Papers by Kevin Wallbridge
Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered
Australasian Journal of Philosophy
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2016
Australasian Journal of Philosophy
(Forthcoming in Synthese). Intellectualists claim that knowing how to do something is a matter of... more (Forthcoming in Synthese). Intellectualists claim that knowing how to do something is a matter of knowing, for some w, that w is a way to do that thing. However, standard accounts fail to account for the way that knowing how sometimes seems to require ability (although at other times does not). I argue that the way to make sense of this situation is via a 'subject-specific' intellectualism according to which knowing how to do something is a matter of knowing that w is a way for some relevant person to do that thing, but who the relevant person is can change from context to context. If it is the utterer themselves, then knowing how will require ability, but otherwise it will not. 1
Forthcoming in Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
Sosa, Pritchard, and Vogel have all argued th... more Forthcoming in Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
Sosa, Pritchard, and Vogel have all argued that there are cases in which one knows something inductively but does not believe it sensitively, and that sensitivity therefore cannot be necessary for knowledge. I defend sensitivity by showing that inductive knowledge is sensitive.
Forthcoming in Synthese.
The peculiar case of Lehrer's lawyer purports to describe a scenario in... more Forthcoming in Synthese.
The peculiar case of Lehrer's lawyer purports to describe a scenario in which a subject has a justified belief, indeed knowledge, despite the fact that their belief is not causally or counterfactually sustained by any good reasons for it. The case has proven controversial. While some agree with Lehrer's assessment of the case, others disagree, leading to a schism among accounts of the basing relation. In this paper I aim to reconcile these camps and put simple causal and counterfactual accounts of the basing relation back on the table, by arguing that Lehrer's case is probably metaphysically impossible, but even if it isn't, it is ambiguous between a psychologically implausible and a psychologically plausible reading, and this can account for the diverging intuitions that it generates.
(2018) Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. Vogel, Sosa, and Huemer have all argued that sensitivity ... more (2018) Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. Vogel, Sosa, and Huemer have all argued that sensitivity is incompatible with knowing that you do not believe falsely, therefore the sensitivity condition must be false. I show that this objection misses its mark because it fails to take account of the basis of belief. Moreover, if the objection is modified to account for the basis of belief then it collapses into the more familiar objection that sensitivity is incompatible with closure. (But that is an objection which sensitivity theorists are already prepared to meet, one way or another.)
(2017) Philosophia.
In a recent paper, Melchior pursues a novel argumentative strategy against t... more (2017) Philosophia.
In a recent paper, Melchior pursues a novel argumentative strategy against the sensitivity condition. His claim is that sensitivity suffers from a 'heterogeneity problem:' although some higher-order beliefs are knowable, other, very similar, higher-order beliefs are insensitive and so not knowable. Similarly, the conclusions of some bootstrapping arguments are insensitive, but others are not (and since one motivation for endorsing the sensitivity condition was to provide an explanation of what goes wrong in bootstrapping arguments, this motivation is undermined). In reply, I show that sensitivity does not treat different higher-order beliefs differently in the way that Melchior states and that while genuine bootstrapping arguments have insensitive conclusions, the cases that Melchior describes as sensitive 'bootstrapping' arguments don't deserve the name, since they are a perfectly good way of getting to know their conclusions. In sum, sensitivity doesn't have a heterogeneity problem.
(2016) Logos and Episteme.
Many current popular views in epistemology require a belief to be the... more (2016) Logos and Episteme.
Many current popular views in epistemology require a belief to be the result of a reliable process (aka 'method of belief formation' or 'cognitive capacity') in order to count as knowledge. This means that the generality problem rears its head, i.e. the kind of process in question has to be spelt out, and this looks difficult to do without being either over or under-general. In response to this problem, I propose that we should adopt a more fine-grained account of the epistemic basing relation, at which point the generality problem becomes easy to solve.
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Papers by Kevin Wallbridge
Sosa, Pritchard, and Vogel have all argued that there are cases in which one knows something inductively but does not believe it sensitively, and that sensitivity therefore cannot be necessary for knowledge. I defend sensitivity by showing that inductive knowledge is sensitive.
