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Klein on Closure and Skepticism

Anthony Brueckner

in Essays on Skepticism

This chapter examines Peter Klein's ingenious defense of closure and raises a number of problems for it.

Infallibilism or Pragmatic Encroachment?

Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath

in Knowledge in an Uncertain World

If the arguments of previous chapters are sound, then fallibilist purism about knowledge is false. This raises the question of which to retain, fallibilism or purism? The first part of the chapter ... More

If the arguments of previous chapters are sound, then fallibilist purism about knowledge is false. This raises the question of which to retain, fallibilism or purism? The first part of the chapter considers the merits of infallibilism (including arguments for infallibilism suggested by Timothy Williamson). The key question is just how strong its skeptical consequences are. The second part considers the costs of denying purism and affirming pragmatic encroachment (with special attention paid to a challenge leveled by Ram Neta). In this section, these costs are shown not to be unique to pragmatic encroachment. Those accepting a robust form of cognitive decision theory (viz. the view that understands justified belief in terms of maximizing expected cognitive values) are committed to similar costs, as are those, like Peter Klein, who claim that knowledge-level justification is not determined by probability. Both sorts of theorists are committed to the common truth of ‘I know/am justified in believing p, p is less likely to be true than q, but I don't know/am not justified in believing q’. The chapter concludes by making a case that the costs of pragmatic encroachment do not outweigh the costs of denying the book's fundamental principles: if fallibilism must stay, then on balance the best way to keep it is by endorsing pragmatic encroachment.Less

Misleading Defeaters

Richard Foley

in When Is True Belief Knowledge?

This chapter proposes a game in a similar vein to the Gettier game: when a subject has a true belief but seems not to have knowledge, it looks for some key aspect of the situation about which the ... More

This chapter proposes a game in a similar vein to the Gettier game: when a subject has a true belief but seems not to have knowledge, it looks for some key aspect of the situation about which the subject lacks true beliefs. Defeasibility theorists make a strikingly similar recommendation. When confronted with cases in which a subject intuitively lacks knowledge despite having a justified true belief, they too recommend looking for a truth about the situation that the subject lacks, but because they are committed to the Gettier game, they link the subject's ignorance of this truth with the justification requirement. The chapter examines a story discussed by a leading proponent of the defeasibility theory, Peter Klein, before positing its own solution to the game.Less

Skepticism

Peter Klein

in The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology

In ”Skepticism,” Peter Klein distinguishes between the “Academic Skeptic” who proposes that we cannot have knowledge of a certain set of propositions and the “Pyrrhonian Skeptic” who refrains from ... More

In ”Skepticism,” Peter Klein distinguishes between the “Academic Skeptic” who proposes that we cannot have knowledge of a certain set of propositions and the “Pyrrhonian Skeptic” who refrains from opining about whether we can have knowledge. Klein argues that Academic Skepticism is plausibly supported by a “Closure Principle‐style” argument based on the claim that if x entails y and S has justification for x, then S has justification for y. He turns to contextualism to see if it can contribute to the discussion between one who claims that we can have knowledge about some epistemically interesting class of propositions and the Academic Skeptic. He outlines the background of Pyrrhonian Skepticism, pointing out that the Pyrrhonist withholds assent concerning our knowledge‐bearing status because reason cannot provide an adequate basis for assent. He assesses three possible patterns of reasoning (foundationalism, coherentism, and infinitism), and concludes that the Pyrrhonist view, that reason cannot resolve matters concerning the nonevident, is vindicated.Less

Making the Question Precise

Erik J. Olsson

in Against Coherence: Truth, Probability, and Justification

The comparative question is raised as to whether more coherence implies a higher likelihood of truth. The chapter is devoted to making the question precise. Coherence measures are defined and ... More

The comparative question is raised as to whether more coherence implies a higher likelihood of truth. The chapter is devoted to making the question precise. Coherence measures are defined and compared. The relation between coherence and logical closure is scrutinized. A notion of testimonial truth conduciveness is proposed, and it is argued that it corresponds to our intuitive notion. Peter Klein and Ted A. Warfield’s counter example to the truth conduciveness of coherence is refuted. The chapter ends with a brief comparison of testimonial and explanatory coherence.Less

Chained to the Gettier Problem— a Useful Falsehood?

Robert K. Shope

in Explaining Knowledge: New Essays on the Gettier Problem

Chapter 5 refines a solution previously proposed to the Gettier Problem focusing on proscribing certain roles for falsehoods in a ‘justification-explaining chain.’ The refinement is partly explained ... More

Chapter 5 refines a solution previously proposed to the Gettier Problem focusing on proscribing certain roles for falsehoods in a ‘justification-explaining chain.’ The refinement is partly explained in contrast to Peter D. Klein’s defeasibility theory of knowledge, which focuses on proscribing certain relations of truths to ‘chains of justifiers.’ Klein eventually revised his defeasibility account in order to allow for instances of knowledge that depend on what he calls ‘useful falsehoods.’ His definition of the latter turns out to face counterexamples. An improved definition allows a role for useful falsehoods in justification-explaining chains. It also has the unexpected effect of pointing toward a solution to the Gettier Problem that obviates the need to appeal to either type of chain.Less

Knowledge, Benign Falsehoods, and the Gettier Problem

Claudio de Almeida

in Explaining Knowledge: New Essays on the Gettier Problem

Contrary to millennial thought, inferential knowledge does seem to arise in certain cases of reasoning to which false premises are evidentially essential. The phenomenon refutes all of the well-known ... More

Contrary to millennial thought, inferential knowledge does seem to arise in certain cases of reasoning to which false premises are evidentially essential. The phenomenon refutes all of the well-known epistemologies that account for inferential knowledge. I offer an explanation of the phenomenon based on a fairly conservative revision to the defeasibility theory of knowledge, and explain why Peter Klein’s proposed solution fails. The explanation put forward here aims at giving us these two highly desirable results: (a) something we have never had and may not have noticed we needed, a defeasibility theory that is compatible with epistemological fallibilism, and, (b) within this revised, fallibilistic version of the defeasibility theory, an explanation of the benign/malignant distinction for false beliefs that completes the defeasibilist resolution of the Gettier Problem.Less

The Kantian Account of Knowledge

Mark Schroeder

in Reasons First

Chapter 11 elaborates on and defends the account of knowledge—the Kantian Account—that follows from a right reasons account of the nature of well properties. Knowledge, it is argued, is a special ... More

Chapter 11 elaborates on and defends the account of knowledge—the Kantian Account—that follows from a right reasons account of the nature of well properties. Knowledge, it is argued, is a special case of a well property—one which requires believing well along both objective and subjective dimensions. This, it is argued, makes knowledge involve a kind of match between internal and external components that explains why it is prime and why it has distinctive explanatory power, as argued by Williamson. It explains why defeaters for knowledge come in objective and subjective pairs—even according to pragmatic encroachers. It explains where earlier generations of defeasibility accounts of knowledge went wrong, by adopting subjunctive rather than categorical accounts of the sufficiency of reasons, and by insufficiently appreciating the generality of the relationship between reasons and their weight. And it explains how to avoid Linda Zagzebski’s diagnosis of the inevitability of Gettier cases.Less