Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:28:43.583Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

UNASSERTABILITY AND THE APPEARANCE OF IGNORANCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2014

Geoff Pynn
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Whether it seems that you know something depends in part upon practical factors. When the stakes are low, it can seem to you that you know that p, but when the stakes go up it'll seem to you that you don't. The apparent sensitivity of knowledge to stakes presents a serious challenge to epistemologists who endorse a stable semantics for knowledge attributions and reject the idea that whether you know something depends on how much is at stake. After arguing that previous attempts to meet this challenge fall short, I offer a new solution: the unassertability account. The account starts with the observation that high stakes subjects aren't in an epistemic position to assert. We generally presuppose that knowing is sufficient for epistemically proper assertion, but this presupposition only stands up to scrutiny if we draw a distinction between two notions of epistemic propriety, and we shouldn't expect ordinary speakers to draw it. A subject in a high stakes situation who fails to draw the distinction will be led by the sufficiency claim to treat anything she isn't in a position to assert as something she isn't in a position to know. The sensitivity of epistemically proper assertion to practical factors explains the merely apparent sensitivity of knowledge to stakes.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 125 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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

Austin, J. L. 1962. How to Do Things With Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ayer, A. J. 1956. The Problem of Knowledge. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Bach, K. 2005. ‘The Emperor's New ‘Knows’.’ In Preyer, G. and Peter, G. (eds), Contextualism in Philosophy: On Epistemology, Language and Truth, pp. 51–90. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bach, K. 2008. ‘Applying Pragmatics To Epistemology.’ Philosophical Issues, 18: 68–88.Google Scholar
Bertolet, R. 1994. ‘Are There Indirect Speech Acts?’ In Tsohatzidis, S. (ed.), Foundations of Speech Act Theory: Philosophical and Linguistic Perspectives, pp. 335–49. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Black, T. 2005. ‘Classic Invariantism, Relevance and Warranted Assertibility Manoeuvres.’ The Philosophical Quarterly, 55: 328–36.Google Scholar
Brogaard, B. 2008. ‘In Defense of a Perspectival Semantics for ‘Know’.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 86: 439–59.Google Scholar
Brown, J. 2006. ‘Contextualism and Warranted Assertibility Manoeuvres.’ Philosophical Studies, 130: 407–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, J. 2010. ‘Knowledge and Assertion.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 81: 549–66.Google Scholar
Brown, J. 2013. ‘Experimental Philosophy, Contextualism, and SSI.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 86: 233–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, S. 1988. ‘How to be a Fallibilist.’ Philosophical Perspectives, 2: 91–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Danto, A. 1973. Analytical Philosophy of Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
DeRose, K. 2002. ‘Assertion, Knowledge, and Context.’ Philosophical Review, 111: 167–203.Google Scholar
DeRose, K. 2009. The Case for Contextualism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
DeRose, K. 2011. ‘Contextualism, Contrastivism, and X-Phi Surveys.’ Philosophical Studies, 156: 81–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douven, I. 2006. ‘Assertion, Knowledge, and Rational Credibility.’ Philosophical Review, 115: 449–85.Google Scholar
Fantl, J. and McGrath, M. 2009. Knowledge in an Uncertain World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Grimm, S. 2011. ‘On Intellectualism in Epistemology.’ Mind, 120: 705–33.Google Scholar
Hawthorne, J. 2004. Knowledge and Lotteries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hawthorne, J. and Stanley, J. 2009. ‘Knowledge and Action.’ Journal of Philosophy, 105: 571–90.Google Scholar
Hazlett, A. 2007. ‘Grice's Razor.’ Metaphilosophy, 38: 669–90.Google Scholar
Iacono, L. 2008. ‘Warranted Assertability Maneuvers and The Rules Of Assertion.’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 89: 460–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ichikawa, J. 2012. ‘Knowledge Norms and Acting Well.’ Thought, 1: 49–55.Google Scholar
Knobe, J. and Schaffer, J. 2012. ‘Contrastive Knowledge Surveyed.’ Nous, 46: 675–708.Google Scholar
Kvanvig, J. 2009. ‘Assertion, Knowledge, and Lotteries.’ In Greenough, P. and Pritchard, D. (eds), Williamson on Knowledge, pp. 140–60. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lackey, J. 2011. ‘Assertion and Isolated Secondhand Knowledge.’ In Brown, J. and Cappelen, H. (eds), Assertion, pp. 251–75. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. 1996. ‘Elusive Knowledge.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 74: 549–67.Google Scholar
MacFarlane, J. 2005. ‘The Assessment Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions.’ Oxford Studies in Epistemology, 1: 197–234.Google Scholar
MacFarlane, J. 2009. ‘Non-Indexical Contextualism.’ Synthese, 166: 231–50.Google Scholar
Nagel, J. 2008. ‘Knowledge Ascriptions and the Psychological Consequences of Changing Stakes.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 86: 279–94.Google Scholar
Nagel, J. 2010. ‘Knowledge Ascriptions and the Psychological Consequences of Thinking about Error.’ The Philosophical Quarterly, 60: 286–306.Google Scholar
Nagel, J. 2011. ‘Epistemic Anxiety and Adaptive Invariantism.’ Philosophical Perspectives, 24: 407–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peels, R. 2010. ‘What is Ignorance?’ Philosophia, 38: 57–67.Google Scholar
Pynn, G. Forthcoming. ‘Sensitivity and Assertibility.’ Acta Analytica. doi: 10.1007/s12136-013-0212-6.Google Scholar
Rysiew, P. 2001. ‘The Context-Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions.’ Nous, 35: 477–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rysiew, P. 2007. ‘Speaking of Knowing.’ Nous, 41: 627–62.Google Scholar
Sandis, C. 2010. ‘Basic Actions and Individuation.’ In O'Connor, T. and Sandis, C. (eds), A Companion to the Philosophy of Action, pp. 10–17. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, J. 2005. ‘What Shifts? Thresholds, Standards, or Alternatives?’ In Preyer, G. and Peter, G. (eds), Contextualism in Philosophy: On Epistemology, Language and Truth, pp. 115–30. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schaffer, J. 2008. ‘Knowledge in the Image of Assertion.’ Philosophical Issues, 18: 1–19.Google Scholar
Schroeder, M. 2012. ‘Stakes, Withholding, and Pragmatic Encroachment.’ Philosophical Studies, 160: 265–85.Google Scholar
Searle, J. 1969. Speech Acts: An Essay in The Philosophy Of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stainton, R. 2010. ‘Contextualism in Epistemology and the Context Sensitivity of ‘Knows’.’ In Campbell, J. C., O'Rourke, M. and Silverstein, H. (eds), Knowledge and Skepticism: Topics in Contemporary Philosophy, Vol. 5, pp. 113–39. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stanley, J. 2005. Knowledge and Practical Interests. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stanley, J. 2008. ‘Knowledge and Certainty.’ Philosophical Issues, 18: 35–57.Google Scholar
Turri, J. 2010. ‘Epistemic Invariantism and Speech Act Contextualism.’ Philosophical Review, 119: 77–95.Google Scholar
Unger, P. 1975. Ignorance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weiner, M. 2005. ‘Must We Know What We Say?’ Philosophical Review, 114: 227–51.Google Scholar
Williamson, T. 2000. Knowledge and its Limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Williamson, T. 2005. ‘Contextualism, Subject-Sensitive Invariantism and Knowledge of Knowledge.’ The Philosophical Quarterly, 55: 213–35.Google Scholar