Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T07:51:09.204Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

FOLK INTUITIONS AND THE NO-LUCK-THESIS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2015

Adrian Ziółkowski
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

According to the No-Luck-Thesis knowledge possession is incompatible with luck – one cannot know that p if the truth of one's belief that p is a matter of luck. Recently, this widespread opinion was challenged by Peter Baumann, who argues that in certain situations agents do possess knowledge even though their beliefs are true by luck. This paper aims at providing empirical data for evaluating Baumann's hypothesis. The experiment was designed to compare non-philosophers’ judgments concerning knowledge and luck in one case that Baumann takes to be in favor of his claim and other cases where, according to him, absence of knowledge coincides with luck. The results show that the cases do not differ in a significant way between each other with respect to verdicts regarding knowledge and luck. In all cases subjects were more reluctant to judge that the ‘Gettierized’ belief is knowledge and more likely to judge that it is true by luck in comparison to a belief that is an uncontroversial instance of knowledge. However, the negative relationship between knowledge and luck ascriptions predicted by the No-Luck-Thesis was almost absent. The data raise some doubts about the No-Luck-Thesis, but the reasons for doubt are different than what Baumann expected.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 343 - 358
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Baumann, P. 2014. ‘No Luck With Knowledge? On a Dogma of Epistemology.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 89: 523–51.Google Scholar
Beebe, J. & Shea, J. 2013. ‘Gettierized Knobe Effects.’ Episteme, 10: 219–40.Google Scholar
Blouw, P., Buckwalter, W., and Turri, J. Forthcoming. ‘Gettier Cases: A Taxonomy.’ In Borges, R., de Almeida, C., and Klein, P. (eds), Explaining Knowledge: New Essays on the Gettier Problem. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chaiken, S., Liberman, A., and Eagly, A. H. 1989. ‘Heuristic and Systematic Processing Within and Beyond the Persuasion Context.’ In Uleman, J. S. and Bargh, J. A. (eds), Unintended Thought. New York, NY: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Colaço, D., Buckwalter, W., Stich, S., and Machery, E. 2014. ‘Epistemic Intuitions in Fake-Barn Thought Experiments.’ Episteme, 11: 199–212.Google Scholar
Gettier, E. 1963. ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’ Analysis, 23: 121–3.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. I. 1976. ‘Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge.’ Journal of Philosophy, 73: 771–91.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. I. 1986. Epistemology and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pritchard, D. 2004. ‘Epistemic Luck.’ Journal of Philosophical Research, 29: 193–222.Google Scholar
Pritchard, D. 2007. ‘Anti-Luck Epistemology.’ Synthese, 158: 277–98.Google Scholar
Russell, B. 1948. Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Unger, P. 1968. ‘An Analysis of Factual Knowledge.’ Journal of Philosophy, 65: 157–70.Google Scholar