retreat may have been positively misleading in this respect. I should note that some of the positions we will discuss (for instance, Douven and Lackey’s norms of assertion discussed in Chapter 5) are stated in terms of reasonableness or rationality, but where no contrast seems to be intended with justification. I’ll flag this terminological issue again when I discuss them. 4 . Nelkin (2000) argues that to believe a lottery proposition is to thereby be guilty of a failure of rationality, but I don’t consider her view below since 198 Notes her reasons for adopting this position don’t connect with the issues about the relationship between belief and knowledge which are the focus of this chapter. See McGlynn (2013: 403n9) for criticism of Nelkin’s position 5 . See Adler and Hicks (2013: 149fn18) for a reply to this worry, as it was expressed in McGlynn (2013). Since it’s not my main point here, I won’t push it any further. 6 . As noted above and in Chapter 5, there are reasons to think that what Douven calls rationality is just what is more commonly called justification, but I will ignore this here. 7 . For further criticism of Huemer’s premise, see Littlejohn (2010: 92–3 and 2012: 173–5). Huemer further defends his thesis in his 2011; see McGlynn (2013) for criticism. 8 . For explicit endorsements, see Williamson (2000), Adler (2002), Bird (2007), Hindriks (2007), Sutton (2007), Bach (2008), Stanley (2008), Ball (2013), and Littlejohn (2013b). Bird is very careful to distinguish norms of judgment from norms of belief, but he endorses the knowledge norm for each. I mostly gloss over this distinction in what follows to simplify my discussion. 9 . This is one place where Bird actually speaks of ‘judging’ where I speak of ‘believing’, but this doesn’t make any difference to the points made in the text. 10 . For more discussion of arguments for the knowledge norm of belief, see Littlejohn (2010 and 2012: chapter 5) and the discussions of Sutton (2007) referenced at the start of the next chapter. 11 . An earlier version of this argument can be found in Williams (1978: 44–5). Smithies (2012b) also argues that belief aims at knowledge; see McGlynn (2012c: 364fn9) for criticism. See Littlejohn (2010 and 2012: chapter 5) for further criti- cism of the claim that belief aims at knowledge (though, as we have just seen, Littlejohn himself has recently changed his mind on these issues). 12 . This should be relatively uncontroversial, and I argue for it at length in 2013: 397–8. Some qualifications may be necessary to accommodate the kinds of example discussed in Turri (2010a) and elsewhere, though I won’t discuss such complications here. 13 . As I already hinted above, some epistemologists think that there can be congruous doxastic Moorean beliefs; see, for example, Douven (2006: 474), Lackey (2007: 613–6), Coffman (2011: 486), and Turri (2010 a). While it is true that I have here defended the claim that epistemic Moorean beliefs are not inherently incongruous by contrasting such beliefs with doxastic Moorean beliefs, the principal point can be cast in the following more neutral way: even if one is willing to grant the assumptions needed to argue that doxastic Moorean beliefs are inherently incongruous, arguing the same point for their epistemic counterparts requires further, much less plausible principles (of the sort I argued against in Sections 2.3 through 2.6). 3 Justification 1 . Whitcomb (2014) considers and criticises a number of other proposals, which I don’t discuss because they’re implausible and they haven’t been advocated by anyone. Notes 199 2 . The phrase originally comes from Sutton (2007: 10), but it is co-opted by Bird (2007: 83). Hossack (2007: 26–7) also proposes a version of this kind of account similar to Bird’s, but he doesn’t really offer any arguments or details, and so I don’t engage his discussion here. Smith (2010) defends an alternative devel- opment of the idea that justification is ‘would be’ knowledge, though unlike Bird’s, it’s not developed within the knowledge first approach. In McGlynn (2012c), I note that a proponent of knowledge first epistemology might appropriate Smith’s account, and I question the account and its motivations.
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