Abstract
Naturalists who conceive of knowledge as a natural kind are led to treat ‘knowledge’ as a natural kind term. ‘Knowledge,’ then, must behave semantically in the ways that seem to support a direct reference theory for other natural kind terms. A direct reference theory for ‘knowledge,’ however, appears to leave open too many possibilities about the identity of knowledge. Intuitively, states of belief count as knowledge only if they meet epistemic criteria, not merely if they bear a causal/historical relation to the term. I will develop this objection and show that it is grounded in modal considerations central to Kripke’s work on reference. I will also argue that a more plausible externalist semantics for natural kind terms disarms the objection.
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Notes
Variations on the objection often arise in discussion, but it has not been carefully developed in the literature (cf. Weinberg 2006, pp. 59–60). I first heard a version of the objection in conversation with Stewart Cohen.
Williamson might not put the point in terms of justification. But it is plausible that it is in virtue of something like justification—or, perhaps, whatever turns true belief into knowledge—that knowledge is more resilient than true belief in the face of countervailing evidence. See (Williamson (2000), pp. 62–63) for why knowledge is explanatorily more powerful than (Gettierized) justified true belief.
In general, descriptivist accounts vary along a number of dimensions, most of which are not directly relevant to the present topic. For example, the accounts may be offered as theories of meaning, or only as theories of reference; the description may specify either necessary and sufficient conditions or a cluster of conditions, perhaps weighted, none of which is necessary; classic descriptivism also differs from causal and rigidified descriptivism (see fn. 4).
Some philosophers argue that natural kind terms refer not directly but via causal descriptions (Lewis 1984) or rigidified descriptions (Lewis 1984). Causal and rigidified descriptivism are externalist theories, according to my characterization of externalism, because causal and rigidified descriptions do not provide definitions for ‘knowledge.’ Neither causal or rigidified descriptivism about ‘knowledge’ can support an alternative conception of epistemology as conceptual analysis. Epistemologists trading intuitions about lotteries, bank cases, fake barns, clairvoyants, etc. are plainly not trying to uncover a causal or rigidified description. The arguments I provide for an externalist account of ‘knowledge’ (Sect. 3) and the objection I develop (Sect. 4) apply as much to these views.
An anonymous reviewer asks why I restrict attention to philosophers’ usage. There are really two questions here. First, why restrict attention to usage in a technical discipline, rather than ordinary usage? My answer is that I do not necessarily think that ‘knowledge’ does, or should, function like a natural kind term in ordinary discourse. The “folk” may well treat ‘knowledge’ and other natural kind terms as non-kind terms. Furthermore, the aims of ordinary discourse are different from those of theoretical discourse, and it may well be that the aims of ordinary discourse are not served by treating ‘knowledge’ as a naturalkind term. Second, given that I restrict attention to usage of ‘knowledge’ in a technical discipline, why focus on philosophers’ usage rather than scientists’ usage? My answer to this question is that what we should want to know is whether it is consistent with acceptable epistemological practice for philosophers to treat ‘knowledge’ as a natural kind term. Hence my focus in the second half of the essay on whether such treatment leaves open too many possibilities about the identity of knowledge. This should be of concern to epistemologists, but, I suspect, not of much concern to scientists.
Some philosophers hold that an expression is a natural kind term only if it refers to a natural kind (e.g., Wikforss 2005). However, the most powerful arguments for a direct reference theory depend on how natural kind terms are used, and our modal intuitions concerning them (see Sects. 3 and 4). These arguments depend on how we use language, not what our language refers to.
There may be yet other semantic theories for ‘knowledge,’ endorsed by those who reject Kornblith-style naturalized epistemology and traditional conceptual analysis, but to consider these theories would take us too far afield. Anyway, the arguments I will be adapting, from Kripke and others, themselves address only descriptivist theories as alternatives.
Kripke does not rehash his argument about proper names when he later discusses natural kind terms, as I have done here. Kripke’s central argument against descriptivism about natural kind terms in Naming and Necessity appeals to certain modal intuitions: for any description ‘F’ associated with the natural kind term ‘x,’ it might have been false that Fx. Intuitions like this are supposed to show that proper names and natural kind terms refer directly and not mediately via a description. In Sect. 4 I will develop an objection to the thesis that ‘knowledge’ is a natural kind term on the basis of the absence of analogous intuitions about ‘knowledge.’
