Abstract
Sensitivity account of knowledge states that if one knows that p (via method M), then were p false, one would not believe that p via M. This account has been highly controversial. However, even its critics tend to agree that the account enjoys an important advantage of solving the Gettier problem—that is, it explains why Gettierized beliefs are not knowledge. In this paper, I argue that this purported advantage of sensitivity is merely illusory. The account cannot, in principle, solve the Gettier problem. Moreover, another formulation of sensitivity—which is fully in line with Nozick’s original account—is not unscathed either.
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Notes
Sensitivity accounts of knowledge that I will focus on in this paper are the standard, textbook versions—ones that have been most widely discussed in the literature. Various alternative versions of sensitivity (such as those proposed by DeRose, 2010; Roush, 2005) will not be my target. But any interested readers may apply my objections in this paper to test the plausibility of these alternative accounts.
Recently, sensitivity has also been used to explain epistemic phenomena other than knowledge (see e.g. Enoch et al., 2012; Melchior 2019, 2021a). These accounts remain untouched by my objections against sensitivity in this paper, as my target is sensitivity accounts of knowledge. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.
This differs my argument below from some other arguments against sensitivity in the literature. Cf. Williams and Sinhababu (2015), Ramachandran (2015). Also, in this paper, by ‘Gettier cases’, I do not include the Goldman-Ginet barn-façade case. See Goldman (1976). I think this case represents a different structure compared to Gettier cases and deserves a separate treatment. See Kripke (2011, pp.167–168) for barn-style counterexamples against sensitivity account of knowledge.
Bernecker (2011) gives in-depth arguments about how modal accounts like sensitivity and safety fail to address the Gettier problem. One crucial difference between my argument below with Bernecker’s is that my argument takes into account both Nozick’s original version of sensitivity and Sensitivity. As I will argue later, these two versions of sensitivity are extensionally inequivalent, and their differences have significant implications on the Gettier problem.
Miracchi (2015) offers cases that share some structural similarities with WHALE, in order to argue against (some versions of) virtue epistemology.
We may and should stipulate that in the actual world, there are no back-up causes of Charlie’s belief. For instance, if the situation is such that someone is prepared to put some ‘fish facades’ into the sea in order to make Charlie believe that there are fish in the area when there are no fish nor marine mammals in the area, then perhaps in the closest not-p worlds Charlie still believes that p via the same type of method. However, we can certainly assume that there is no funny business like that.
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this objection.
It is also worth noting that on some influential externalist conceptions of knowledge, one cannot get the result that WHALE is a case of knowledge. For instance, consider Greco’s (2010) virtue reliabilism, according to which S knows that p if and only if S believes that p because her belief that p is produced by intellectual abilities (where ‘because’ marks a salient causal explanation). This account would predict that WHALE is not a case of knowledge: It is not the case that Charlie gets a true belief because of her own (perceptual) abilities; rather, the salient causal explanation of why she gets the true belief is the abnormality of the situation—i.e. that there happen to be fish in the vicinity, which Charlie does not even perceive at all. Thus, one cannot plausibly insist that Charlie knows just because one has externalist intuitions. Only when one presupposes certain specific externalist views like Sensitivity does one get the result that Charlie knows. But again, it is question-begging to presuppose such a theory in judging whether she knows or not.
Or, put another way, I concur with Heathcote (2012, p. 309) that in Gettier cases ‘the state of affairs that makes the belief true (or the believed proposition true) – its truthmaker, so to say – is not the state of affairs that has given rise to the justification for the belief’.
Also, one may be curious about the difference between one’s method of believing that p, on the one hand, and one’s evidence based on which one believes that p, on the other. I think in most cases, one’s evidence overlaps with one’s method. However, on some ‘externalist’ conception of method (e.g. Williamson, 2009), purely external factors (such as environmental factors that the subject does not have any access to) can be counted as part of one’s method, although such factors are typically not considered as what constitute one’s evidence. In general, evidence is more specific than method.
Again, I assume here that there are no back-up causes of Charlie’s belief. See note 7.
More formally, the following argument holds for a case like WHALE:
P1: ~ p □ → S does not have e.
