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Clarity about concessive knowledge attributions: reply to Dodd

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Abstract

Recently, Dylan Dodd (this Journal) has tried to clear up what he takes to be some of the many confusions surrounding concessive knowledge attributions (CKAs)—i.e., utterances of the form “S knows that p, but it’s possible that q” (where q entails not-p) (Rysiew, Noûs 35(4): 477–514, 2001). Here, we respond to the criticisms Dodd offers of the account of the semantics and the sometime-infelicity of CKAs we have given (Dougherty and Rysiew, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78(1): 121–132, 2009), showing both how Dodd misunderstands certain central features of that view and how the latter can, pace Dodd, be naturally extended to explain the oddity of those “For all I know” statements to which Dodd draws attention.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Baylor University, Morrison Hall 224, Waco, TX, 76798, USA

    Trent Dougherty

  2. Department of Philosophy, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

    Patrick Rysiew

Authors
  1. Trent Dougherty
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  2. Patrick Rysiew
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Correspondence to Patrick Rysiew.

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Dougherty, T., Rysiew, P. Clarity about concessive knowledge attributions: reply to Dodd. Synthese 181, 395–403 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9713-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9713-7

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