See (Kornblith (2002), p. 17) for a complementary discussion of the semantics for ‘knowledge’ and the evolution of epistemology, though it is not couched in terms of epistemological revolutions.
Note the following technical difficulty. If all of our beliefs turned out to be false, then all or most cases of knowledge would have in common false warranted belief, but they would not share it uniquely. Thus, in the relevant radical skeptical scenario, paradigm cases of knowledge must have some other property uniquely, besides falsity.
See (Kripke (1980), pp. 103–104) . In order to have a plausible conception of epistemic possibility, it is crucial to think about evidence in an experiential, qualitative way—evidence “as it seems to us.” Otherwise, if evidence is understood in terms of propositions with externally-fixed content, then our evidence may rule out too much. Similarly, an alternative account of epistemic possibility in terms of what is consistent with what we know might also rule out too much. We know that cats are not aliens, in fact, and thus in this sense the claim is not epistemically possible.
The example is contentious. Eliminative materialism does not straightforwardly entail that the existence of paradigm cases of knowledge is illusory. For it is consistent with eliminative materialism that knowledge and its paradigm cases turn out to be brain states rather than intentional states. I will not try to develop the example so that it avoids this objection; its purpose is illustrative.
See (Kornblith (2002), p. 23) for discussion. Certain Wittgensteinians will be drawn to a theory of knowledge that fits this characterization, on which instances of knowledge share not an essence and only a family resemblance, and hence might offer a non-skeptical interpretation.
Of the authors cited, Brigandt has probably developed this sort of view in the greatest detail. However, Brigandt’s view is roughly that epistemic descriptions (for me, causal/explanatory generalizations), rather than helping to fix reference (as I believe), are an independent semantic dimension of a concept.
A complete defence of this view would also rule out a causal or rigidified descriptivist analogue: a natural kind term refers to the property that satisfies a causal or rigidified description and that supports the kind’s causal/explanatory roles. I will not take up that defence here.
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me on this point.
To be clear, the relevant description that helps to fix reference, and that false belief does not satisfy, is that knowledge explains successful action, not that knowledge is justified true belief. It just happens that, as an empirical matter, justified true belief is what supports explanations of successful action. To illustrate, suppose we abandon the notions of truth and falsity, adopting instead, say, some graded notions of accuracy in belief. In that case, perhaps, something other than truth—though not falsity—will support knowledge-based explanations of successful action.
An anonymous referee offers the following alternative treatment, borrowing from Korman (2006). He/she suggests a view according to which what determines the reference of a term depends on which of a number of presuppositions obtain. Suppose, then, that it is a presupposition that ‘knowledge’ refers to paradigm cases of knowledge if those case are true and justified belief. Reference fails because this presupposition is false. My view is formulated in terms of reference-fixing descriptions rather than presuppositions, but I am not sure the difference is a deep one. However, any alternative to my view must not employ presuppositions that eliminate the possibility that people can be deeply mistaken about the nature of a referent but refer successfully to it.
I am assuming here a non-Humean account of scientific laws and nomological generalizations. They are not merely a matter of regularities but issue from powers inherent to the properties involved. Here is not the place to defend this non-Humean account, but it is grounded in Armstrong (1983).
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Acknowledgments
For helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this essay, I would like to thank Selim Berker, Richmond Campbell, Stewart Cohen, Juan Comesana, Ian Evans, Terry Horgan, Michael Hymers, Uriah Kriegel, Farid Masrour, Shaun Nichols, Mark Timmons, Jonathan Weinberg, and two anonymous referees for this journal. I would also like to thank audiences at The University of Arizona, Harvard University, and the Canadian Philosophical Association 2010 Congress. Work on the essay was supported by a fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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Kumar, V. ‘Knowledge’ as a natural kind term. Synthese 191, 439–457 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-013-0281-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-013-0281-5