The Epistemic Closure Principle and the Assessment Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions

2014 ◽  
pp. 181-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomoyuki Yamada
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Closure ◽  
Closure Principle ◽  
Knowledge Attributions ◽  
Assessment Sensitivity

scholarly journals Epistemic Closure in Folk Epistemology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Beebe ◽  
Jake Monaghan
Keyword(s):  
Deductive Reasoning ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Knowledge Attribution ◽  
Epistemic Closure ◽  
Closure Principle ◽  
Epistemic Practices ◽  
Knowledge Attributions ◽  
Performance Error ◽  
Folk Epistemology ◽  
A Performance

This chapter reports the results of four empirical studies that investigate the extent to which an epistemic closure principle for knowledge is reflected in folk epistemology. Previous work by Turri (2015a) suggested our shared epistemic practices may only include a closure principle that applies to perceptual beliefs but not to inferential beliefs. The chapter argues that the results of these studies provide reason for thinking individuals are making a performance error when their knowledge attributions and denials conflict with the closure principle. When the chapter authors used research materials that overcome proposed difficulties with Turri’s original materials, they found that participants did not reject closure. Furthermore, when they presented Turri’s original materials to non-philosophers with expertise in deductive reasoning, they endorsed closure for both perceptual and inferential beliefs. These results suggest that an unrestricted closure principle provides a better model of folk patterns of knowledge attribution than a source-relative one.

The Appearance of Ignorance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith DeRose
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Closure Principle ◽  
Knowledge Attributions ◽  
Contingent Fact ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Brains In Vats ◽  
The Way

This volume presents, develops, and champions contextualist solutions to two of the stickiest problems in epistemology: The puzzles of skeptical hypotheses and of lotteries. It is argued that, at least by ordinary standards for knowledge, we do know that skeptical hypotheses are false, and that we’ve lost the lottery (unless one is in fact the winner of the lottery, in which case one does not know that one has lost, but is reasonable in thinking that one knows it). Accounting for how it is that we know that skeptical hypotheses are false and why it seems that we don’t know that they’re false tells us a lot, both about what knowledge is and how knowledge attributions work. Along the way, the following are all carefully explained and defended: Moorean methodological approaches to skepticism, on which one seeks to defeat, rather than refute, the skeptic; contextualist responses to skepticism; contextualist substantive Mooreanism; the basic safety approach to knowledge and the double-safety picture of what knowledge is; insensitivity accounts of various appearances of ignorance; the closure principle for knowledge; and the claim that our knowledge that we are not brains in vats is a priori, despite its being knowledge of a deeply contingent fact.

Précis of The Appearance of Ignorance: Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context, Vol. 2

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Keith DeRose
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Closure Principle ◽  
Knowledge Attributions ◽  
Contingent Fact ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Brains In Vats ◽  
The Way

The Appearance of Ignorance develops and champions contextualist solutions to the puzzles of skeptical hypotheses and of lotteries. It is argued that, at least by ordinary standards for knowledge, we do know that skeptical hypotheses are false, and that we’ve lost the lottery. Accounting for how it is that we know that skeptical hypotheses are false and why it seems that we don’t know that they’re false tells us a lot, both about what knowledge is and how knowledge attributions work. Along the way, the following are all explained and defended: Moorean methodological approaches to skepticism, on which one seeks to defeat, rather than refute, the skeptic; contextualist responses to skepticism; contextualist substantive Mooreanism; the basic safety approach to knowledge and the double-safety picture of what knowledge is; insensitivity accounts of various appearances of ignorance; the closure principle for knowledge; and the claim that our knowledge that we are not brains in vats is a priori, despite its being knowledge of a deeply contingent fact.

scholarly journals An Open and Shut Case: Epistemic Closure in the Manifest Image

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Turri
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Closure ◽  
Closure Principle ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Inferential Knowledge ◽  
The Status ◽  
Relative Version ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology ◽  
Manifest Image

The epistemic closure principle says that knowledge is closed under known entailment. The closure principle is deeply implicated in numerous core debates in contemporary epistemology. Closure’s opponents claim that there are good theoretical reasons to abandon it. Closure’s proponents claim that it is a defining feature of ordinary thought and talk and, thus, abandoning it is radically revisionary. But evidence for these claims about ordinary practice has thus far been anecdotal. In this paper, I report five studies on the status of epistemic closure in ordinary practice. Despite decades of widespread assumptions to the contrary in philosophy, ordinary practice is ambivalent about closure. Ordinary practice does not endorse an unqualified version of the epistemic closure principle, although it might endorse a source-relative version of the principle. In particular, whereas inferential knowledge is not viewed as closed under known entailment, perceptual knowledge might be.

A REJECTION OF THE EPISTEMIC CLOSURE PRINCIPLE

2001 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-73
Author(s):  
Richard Greene ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Closure ◽  
Closure Principle

scholarly journals Knowledge is closed under analytic content

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Z. Elgin
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Closure ◽  
Preface Paradox ◽  
Closure Principle ◽  
Relevant Notion ◽  
The Preface Paradox

AbstractI am concerned with epistemic closure—the phenomenon in which some knowledge requires other knowledge. In particular, I defend a version of the closure principle in terms of analyticity; if an agent S knows that p is true and that q is an analytic part of p, then S knows that q. After targeting the relevant notion of analyticity, I argue that this principle accommodates intuitive cases and possesses the theoretical resources to avoid the preface paradox.

Human Fallibility and Fallibilism about Knowledge

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Brown
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Knowledge Attributions ◽  
Knowledge Norm ◽  
Concessive Knowledge Attributions ◽  
To Come ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Threshold Problem

This chapter distinguishes between fallibilism and infallibilism by appeal to entailment: infallibilists hold that knowledge that p requires evidence which entails that p; fallibilists deny that. It outlines some of the recent motivations for infallibilism, including the infelicity of concessive knowledge attributions, the threshold problem, closure, and the knowledge norm of practical reasoning. Further, we see how contemporary infallibilists attempt to avoid scepticism by appeal either to a generous conception of evidence or a shifty view of knowledge, such as contextualism. The chapter explains the book’s focus on non-shifty versions of infallibilism which defend a generous conception of evidence. It ends by defending the entailment definition of infallibilism over other potential definitions, and outlining the chapters to come.

scholarly journals On Arguments from Ignorance

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin David Hinton
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Closure ◽  
Argumentation Scheme ◽  
Compte Rendu ◽  
Good Account

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to give a good account of the argument from ignorance, with a presumptive argumentation scheme, and to raise issues on the work of Walton, the nature of abduction and the concept of epistemic closure. First, I offer a brief disambiguation of how the terms 'argument from ignorance' and 'argumentum ad ignorantiam' are used. Second, I show how attempts to embellish this form of reasoning by Douglas Walton and A.J. Kreider have been unnecessary and unhelpful. Lastly, I offer a full and effective account of the argument from ignorance and discuss the lessons of the analysis.Le but de cet article est double: donner un bon compte rendu de l'argument par l'ignorance, avec un schème d'argumentation présomptif, et soulever des questions sur certains aspects de l’œuvre de Walton, la nature des raisonnements abductifs et le concept de fermeture épistémique. Premièrement, j'offre une brève désambiguïsation de la façon dont les termes «argument par l'ignorance» et «argumentum ad ignorantiam» sont utilisés. Deuxièmement, je montre comment les tentatives de Douglas Walton et de A.J. Kreider d'embellir cette forme de raisonnement ont été ni nécessaires et ni utiles. Enfin, j'offre un compte-rendu complet et utile de l'argument par l'ignorance et je discute des leçons de l'analyse.

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