scholarly journals A Dilemma for Globalized Safety

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bin Zhao
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Epistemic Luck ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Safety Condition ◽  
Necessary Truths

AbstractThe safety condition is supposed to be a necessary condition on knowledge which helps to eliminate epistemic luck. It has been argued that the condition should be globalized to a set of propositions rather than the target proposition believed to account for why not all beliefs in necessary truths are safe. A remaining issue is which propositions are relevant when evaluating whether the target belief is safe or not. In the literature, solutions have been proposed to determine the relevance of propositions. This paper examines a case of luckily true belief—thus a case of ignorance—and a case of knowledge. It argues that no solution in the literature offers a correct verdict in either case. Therefore, the strategy to globalize safety remains unsatisfactory.

scholarly journals Safety and Knowledge in God

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-100
Author(s):  
T. J. Mawson
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Good News ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Safety Condition ◽  
Reformed Epistemology

In recent ‘secular’ Epistemology, much attention has been paid to formulating an ‘anti-luck’ or ‘safety’ condition; it is now widely held that such a condition is an essential part of any satisfactory post-Gettier reflection on the nature of knowledge. In this paper, I explain the safety condition as it has emerged and then explore some implications of and for it arising from considering the God issue. It looks at the outset as if safety might be ‘good news’ for a view characteristic of Reformed Epistemology, viz. the view that if Theism is true, many philosophically unsophisticated believers probably know that it’s true. A (tentatively-drawn) sub-conclusion of my paper though suggests that as safety does not by itself turn true belief into knowledge, the recent focus on it is not quite such good news for Reformed Epistemologists as they may have hoped: it’s not that safety provides a new route by which they can reach this sort of conclusion. But safety is still good news for their view at least in the sense that there is no reason arising from considering it to count these philosophically unsophisticated believers as not knowing that there’s a God. I conclude by reflecting that good news for Reformed Epistemology is perhaps bad news for the discipline of Philosophy of Religion more generally, as there’s a possible ‘reflection destroys knowledge’-implication to be drawn. Those who have been led to their religious beliefs in at least some philosophically unsophisticated ways seem to enjoy much safer religious beliefs than those who have been led to their religious beliefs by philosophical reflection, so the discipline as a whole will be adversely affected if safety is eventually accorded the role of a necessary condition for knowledge.

A Contextualist Solution to the Gettier Problem

2005 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Douven
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Epistemic Luck ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Benign Nature ◽  
Epistemic Duty ◽  
Contextualist Solution ◽  
The Gettier Problem

According to the deontological view on justification, being justified in believing some proposition is a matter of having done one's epistemic duty with respect to that proposition. The present paper argues that, given a proper articulation of the deontological view, it is defensible that knowledge is justified true belief, virtually all epistemologists since Gettier. One important claim to be argued for is that once it is appreciated that it depends on contextual factors whether a person has done her epistemic duty with respect to a given proposition, many so-called Gettier cases, which are supposed to be cases of justified true belief that are not cases of knowledge, will be seen to be not really cases of justified belief after all. A second important claim is that the remaining alleged Gettier cases can be qualified as cases of knowledge. This requires that we countenance a notion of epistemic luck, but the requisite kind of luck is of a quite benign nature.

scholarly journals LUCK: EVOLUTIONARY AND EPISTEMIC

Episteme ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Billy Dunaway
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Epistemic Luck ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking Arguments ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanism ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking ◽  
Evolutionary Explanations

AbstractThis paper advances two theses about evolutionary debunking arguments in ethics. The first is that, while such arguments are often motivated with the rhetoric of ‘luck', proponents of these arguments have not distinguished between the kinds of luck that might lead to the formation of a true belief. Once we make the needed distinctions, the relevance of the kind of luck which can be derived from broadly evolutionary explanations to the epistemological conclusions debunkers draw is suspect. The second thesis is that debunkers might successfully show that epistemic luck is relevant to their concerns. But they will need to include specific premises about the kind of evolutionary mechanism that explains the beliefs that the debunker targets. Proponents of debunking arguments, if they continue to insist on using luck-based considerations, are then hostage to empirical fortune in a way not previously recognized.

scholarly journals Externalism, skepticism and epistemic luck

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-102
Author(s):  
Zivan Lazovic
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Luck ◽  
Safety Condition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Philosophical Debates ◽  
Brain In A Vat ◽  
Externalist Approach