The peculiar case of Lehrer's lawyer purports to describe a scenario in which a subject has a justified belief, indeed knowledge, despite the fact that their belief is not causally or counterfactually sustained by any good reasons for it. The case has proven controversial. While some agree with Lehrer's assessment of the case, others disagree, leading to a schism among accounts of the basing relation. In this paper I aim to reconcile these camps and put simple causal and counterfactual accounts of the basing relation back on the table, by arguing that Lehrer's case is probably metaphysically impossible, but even if it isn't, it is ambiguous between a psychologically implausible and a psychologically plausible reading, and this can account for the diverging intuitions that it generates.
In a recent paper, Melchior pursues a novel argumentative strategy against the sensitivity condition. His claim is that sensitivity suffers from a 'heterogeneity problem:' although some higher-order beliefs are knowable, other, very similar, higher-order beliefs are insensitive and so not knowable. Similarly, the conclusions of some bootstrapping arguments are insensitive, but others are not (and since one motivation for endorsing the sensitivity condition was to provide an explanation of what goes wrong in bootstrapping arguments, this motivation is undermined). In reply, I show that sensitivity does not treat different higher-order beliefs differently in the way that Melchior states and that while genuine bootstrapping arguments have insensitive conclusions, the cases that Melchior describes as sensitive 'bootstrapping' arguments don't deserve the name, since they are a perfectly good way of getting to know their conclusions. In sum, sensitivity doesn't have a heterogeneity problem.
Many current popular views in epistemology require a belief to be the result of a reliable process (aka 'method of belief formation' or 'cognitive capacity') in order to count as knowledge. This means that the generality problem rears its head, i.e. the kind of process in question has to be spelt out, and this looks difficult to do without being either over or under-general. In response to this problem, I propose that we should adopt a more fine-grained account of the epistemic basing relation, at which point the generality problem becomes easy to solve.
Sosa, Pritchard, and Vogel have all argued that there are cases in which one knows something inductively but does not believe it sensitively, and that sensitivity therefore cannot be necessary for knowledge. I defend sensitivity by showing that inductive knowledge is sensitive.
The peculiar case of Lehrer's lawyer purports to describe a scenario in which a subject has a justified belief, indeed knowledge, despite the fact that their belief is not causally or counterfactually sustained by any good reasons for it. The case has proven controversial. While some agree with Lehrer's assessment of the case, others disagree, leading to a schism among accounts of the basing relation. In this paper I aim to reconcile these camps and put simple causal and counterfactual accounts of the basing relation back on the table, by arguing that Lehrer's case is probably metaphysically impossible, but even if it isn't, it is ambiguous between a psychologically implausible and a psychologically plausible reading, and this can account for the diverging intuitions that it generates.
In a recent paper, Melchior pursues a novel argumentative strategy against the sensitivity condition. His claim is that sensitivity suffers from a 'heterogeneity problem:' although some higher-order beliefs are knowable, other, very similar, higher-order beliefs are insensitive and so not knowable. Similarly, the conclusions of some bootstrapping arguments are insensitive, but others are not (and since one motivation for endorsing the sensitivity condition was to provide an explanation of what goes wrong in bootstrapping arguments, this motivation is undermined). In reply, I show that sensitivity does not treat different higher-order beliefs differently in the way that Melchior states and that while genuine bootstrapping arguments have insensitive conclusions, the cases that Melchior describes as sensitive 'bootstrapping' arguments don't deserve the name, since they are a perfectly good way of getting to know their conclusions. In sum, sensitivity doesn't have a heterogeneity problem.
Many current popular views in epistemology require a belief to be the result of a reliable process (aka 'method of belief formation' or 'cognitive capacity') in order to count as knowledge. This means that the generality problem rears its head, i.e. the kind of process in question has to be spelt out, and this looks difficult to do without being either over or under-general. In response to this problem, I propose that we should adopt a more fine-grained account of the epistemic basing relation, at which point the generality problem becomes easy to solve.