Abstract
One main argument that has been offered in support of the Knowledge Account of Assertion is that it successfully makes sense of a variety of Moorean-paradoxical claims. David Sosa (2009) has objected to the Knowledge Account by arguing that it does not generalize satisfactorily to make sense of the oddity of iterated conjunctions of the form “p but I don’t know whether I know that p”. Recently, Martin Montminy (2013) has offered a defense of the Knowledge Account. In this paper, I show that both Montminy’s and Sosa’s arguments fail. First, I argue that Montminy does not offer a good reply to Sosa; then I show that Sosa’s objection actually does not constitute a real threat to the Knowledge Account.
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Notes
This is the knowledge version of the Moore’s Paradox. The original version of the paradox has the form ‘p but I don’t believe that p’ (Moore 1962). Williamson argues that KAA can account for the belief version of the Moore’s Paradox. He derives the explanation of the belief version from the explanation of the knowledge version of the paradox. (Williamson 2000, 254)
Sosa (2009) introduces other varieties of Moorean iterated conjunctions besides (2). Here I only talk about the oddity of instances of (2).
This distinction is clearly drawn by Coffman who argues against the claim that “an assertion’s being somehow inappropriate because it lacks a particular epistemic feature suffices for its being epistemically inappropriate.” (Coffman 2010, 13) I am using his argument here.
I took this example from Brown (2010, 555); however Brown gives a very different interpretation of this case. She claims that “the friend’s statement seems perfectly intelligible and plausible: he is saying that although he knew of the affair his epistemic position wasn’t strong enough to assert that.” The point Brown wants to make in AFFAIR is that there are situations in which more than knowledge is required for epistemically proper assertion. Note that I am not arguing against Brown’s main point here; all I am saying is that some of the cases she presents can be interpreted as violations of moral rather than epistemic norms.
By invoking this secondary norm, Benton and Montminy make sense of the other dubious assertions introduced by Sosa.
Contra Benton (2013), Montminy explicitly says that he does not think one can easily make sense of (2) by invoking the secondary norm of assertion. This is because he thinks there is the possibility that an agent might know that she does not know whether she knows that p while still reasonably believing that she knows that p. I think he is right about that.
Something similar can be said for the case of AFFAIR as well, in the sense that a moral violation of the kind I have envisioned in AFFAIR can be produced in different ways, and not all of them have to do with the speaker’s epistemic position.
In the last section of the paper I will show that there is in fact no reason to believe that the infelicities harboured by (1) and (2) should require a similar solution.
In contrast, Benton’s explanation of the oddity of (2) has to do with the speaker being careless or irresponsible in representing herself as knowing and putting forward her assertion as appropriate.
A similar point is made by Milne (2012, 338–339): “The challenge is to what one asserted. One is not required to know that one knows. […] The propositions asserted in defence may well be qualified with ‘I thought that . . .’ or ‘It seemed to me that . . .’ and the like. They are not ‘flat out’ assertions. Attempting to comply with the knowledge norm, one asserts only what one takes oneself to know. Challenged, one offers evidence that supports the belief that one knows.”
There is a tremendous literature on whether, for instance, believing that one knows that p is a more plausible norm of assertion than the knowledge norm. Fully engaging with that literature on the norms of assertion is, however, not the point of my paper.
A similar example is offered by Benton (2013). However, Benton’s point was to offer a scenario in which asserting (2) is felicitous. In contrast, the point I am stressing here is somewhat different. Here I argue that one could successfully defend one’s assertion that p even if one is not in a position to assert that she knows that p is true.
Here ‘promising’ is intended as a synonymous of ‘guaranteeing’.
Although not everybody agrees that ‘I know’ is the same as ‘I guarantee’, this view is shared by a number of authors who have written on assertion and speech acts. For instance, as DeRose puts it, “the knowledge claim is more problematic than is the simple assertion that p, and it seems clear that tougher standards govern the property of the claim to know that p than govern the simple claim that p.” (DeRose 2009, 104) From that DeRose concludes that the knowledge claim “I know that p” is stronger than the simple assertion that p is true and he seems to agree with Austin that when we assert “I know that p” we take a “further plunge”. (DeRose 2009, 105) Similarly, Sellars (1975) argued that by saying “I know that p” a speaker is performing an act of saying “p, and I have reasons good enough to guarantee that p”. And Chisholm explained that, “‘I know’ is related to ‘I guarantee’ and ‘I give you my word’ […]. For ‘I know’ is often used to accomplish what one may accomplish by the strict performative ‘I guarantee’ or ‘I give you my word’.” (Chisholm 1966, 17). More recently, Turri (2011) has argued that when you say I know that p, you represent yourself as having the authority to guarantee that p. Now, DeRose and Turri subscribe to KAA, so at least for them the outcome of Montminy’s view is problematic.
People worry that, while ‘I know that p’ is factive, ‘I promise that p’ and ‘I guarantee that p’ are not. Thus, if p turns out to be false, the first claim is false, while the other two remain true. As a result, it is not so clear that Austin’s view should be endorsed. Although this is a justified concern, I believe that Chisholm, Sellars and Turri all formulate accounts of the relation between ‘I know’ and ‘I guarantee’ that ovoid it and thus these accounts can be adopted in alternative to Austin’s formulation.
Benton (2013, 356) makes a very similar point when he says, “some contexts can make it appropriate (even if clunky) to assert instances of (2) even though those contexts do not render it appropriate to assert (1).” Thanks to an anonymous referee for pushing me to develop this point.
For further discussion on the explanatory power of KAA see, for instance, Benton (2011).
Thanks to Martin Montminy, John Turri, Peter Pagin and two anonymous referees of this journal for helpful comments. on earlier drafts of this material.
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Bergamaschi Ganapini, M. Doubting Assertion. Philosophia 44, 745–757 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-016-9728-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-016-9728-5