Abstract
According to Nozick’s tracking theory of knowledge, an agent a knows that p just in case her belief that p is true and also satisfies the two tracking conditionals that had p been false, she would not have believed that p, and had p been true under slightly different circumstances, she would still have believed that p. In this paper I wish to highlight an interesting but generally ignored feature of this theory: namely that it is reminiscent of a dispositional account of knowledge: it invites us to think of knowledge as a manifestation of a cognitive disposition to form true beliefs. Indeed, given a general account of dispositions in terms of subjunctive conditionals, the two tracking conditionals are satisfied just in case the belief in question results from some cognitive disposition to form true beliefs. Recently, such a conditional account of dispositions has, however, been criticised for its vulnerability to so-called ‘masked’, ‘mimicked’ and ‘finkish’ counterexamples. I show how the classical counterexamples to Nozick’s theory divide smoothly into four corresponding categories of counterexamples from epistemic masking, mimicking and finkishness. This provides strong evidence for the thesis that satisfaction of the two tracking conditionals is symptomatic of knowledge and that knowledge is instead constituted by a dispositional capability to form true beliefs. The attempt to capture such a cognitive, dispositional capability in terms of the tracking conditionals, although providing a good approximation in a wide variety of cases, still comes apart from the real thing whenever the epistemic layout is characterised by masking-, mimicking- and finkish mechanisms. In the last part of the paper I explore the prospect of improving the tracking theory in the light of these findings.
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Notes
For example, he writes: “which method a person actually is using will depend on which general disposition to acquire beliefs […] he actually is exercising” (Nozick 1981, p. 185; italics added). See also (ibid, p. 684, n. 21).
Similar views on knowledge have recently been advocated by virtue epistemologists such as John Greco and Ernest Sosa. Thus, Greco sees knowledge as true belief grounded in intellectual virtue (Greco 2003, 2007, 2009). In his 2007 and 2009 he equates ‘virtue’ with ‘ability’ and speaks explicitly of abilities as dispositions. Similarly, Sosa sees knowledge as a kind of successful cognitive performance, where the performance is competent and its success is a manifestation of that competence (Sosa 2007). See also (Sosa 1991, 2003).
A significant issue arises here about how precisely these methods are to be individuated. Although the success of the Tracking theory ultimately depends on a satisfactory answer to this question, I do not think it has much bearing on the discussions to follow.
Interestingly, Sosa has dismissed Nozick’s tracking theory and argued that we should understand knowledge in terms of the ‘safety’ conditional (Ba(p) □→ p) rather than in terms of the ‘tracking’ conditional: (\( \neg p\square \to \neg {\text{B}}a(p)) \) (see Sosa 1999). Interpreted according to CA, Sosa’s safety conditional thus expresses a disposition that is very different from the cognitive disposition to form true belief that is discussed in the present paper. It also emerges from Sosa’s discussion that he does not take the safety conditional to be indicative of cognitive virtue. On the contrary, he sees it as an independent requirement for a belief to qualify as knowledge that is grounded in cognitive virtue (see e.g. Sosa 1999: 149).
See Martin 1994.
This, of course, raises the question why the wire possesses the dispositional property if not in virtue of exhibiting the relevant responses. The answer is, presumably, that it has the disposition because any intrinsic duplicate would give the typical response if (non-finkishly) triggered by the stimulus. Thanks to Jesper Kallestrup for asking—and answering—this question.
Dispositional masking and mimicking first appeared in print in Johnston (1992).
Either because the method itself is flawed or because of some defeating factor in the environment in which the method is being executed. In the latter case, the epistemic mimicking is analogous to a traditional Gettier case.
I borrow this example from Nozick (1981)—who attributes it to Lehrer and Paxon.
This counterexample to the tracking theory (is freely improvised after one that) first appeared in Luper-Foy (1984).
This archer analogy has been used extensively by epistemologists within the last decade. Virtue epistemologists, for instance, have found it useful to illustrate various features of epistemic normativity and to explicate what it means for epistemic performance to be successful in virtue of cognitive competence (See e.g. Sosa 2003, 2007; Greco 2007, 2009). In Gundersen (2000, 2003) the archer analogy is used to illustrate various aspects of modal epistemology. In particular, the analogy is employed to clarify the structure of Gettier cases and to explicate in what sense the agent is lucky in these cases. In Gundersen (2000, 2003) an agent in a Gettier case is compared to: “the archer who has read the wind-conditions correctly, and manipulated the steering device accordingly, but whose arrow has been lead astray by a sudden change in the wind […] but, miraculously, which has been put back on the right course by another, likewise unpredictable, windfall […] and thus eventually hits its target”.
Would it not be wonderful with such a remote-control mechanism generalised such as to register and materialize all our beliefs?!.
Being genuinely disposed to get things right about p constitutes the warrant for believing p. And, as is familiar, knowledge requires more than warrant; inter alia veridicality—which is lacking in Flop’s case.
I borrow this example from Nozick (1981, p. 193).
Nozick himself thought this counterexample to the tracking theory could be handled by carefully specifying the method M which Stance brings in play when forming his belief. However, as demonstrated in Forbes (1984), this is not a viable solution.
I owe this twist to Crispin Wright.
The former may be brought about by some device on the arrow that sends off a particular signal when approaching the target; a signal which, when registered by another device attached to the target, will cause the target to tip over. The latter may be brought about in virtue of some electro-magnetic, anti-arrow shield surrounding the target.
McGinn (1984, p. 532).
In order to create a finkish counterexample to the tracking theory, the alteration will have to take place just after the disposition to form true p-beliefs has been stimulated, but sooner than the manifestation—the veracious p-belief—materializes. It might be argued that the sketched scenarios do not answer this request for subtle timing. However, they could easily be adjusted to do so.
Lewis (1997, p. 145) attributes the example to Kripke.
As a matter of fact, the claim I wish to put forth is stronger than that, viz. that all counterexamples to the tracking theory fits nicely into this taxonomy. But only time, and further efforts to produce other sorts of counterexamples, can prove that stronger claim true – just as time, and further efforts, must reveal whether the counterexamples to CA are exhausted by their masking, mimicking and finkish varieties.
As stated on p. 1: (iii) \( \neg p\square \bullet \to \neg \,{\text{B}}a(p) \); (iv) p □→ Ba(p).
See Mumford (1998).
CA, remember, simply states that an object x has the dispositional property to respond to stimulus s with response r just in case that were s to obtain, r would materialise.
Most famously Lewis in his 1997. Lewis took his amended CA to deal satisfactory with both finkish dispositions and finkish lack of dispositions. Furthermore he argued that masking and mimicking are not problematic for CA (or his amended version of it)—at least not when used as a theoretical tool for understanding dispositions in general. While most (but see Kvanvig 1999) philosophers have followed Lewis in the former claim, many others (most famously Bird 1998) have challenged the latter claim. Recently Manley and Wasserman (2008) have proposed that CA may be significantly improved by explicitly incorporating the gradable aspect of dispositions.
More precisely: that knowledge is the manifestation of an epistemic disposition to form true beliefs under M-conditions (M-conditions being conditions where some epistemic method M is being exercised).
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Jonathan Dancy, Jakob Hohwy, Nikolaj Jang Pedersen and Jonathan Schaffer for inspiring discussions of the material presented here. I owe special thanks to Eline Busck Gundersen, Jesper Kallestrup and Crispin Wright for detailed and very helpful comments on a predecessor of the present paper. Finally I would like to thank the two Erkenntnis referees, Kelly Becker and John Turri (their names have been revealed to me after the refereeing procedure) for their careful reading of the article and for their constructive comments.
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Gundersen, L. Tracking, Epistemic Dispositions and the Conditional Analysis. Erkenn 72, 353–364 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-009-9201-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-009-9201-y