P2: S does not have e □ → ~ B(p).
Conclusion: ~ p □ → ~ B(p).
Some have argued that subjunctive conditionals are not always transitive. However, those seemingly plausible exceptions are restricted to cases in which the context of evaluating the two premises is different (Brogaard & Salerno, 2008; Lowe, 1990). And plausibly, there are no such context shifts with regard to the above argument. With regard to both P1 and P2, the context is fixed such that we are determining whether one’s belief that p is sensitive or not—that is, whether one believes that p when ~ p is the case. Thus, even when evaluating P2, the same background fact, i.e. ~ p, should be kept fixed. For instance, it does not make sense in the context of evaluating the sensitivity of Charlie’s belief that we merely consider worlds in which she does not possess e—that is, worlds in which she does not perceive whales. Relevant worlds should also be ~ p worlds—worlds in which Charlie’s belief is false. So, the argument is of the following form:
P1: ~ p □ → S does not have e.
P2: [(S does not have e) and (~ p)] □ → ~ B(p).
C: ~ p □ → ~ B(p).
This is of a valid form, on the standard Lewisian semantics of counterfactuals (see Lowe, 1990, p. 82; Jackson, 1987, p. 82).
Once again, I assume that in the actual world there is no back-up cause of S’s belief that p. See note 7.
See also Bernecker (2011, p. 136) for a Gettier case that involves necessary truth.
Nozick himself appeals to another modal condition, i.e. adherence, to address the objection, whereas Melchior (2021b) appeals to a semantics of impossible worlds.
For Becker’s (2012) own purposes, he proposes this account of method individuation for Sensitivity.
Black (2002, p.156) claims that individuating methods ‘from the outside’ is an additional condition. That is, methods should be both individuated ‘from the inside’ (in terms of experiential upshots) and ‘from the outside’ (in terms of perceptual processes). However, at least for proponents of N-Sensitivity, it seems hard to avoid scepticism if we take into account both what is inside and what is outside. Consider again my true perceptual belief that there is a cat in my room. On the present account, the closest antecedent worlds are those in which there is no cat in my room, but I appeal to the same (or similar) experiential upshots and perceptual processes as in the actual world to determine if there is a cat in my room. Presumably, these are worlds in which something like an indistinguishable toy cat is in my room, so that although the belief is false, I do have similar perceptual experiences and appeal to the similar perceptual processes to determine if there is a cat. (Notice that these are not hallucination worlds; otherwise, the properly functioning perceptual processes involved in the actual world would be absent.) Presumably, in these worlds I would be fooled by the object and still believe that there is a cat in my room. So, the belief is insensitive.
Would it be plausible to claim that under such a circumstance, Charlie knows that there are fish in the area? I think it is hard for proponents of adherence to find non-question-begging reasons to support such a claim, just as it is difficult for proponents of Sensitivity to find non-question-begging reasons to think that WHALE is a case of knowledge. See Sect. 2.
It doesn’t matter how we individuate Charlie’s actual method of belief formation here, be it ‘perception’, ‘perceiving whales’, ‘fish-like experiences’ etc.
Also, consider the safety account of knowledge. According to it, if one knows that p, then were S to believe that p (with the same method as in the actual world), p would be true. Many have argued that safety is superior to sensitivity (e.g. Pritchard, 2005, 2012; Sosa, 1999; Williamson, 2000). Unfortunately, this seems false at least with respect to the Gettier problem. As Hiller & Neta (2007) have argued, a Gettierized belief can be safe as long as worlds in which p is false are sufficiently modally remote. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out to me.
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Acknowledgements
For helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, I’d like to thank Xuya Ma, Yiling Zhou, two anonymous reviewers for this journal, as well as audiences at Xiamen University and Nanjing University, especially Jianbo Cao, Xingming Hu, Fengqin Jin, and Yuling Lin.
Funding
This research was funded by the ‘Young Scholar Project in Humanities and Social Sciences’ of China’s Ministry of Education (Grant Number: 21YJC720022) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant Number: 2072021100).
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Zhao, H. Sensitivity Unmotivated. Acta Anal 37, 507–517 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-021-00500-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-021-00500-1