This paper deals with the concept of epistemic luck and its place within wider philosophical debates on knowledge and skepticism. Philosophers involved in these debates share an intuition that knowledge excludes luck. Starting from Prichard?s modal definition of luck and his distinction between two varieties of epistemic luck, namely veridic and reflective, the paper explores the internalist and externalist prospects for avoiding epistemic luck and skepticism. Externalism seems to be capable of both coping with the Gettier-type cases and eliminating at least veridic epistemic luck by introducing the so-called safety condition for knowledge. As such, it also responds to some versions of skepticism as the safety condition explains how it is possible to acquire knowledge without proving that the well known skeptical alternatives (e.g. a brain-in-a-vat) are false. Thus, even though it does not eliminate the reflective epistemic luck or meta-epistemological skeptical challenge, the externalist approach to knowledge looks more plausible than the internalist, especially because it may allow an internalist justification to play its due role in acquiring knowledge.

scholarly journals Is epistemic safety threatened by Frankfurt cases? A reply to Kelp

Diametros ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Domingos Faria
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Frankfurt Cases ◽  
Safety Condition

I intend to argue that the counterexamples inspired by the Frankfurt-type cases against the necessity of an epistemic safety condition for knowledge are not plausible. The epistemic safety condition for knowledge is a modal condition recently supported by Sosa (2007) and Pritchard (2015), among others, and can be formulated as follows: (SC) If S knows that p on basis B, then S’s true belief that p could not have easily been false on basis B. I will try to argue that the safety condition, expressed in (SC), is still necessary for knowledge and that, therefore, epistemic safety is not threatened by Frankfurt-type cases. In particular, I want to show that Kelp’s counterexamples are ineffective against (SC).

Accident, Evidence, and Knowledge

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Vogel
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
Epistemic Luck ◽  
Direction Of Fit ◽  
Original Analysis ◽  
Peter Unger

I explore and develop the idea, due to Peter Unger, that knowledge is non-accidentally true belief. Non-accidental truth is different from the absence of epistemic luck, as discussed by Pritchard. The original analysis faces two counterexamples, the Meson Case and the Light Switch Case. The former concerns knowledge of nomological necessities; the latter turns on the direction-of-fit between a belief and the facts. I propose: (ENA) S knows that P when S’s belief that P is non-accidentally true because (i) it is based on good evidence, and (ii) in and of themselves, beliefs based on good evidence tend to be true. ENA gets the two examples right, and compares favorably with safety, defeasibility, and knowledge-as-credit accounts. Lackey has claimed that the credit-based approach mishandles knowledge via testimony. I critically examine her objection, and show that ENA faces no difficulty of that sort.

scholarly journals Towards an Account of Epistemic Luck for Necessary Truths

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Henry Collin
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Luck ◽  
Necessary Truths

The Infancy of Solar-Type Stars and its Relevance for the Origin of Life

1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 267-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thierry Montmerle
Keyword(s):  
Main Sequence ◽  
Solar Nebula ◽  
Circumstellar Disks ◽  
T Tauri Stars ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Sequence Evolution ◽  
T Tauri ◽  
Solar Type ◽  
Optical Domain ◽  
The Origin Of Life

AbstractFor life to develop, planets are a necessary condition. Likewise, for planets to form, stars must be surrounded by circumstellar disks, at least some time during their pre-main sequence evolution. Much progress has been made recently in the study of young solar-like stars. In the optical domain, these stars are known as «T Tauri stars». A significant number show IR excess, and other phenomena indirectly suggesting the presence of circumstellar disks. The current wisdom is that there is an evolutionary sequence from protostars to T Tauri stars. This sequence is characterized by the initial presence of disks, with lifetimes ~ 1-10 Myr after the intial collapse of a dense envelope having given birth to a star. While they are present, about 30% of the disks have masses larger than the minimum solar nebula. Their disappearance may correspond to the growth of dust grains, followed by planetesimal and planet formation, but this is not yet demonstrated.

Universal ESEM

1993 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 786-787
Author(s):  
G.D. Danilatos
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscope ◽  
Scanning Electron Microscope ◽  
High Vacuum ◽  
Natural Extension ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Environmental Scanning ◽  
Detection Systems ◽  
Small Gain ◽  
Detection Medium ◽  
Scanning Electron

The environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM) has evolved as the natural extension of the scanning electron microscope (SEM), both historically and technologically. ESEM allows the introduction of a gaseous environment in the specimen chamber, whereas SEM operates in vacuum. One of the detection systems in ESEM, namely, the gaseous detection device (GDD) is based on the presence of gas as a detection medium. This might be interpreted as a necessary condition for the ESEM to remain operational and, hence, one might have to change instruments for operation at low or high vacuum. Initially, we may maintain the presence of a conventional secondary electron (E-T) detector in a "stand-by" position to switch on when the vacuum becomes satisfactory for its operation. However, the "rough" or "low vacuum" range of pressure may still be considered as inaccessible by both the GDD and the E-T detector, because the former has presumably very small gain and the latter still breaks down.

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