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Factive Presupposition and the Truth Condition on Knowledge

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Abstract

In this paper I argue, against some recent criticisms, that the factivity of “knows” does not support the traditional truth condition on knowledge. I articulate a conception of the factivity of “knows” on which it is a matter of cancelable pragmatic presupposition, and consider the epistemological implications of this.

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Notes

  1. “Implication” is used here as a neutral term, covering entailments, conversational implicatures, presuppositions, etc.

  2. An alternative semantic account would be one that treats the connection between <S knows p> and p as a matter of a conventional implicature triggered by “knows” (cf. Karttunen and Peters 1979). The implication is not down to the truth conditions of <S knows p>, but rather to a non-truth-conditional aspect of the conventional meaning of <S knows p>. Note that such a view doesn’t support the truth condition on knowledge.

  3. Consider also a slightly less familiar use of “knows”: “She didn’t know that the next card would be a club,” said of someone whose true belief about the next card was not based on adequate evidence, or whatever. On such uses, see Hazlett 2009, pp. 615-19.

  4. Cf. The need for a division of factives, e.g. into those with soft triggers and those with hard triggers (Abusch 2002, cf. Abbott 2006) or into thin factives and thick factives (Holton ms).

  5. Cf. “Myth,” p. 501; the sentence is adapted from one appearing in “Cat Carrier: Your Cat Could Make You Crazy,” National Geographic 208, July 2005.

  6. Objection: in (11) the doctor says <S knew p, but not-p>, not <S knows p, but not-p>. Reply: if <S knows p> entails p, but <S knew p> doesn’t entail p, then there is no support here for the view that truth is a necessary condition on knowledge. What this would show is that the factive presuppositions involved with utterances of <S knows p> are not down to something about the nature of knowledge.

  7. This point is worth conceding, but it’s not obviously right. Corporal Dakota Meyer is said to have described a narrow escape in Afghanistan by saying, “I didn’t think I was going to die. I knew I was” (“Top Medal for Marine who Saved Many Lives,” New York Times, 15th September, 2011). The details of Corporal Meyer’s conversation with the President aren’t available, but it’s easy to imagine the context such that Meyer is suggesting that his knowledge turned out to be false.

  8. Turri (2011, p. 6) suggests that “wrong” doesn’t mean false in these contexts. I find this unpersuasive: the relevant utterances would sound just as acceptable with “false” in place of “wrong.”

  9. Still needed, however, is an explanation for the difference in their responses to the “learns” item and the “knows” item.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Wesley Buckwalter, Matthew Chrisman, Richard Holton, Jennifer Nagel, and Duncan Pritchard for valuable comments and discussions.

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Correspondence to Allan Hazlett.

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Hazlett, A. Factive Presupposition and the Truth Condition on Knowledge. Acta Anal 27, 461–478 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-012-0163-3

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