Epistemic Angst by Pritchard Duncan;

Author:Pritchard, Duncan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2015-10-20T16:00:00+00:00

2. Three Core Problems for Epistemological Disjunctivism

What explains the widespread reluctance to take epistemological disjunctivism seriously as a plausible view? Elsewhere I have set out three core problems that this view appears to face and that, superficially at least, all appear fatal. I have then argued that all three problems are on closer inspection far from compelling, the result being that, despite the conventional wisdom on the matter, epistemological disjunctivism is a viable proposal after all.7 I cannot hope to give a full account of these problems and how epistemological disjunctivism can evade them here, so what follows will be a mere overview of the issues in this regard.

First, there is the basing problem. On standard views about the relationship between seeing that p and knowing that p, seeing that p entails knowing that p on account of it merely being a way of knowing that p.8 But if that’s right, then how can seeing that p constitute one’s epistemic basis for knowing that p, given that it involves citing something that is itself just a way of knowing that p? At most, it seems, one can appeal to seeing that p to explain how one knows that p, but not to indicate one’s epistemic basis for knowing that p.

The basing problem takes it as granted that one’s epistemic basis for knowledge cannot be itself a way of knowing, and that claim could be questioned. But I think there is an even better way of responding to this worry, which is to dispute the thesis that seeing that p entails knowing that p. For what is at the root of the basis problem is the thought that if seeing that p is essentially a way of knowing that p, then it cannot constitute one’s epistemic basis for knowing that p. Accordingly, if we can argue that seeing that p is not essentially a way of knowing that p—that is, such that one can see that p while failing to know that p—then this ought to suffice to block the problem.

In order to see the attraction of this line of argument, we should note first that seeing that p is clearly robustly epistemic in a way that mere object seeing (i.e., merely seeing a barn, as opposed to seeing that there is a barn) is not. A child can count as seeing an object—a banana, say—without knowing what object she has seen. But a child cannot see that there is a banana before her without at least having some idea about what it is she is seeing. In particular, to count as seeing that there is a banana before one, one must possess the relevant conceptual repertoire. But if you not only see the object but also are able to conceptually classify the object too, then what stands in the way of you knowing the relevant proposition (e.g., that this is a banana)?

Seeing that p is thus much closer to knowing that p than merely seeing the corresponding object. That much is undeniable.

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