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Checking and the Argument from Inquiry

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. See Mechior (2019), pp. 30–41. On page 30, Melchior simply leaves condition (2) as “M is an appropriate method with respect to p”, explaining later that what it takes to be appropriate is to be a sensitive method, the condition (2) that I have supplied here.

  2. See Nozick (1981), p. 179.

  3. See Sosa (1999), pp. 145–146.

  4. See Melchior (2019), p. 3.

  5. Ibid, p. 215.

  6. Ibid, p. 142.

  7. This case, originally detailed by Dretske (1970), is adapted by Melchior (2019), p. 159.

  8. Melchior also uses KSAC to explain paradoxes involving stakes (p. 150) and bootstrapping (p. 193). Because these solutions are all similar in spirit to Melchior’s explanation of the skeptical paradox, my points in the rest of this paper can be applied to these other paradoxes as well.

  9. See Melchior (2019), p. 145.

  10. See Wieland (2014).

  11. Those who argue that knowledge is the aim of inquiry include Hannon (2019); Kappel (2010); Kelp (2011), (2014), (2021a), and (2021b); Kvanvig (2009); Millar (2011); Rysiew (2012); Sartwell (1991) and (1992); Whitcomb (2017); and van Elswyk and Sapir (2021), amongst others.

  12. Those who point out the tension between knowing and continuing to inquire include Armour (2011), p. 673; Fantl (2018), p. 142; Fantl and McGrath (2012) and (2014); Friedman (2013), (2017), (2019a), and (2019b); and van Elswyk and Sapir (2021).

  13. See Friedman (2013), (2017), (2019a), and (2019b).

  14. For authors who defend versions of the Ignorance Norm, see Friedman (2017) and (2019b), van Elswyk and Sapir (2021), and Whitcomb (2017), amongst others.

  15. See Friedman (2019b), p. 303.

  16. See Armour-Garb (2011), p. 670; Hawthorne and Stanley (2008), p. 587; Friedman (2017), p. 131; and Friedman (2019a), p. 86.

  17. Against the Ignorance Norm, Falbo (2021) argues that confirming that p is compatible with knowing that p, and Woodard (Forthcoming) defends the rationality of double checking while knowing.

  18. For those who defend cases like these, see Falbo (Forthcoming) and Woodard (2022) and (Forthcoming).

  19. For this suggestion, that the infelicity of (1)–(3) can be explained by the fact that knowledge is the most common aim of inquiry, see Woodard (Forthcoming).

  20. See Melchior (2019), p. 144.

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    Robert Weston Siscoe

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Siscoe, R.W. Checking and the Argument from Inquiry. Acta Anal 38, 69–78 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-022-00532-1

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