Basic Knowledge and Conditions on Knowledge MARK MCBRIDE To access digital resources including: blog posts videos online appendices and to purchase copies of this book in: hardback paperback ebook editions Go to: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/537 Open Book Publishers is a non-profit independent initiative. We rely on sales and donations to continue publishing high-quality academic works. Basic Knowledge and Conditions on Knowledge Mark McBride https://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2017 Mark McBride This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial use of the work providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Mark McBride, Basic Knowledge and Conditions of Knowledge. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2017, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0104 In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit https:// www.openbookpublishers.com/product/537#copyright Further details about CC BY licenses are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/ All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web Digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://www. openbookpublishers.com/product/537#resources The National University of Singapore supported this Open Access publication with a Start Up Grant (WBS No: R-241-000-126-133). ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78374-283-7 ISBN Hardback: 978-1-78374-284-4 ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-78374-285-1 ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 978-1-78374-286-8 ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 978-1-78374-287-5 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0104 Cover image: Milickie Ponds Nature Reserve. Barycz Valley Landscape Park. Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland. Photo by Bartosz Dworski CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dolina_Baryczy_1.jpg Cover design: Heidi Coburn All paper used by Open Book Publishers is SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative), PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes) and Forest Stewardship Council(r)(FSC(r) certified. Printed in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia by Lightning Source for Open Book Publishers (Cambridge, UK) Contents Publication Details vi Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 PART ONE — EXPLORING BASIC KNOWLEDGE Overview of Part One 29 1. Reflections on Moore’s ‘Proof’ 33 2. First Reflections on the Problem of Easy Knowledge 55 3. The Problem of Easy Knowledge: Towards a Solution 77 4. Evidence and Transmission Failure 95 5. A Puzzle for Dogmatism 117 Interim Review 125 PART TWO — CONDITIONS ON KNOWLEDGE: CONCLUSIVE REASONS, SENSITIVITY, AND SAFETY Overview of Part Two 139 6. Conclusive Reasons 143 7. Sensitivity 159 8. Safety 181 9. Safety: An Application 199 Conclusion 207 Bibliography 213 Index 225 Publication Details Each numbered chapter in this book has been published in a peer- reviewed journal. Details are provided below. Between the point of publication of the articles and publication of this monograph, many further changes have been made, such that even those chapters not designated as published in shorter form are different from the published versions. In all cases, however, the integrity of the published version has been preserved. 1. Reflections on Moore’s ‘Proof’ Published as “The Dogmatists and Wright on Moore’s ‘Proof’”, International Journal for the Study of Skepticism, 2 (2012), 1–20, https://doi. org/10.1163/221057011X554133 2. First Reflections on the Problem of Easy Knowledge Shorter version published as “Zalabardo on Easy Knowledge”, Journal of Philosophical Research, 38 (2013), 177–88, https://doi.org/10.5840/ jpr2013389 3. The Problem of Easy Knowledge: Towards a Solution Published as “Davies on Easy Knowledge”, International Journal for the Study of Skepticism, 4 (2013), 1–20, https://doi.org/10.1163/22105700-030 11093 Publication Details vii 4. Evidence and Transmission Failure Published in Logos & Episteme: An International Journal of Epistemology, 2 (2011), 557–74, https://doi.org/10.5840/logos-episteme2011245, available at: https://logos-and-episteme.proiectsbc.ro/?q=taxonomy/term/222 5. A Puzzle for Dogmatism Published in Logos & Episteme: An International Journal of Epistemology, 2 (2011), 295–302, https://doi.org/10.5840/logos-episteme20112238, available at: https://logos-and-episteme.proiectsbc.ro/?q=node/91 6. Conclusive Reasons Published as “Is Knowledge Closed Under Known Entailment? The Strange Case of Hawthorne’s ‘Heavyweight Conjunct’ (and Other Strange Cases)”, Theoria: A Swedish Journal of Philosophy, 2 (2009), 117–28, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-2567.2009.01036.x 7. Sensitivity Published as “Sensitivity and Closure”, Episteme: A Journal of Individual and Social Epistemology, 11 (2014), 181–97, https://doi.org/10.1017/ epi.2014.5 8. Safety Published as “Saving Sosa’s Safety”, Logos & Episteme: An International Journal of Epistemology, 3 (2012), 637–52, https://doi.org/10.5840/logos- episteme20123413, available at: http://logos-and-episteme.proiectsbc. ro/sites/default/files/SAVING SOSA’S SAFETY.pdf 9. Safety: An Application Published as “Reply to Pardo: Unsafe Legal Knowledge?”, Legal Theory, 17 (2011), 67–73, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352325211000048 Acknowledgements For financial assistance, I am grateful to support from the National University of Singapore Start Up Grant (WBS No: R-241-000-126-133) in helping to make this book possible. It has been a pleasure to work with my editor at Open Book Publishers, Alessandra Tosi. More generally, I am delighted to be a part of this exciting Open Access press, whose vision for academic publishing I share. Philosophically, thanks to Martin Davies for extended, and stimulating, discussion, both during and after my time at Oxford. As well as learning about the topics considered in this book from Martin, I learnt how to become a better philosopher. Thanks also to other philosophers who have helped along the way. Further thanks to Chris Tucker (who, after the fact, disclosed his status as referee for this book) for extended written comments, and discussion. Finally, and most importantly, thanks to my family for their support during the writing of this book: Jackie, Edna, and Johnny (and crew). Introduction* This book explores two sets of issues in contemporary epistemology. The first part explores issues surrounding the category of basic knowledge (or justification) — that is, at a first pass, knowledge (or justification) which is immediate, in the sense that one’s justification for the known proposition doesn’t rest on any justification for believing other propositions.1 The second part investigates issues surrounding knowledge-closure and various conditions, namely conclusive reasons, sensitivity and safety, which some philosophers have claimed are necessary for knowledge. Each part of the book is substantial (there are five chapters in the first part and four in the second), and the two sets of issues — while evidently of independent interest — are interrelated in several ways (on which more below). The Conclusion, which includes a prospectus for further work, ties the safety condition on knowledge (Chapters Eight and Nine) back to the notion of failure of transmission of epistemic warrant (an absolutely central notion in Part One). Before getting to the substance of the book, some terminological remarks are in order. Knowledge is taken to be a propositional attitude. Thus our focus is on so-called ‘knowledge-that’, as contrasted with other potential forms of knowledge — most saliently, perhaps, so-called ‘knowledge-how’.2 ‘Justification’ and ‘warrant’, unless * All footnotes are the author’s own unless otherwise stated. 1 Our chief focus in this book is on empirical knowledge (and extensions of it through inference/deduction), though inevitably, at times, consideration of non-empirical knowledge becomes salient. 2 For a good overview of knowledge-how, and its contested relationship with knowledge-that, see Fantl (2012). © 2017 Mark McBride, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0104.01 2 Basic Knowledge and Conditions on Knowledge otherwise stated, are used interchangeably in this book to refer to that which makes it epistemically appropriate to believe a proposition, and this is commonly referred to as propositional justification or warrant. Thus — using the ‘warrant’ nomenclature — if S has propositional warrant for a proposition, p, we can talk of S having warrant to believe p (or warrant for (believing) p). Also, S has doxastic warrant for p iff S has propositional warrant for p and S believes p on the basis of his propositional warrant for p. If this is the case, one can talk of S having a warranted belief in p (or, perhaps, being warranted in believing p). My choice of which term to use on any particular occasion is determined by the term most commonly used in the debate into which I’m entering. Relatedly, I assume, consistently with there being degrees of belief or credences, that there is a workable notion of binary belief. Unless otherwise stated, when I refer to ‘belief(s)’ in this book, I am making reference to this binary notion. 1. Starting Points The starting points for our enquiry are G. E. Moore’s (1939) ‘Proof’ of an external world and Crispin Wright’s (1985) discussion of sceptical arguments and, especially, his introduction of the notion of transmission failure. The following argument can be extracted from Moore’s paper:3 (WARRANT FOR 1) I am having a visual experience as of having hands. (MOORE) (1) I have hands. (2) If I have hands an external world exists. (3) An external world exists. My interest is not primarily in this argument and its logical properties but in reasoning with the argument.