Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-29T06:03:06.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THERE IS NO KNOWLEDGE FROM FALSEHOOD

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 October 2014

Ian Schnee
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A growing number of authors defend putative examples of knowledge from falsehood (KFF), inferential knowledge based in a critical or essential way on false premises, and they argue that KFF has important implications for many areas of epistemology (whether evidence can be false, the Gettier debate, defeasibility theories of knowledge, etc.). I argue, however, that there is no KFF, because in any supposed example either the falsehood does not contribute to the knowledge or the subject lacks knowledge. In particular, I show that if the subject actually has knowledge in putative KFF cases, then there is always a veridical evidential path meeting the basing conditions that accounts for her knowledge; if there is no such path, then the subject is in a type of Gettier case. All the recent arguments that rely on KFF are therefore based on a mistake.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 53 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Arnold, A. 2013. ‘Some Evidence is False.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 91: 165–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Audi, R. 1983. ‘The Causal Structure of Indirect Justification.’ Journal of Philosophy, 80: 398–415. Reprint in The Structure of Justification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bengson, J. 2013. ‘Experimental Attacks on Intuitions and Answers.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 86: 495–532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cappelen, H. 2012. Philosophy without Intuitions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coffman, E. J. 2008. ‘Warrant Without Truth?’ Synthese, 162: 173–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitelson, B. 2010. ‘Strengthening the Case for Knowledge from Falsehood.’ Analysis, 70: 666–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gettier, E. 1963. ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’ Analysis, 23: 121–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, A. 1967. ‘A Causal Theory of Knowing.’ Journal of Philosophy, 64: 357–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, A. 1979. ‘What is Justified Belief?’ In Pappas, G. (ed.), Justification and Knowledge, pp. 1–23. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Harman, G. 1970. ‘Knowledge, Reasons, and Causes.’ Journal of Philosophy, 67: 841–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawthorne, J. 2004. Knowledge and Lotteries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hilpinen, R. 1988. ‘Knowledge and Conditionals.’ Philosophical Perspectives, 2: 157–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, P. 1996. ‘Warrant, Proper Function, Reliabilism, and Defeasibility.’ In Kvanvig, J. (ed.), Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology, pp. 97–130. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Klein, P. 2003. ‘How a Pyrrhonian Skeptic Might Respond to Academic Skepticism.’ In Luper, S. (ed.), The Skeptics: Contemporary Essays, pp. 75–94. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Klein, P. 2008. ‘Useful False Beliefs.’ In Smith, Q. (ed.), Epistemology: New Essays, pp. 25–61. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korcz, K. A. 1997. ‘Recent Work on the Basing Relation.’ American Philosophical Quarterly, 34: 171–91.Google Scholar
Korcz, K. A. 2010. ‘The Epistemic Basing Relation.’ In Zalta, E. N. (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/entries/basing-epistemic/.Google Scholar
Lehrer, K. 1990. Theory of Knowledge. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Lemke, L. 1986. ‘Kvanvig and Swain on the Basing Relation.’ Analysis, 46: 138–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Littlejohn, C. 2013. ‘No Evidence is False.’ Acta Analytica, 28: 145–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luzzi, F. 2010. ‘Counter-Closure.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 88: 673–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montminy, M. Manuscript. ‘Knowledge Despite Falsehood.’Google Scholar
Pritchard, D. 2005. Epistemic Luck. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pritchard, D. 2007. ‘Anti-Luck Epistemology.’ Synthese, 158: 277–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pritchard, D. 2009. ‘Safety-Based Epistemology: Whither Now?’ Journal of Philosophical Research, 34: 33–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pust, J. 2012. ‘Intuition.’ In Zalta, E. N. (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/intuition/.Google Scholar
Rizzieri, A. 2011. ‘Evidence Does Not Equal Knowledge.’ Philosophical Studies, 153: 235–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sainsbury, M. 1996. ‘Vagueness, Ignorance and Margin of Error.’ British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 46: 589–601.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwitzgebel, E. 2011. ‘Belief.’ In Zalta, E. N. (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/belief/.Google Scholar
Swain, M. 1981. Reasons and Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Travis, C. 1997. Pragmatics. In Hale, B. and Wright, C. (eds), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, pp. 87–107. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Warfield, T. 2005. ‘Knowledge from Falsehood.’ Philosophical Perspectives, 19: 405–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weatherson, B. 2004. ‘Luminous Margins.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 83: 373–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinberg, J., Stich, S. and Nichols, S. 2001. ‘Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions.’ Philosophical Topics, 29: 429–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, T. 2000. Knowledge and its Limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Williamson, T. 2007. The Philosophy of Philosophy. New York, NY: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zagzebski, L. 1994. ‘The Inescapability of Gettier Problems.’ Philosophical Quarterly, 44: 65–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar