Abstract
Duncan Pritchard has defended a version of epistemological disjunctivism which holds that in a paradigmatic case of perceptual knowledge, one knows that \(p\) in virtue of having the reflectively accessible reason that one sees that \(p\). This view faces what is known as the basis problem: if seeing that \(p\) just is a way of knowing that \(p\), then that one sees that \(p\) cannot constitute the rational basis in virtue of which one knows that \(p\). To solve this problem, Pritchard has argued that seeing that \(p\) should be reduced to being in a good position to know that \(p\) rather than simply knowing that \(p\). I argue that this proposal (a) can only be properly understood if the concept of knowledge is taken as primitive, and (b) is supported by an example that either fails to favor it over the alternative, or else backfires against the proposal itself. This leaves the new account of seeing that \(p\) unmotivated, thereby challenging the purported answer to the basis problem.
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Notes
Note that Pritchard has not provided a precise account of ‘coming to know through reflection’, but I will skip this point here and go for an intuitive understanding of what one is able to know through reflection in the case where one is actually perceiving such-and-so. According to the epistemological disjunctivist this is importantly different from what one is able to know through reflection in the case where one is hallucinating such-and-so.
One referee suggested that Pritchard’s claim might be better interpreted as one of entailment, i.e., as the claim that if one sees that \(p\), then one is in a good position to know that \(p\). First, let me note that the arguments I present against SPK’s motivation would work equally well against the motivation for this alternative claim. Second, the alternative claim would leave unexplained why this entailment holds, whereas SPK explains this by pointing out that seeing that \(p\) just is a specific way of being in a position to know that \(p\).
What if, as one referee suggests, we interpret Pritchard’s view even weaker, as one which holds simply that seeing that \(p\) is a way of coming to know that \(p\) just as reading that \(p\) is a way of coming to know that \(p\)? Reading that \(p\) does not entail that one is in a good position to know that \(p\) even though it can be a way of coming to know that \(p\). First of all, this suggestion would not fit with the fact that Pritchard himself claims that seeing that \(p\) should be interpreted as being in a state which guarantees that one is in a good position to know that \(p\) (see the above quote before the introduction of SPK in Sect. 2). Reading that \(p\) does not guarantee that one is in a good position to know that \(p\), and neither would seeing that \(p\) on this interpretation. Second, this view of seeing that \(p\) would become so weak that it would be trivial. Even proponents of the non-factivity of seeing that \(p\) could accept it.
Note that these kinds of examples have also been extensively discussed by both (French 2012) and (Ranalli 2014). However, they do not discuss the general method of inferring that a subject saw that \(p\) from the fact that he would later treat himself as having seen that \(p\). Ranalli argues that the example fails against SK because it equally supports the view that knowledge does not entail (occurrent) belief, while French argues against the example on the basis of linguistic evidence. I will return to French’s point later on.
Thanks to Chris Kelp for providing me with this example.
See (Kelp and Ghijsen 2014) for more on the comparison between Pritchard’s and Millar’s epistemological disjunctivism.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Jan Heylen, Mona Simion, and an anonymous referee for their comments and helpful suggestions. Special thanks to Chris Kelp for extensive comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
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Ghijsen, H. The Basis Problem for Epistemological Disjunctivism Revisited. Erkenn 80, 1147–1156 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-014-9715-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-014-9715-9