Concepts of Knowability
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22370/rhv2023iss23pp287-308Keywords:
knowability, counterfactual knowability, capacity to know, dynamic possibility to knowAbstract
Many philosophical discussions hinge on the concept of knowability. For example, there is a blooming literature on the so-called paradox of knowability. How to understand this notion, however? In this paper, we examine several approaches to the notion: the naive approach to take knowability as the possibility to know, the counterfactual approach endorsed by Edgington (1985) and Schlöder (2019) , approaches based on the notion of a capacity or ability to know (Fara 2010, Humphreys 2011), and finally, approaches that make use of the resources of dynamic epistemic logic (van Benthem 2004, Holliday 2017).
References
Artemov, S., & Protopopescu, T. (2013). Discovering Knowability: A Semantic Analysis. Synthese, 190, 3349-3376. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-012-0168-x
Balbiani, P., Baltag, A., van Ditmarsch, H., Herzig, A., Hoshi, T., & de Lima, T. (2008). ‘Knowable’ as ‘Known After an Announcement’. Review of Symbolic Logic, 1(3), 305-334. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755020308080210
Bishop, M. (2010). Why the generality problem is everybody’s problem. Philosophical Studies, 151(2), 285-298. https://doi.org/10.1007/S11098-009-9445-Z
Brandom, R. (1995). Knowledge and the Social Articulation of the Space of Reasons. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 55(4), 895-908. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2108339
Brogaard, B., & Salerno, J. (2006). Knowability and a Modal Closure Principle. American Philosophical Quarterly, 43, 261-270. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20010246
Brogaard, B., & Salerno, J. (2019). Fitch’s Paradox of Knowability. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/fitch-paradox/
Carroll, L. (1895). What the Tortoise Said to Achilles. Mind, 4(14), 278-280. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/IV.14.278
Choi, S., & Fara, M. (2018). Dispositions. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/dispositions/
Church, A. (2009.) Referee Reports on Fitch’s ‘A Definition of Value’. In J. Salerno (Ed.), New Essays on the Knowability Paradox (pp. 26-33). Oxford University Press.
Conee, E., & Feldman, R. (1998). The Generality Problem for Reliabilism. Philosophical Studies, 89(1), 1-29. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4320806
Dummett, M. (2001). Victor’s Error. Analysis, 61(1), 1-2. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8284.00260
Edgington, D. (1985). The Paradox of Knowability. Mind, 94(376), 557-568. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/XCIV.376.557
Edgington, D. (2010). Possible Knowledge of Unknown Truth. Synthese, 173(1), 41-52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-009-9675-9
Fara, M. (2010). Knowability and the Capacity to Know. Synthese, 173(1), 53-73. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-009-9676-8
Fischer, M. (2013). Some Remarks on Restricting the Knowability Principle. Synthese, 190(1), 63-88. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9833-0
Fitch, F. B. (1963). A Logical Analysis of Some Value Concepts. Journal of Symbolic Logic, 28(2), 135-142. https://doi.org/10.2307/2271594
Fuhrmann, A. (2014). Knowability as Potential Knowledge. Synthese, 191(7), 1627-1648. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-013-0340-y
Hawley, K. (2003). Success and Knowledge-How. American Philosophical Quarterly, 40(1), 19-31. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20010094
Heylen, J. (2013). Modal-Epistemic Arithmetic and the problem of quantifying in. Synthese, 190(1), 89-111. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-012-0154-3
Heylen, J. (2016). Counterfactual Theories of Knowledge and the Notion of Actuality. Philosophical Studies, 173(6), 1647-1673. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0573-3
Heylen, J. (2020a). Factive Knowability and the Problem of Possible Omniscience. Philosophical Studies, 177(1), 65-87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-018-1180-x
Heylen, J. (2020b). Counterfactual Knowledge, Factivity, and the Overgeneration of Knowledge. Erkenntnis, 87, 2243-2263. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00300-w
Heylen, J. (2021). Anti-Realism and Modal-Epistemic Collapse: Reply to Marton. Erkenntnis, 88, 397-408. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00353-x
Holliday, W. H. (2017). Knowledge, Time, and Paradox: Introducing Sequential Epistemic Logic. In H. van Ditmarsch & G. Sandu (Eds.), Outstanding Contributions to Logic: Jaakko Hintikka (pp. 363-394). Springer.
Humphreys, P. (2011). Unknowable Truths. Logos and Episteme, 2(4), 543-555.
Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. The MIT Press.
Kripke, S. (1980). Naming and Necessity. Princeton University Press.
Lewis, D. K. (1976). The Paradoxes of Time Travel. American Philosophical Quarterly, 13(2), 145-52.
Lyons, J. (2019). Algorithm and Parameters: Solving the Generality Problem for Reliabilism. The Philosophical Review, 128(4), 463-509. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-7697876
Mele, A. R. (2003). Agent’s Abilities. Nous, 37(3), 447-470. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0068.00446
Morales, F. (2018). Mistakes as Revealing and as Manifestations of Competence. Synthese, 198, 3289-3308. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02281-y
Nguyen, A. (2018). Unable to Do the Impossible. Mind, 129(514), 585-602. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzy053
Rabinowicz, W., & Segerberg, K. (1994). Actual Truth, Possible Knowledge. Topoi, 13, 101-115. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00763509
Ryle, G. (1949). The Concept of Mind. Hutchinson’s University Library.
Schlöder, J. (2019). Counterfactual Knowability Revisited. Synthese, 198, 1123-1137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02087-y
Sinhababu, N. (2008). Possible Girls. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 89(2), 254-260. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0114.2008.00319.x
Sosa, E. (2010). How Competence Matters in Epistemology. Philosophical Perspectives, 24(1), 465-475. https://doi.org/10.1111/J.1520-8583.2010.00200.X
Spencer, J. (2017). Able to Do the Impossible. Mind, 126(502), 466-497. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzv183
Stephanou, Y. (2001). Indexed Actuality. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 30, 355-393. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017915417449
Tennant, N. (1997). The Taming of the True. Oxford University Press.
Tennant, N. (2009). Revamping the restriction strategy. In J. Salerno (Ed.), New Essays on the Knowability Paradox (pp. 223-238). Oxford University Press.
Van Benthem, J. (2004). What one May Come to Know. Analysis, 64(2), 95-105. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8284.2004.00467.x
Van Benthem, J. & Liu, F. (2007). Dynamic logic of preference upgrade. Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics, 17(2), 157-182. https://doi.org/10.3166/jancl.17.157-182
Van Ditmarsch, H., van der Hoek, W., & Iliev, P. (2011). Everything is Knowable – How to Get to Know Whether a Proposition is True. Theoria, 78(2), 93-114. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-2567.2011.01119.x
Vetter, B. (2015). Potentiality: From Dispostions to Modality. Oxford University Press.
Vetter, B., & Jaster. R. (2016). Dispositional Accounts of Abilities. Philosophy Compass, 12(8), e12432. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12432
Williamson, T. (1987). On the Paradox of Knowability. Mind, 96(382), 256-261. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/XCVI.382.256
Williamson, T. (1992). On Intuitionistic Modal Epistemic Logic. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 21(1), 63-89. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30226465
Williamson, T. (2000). Knowledge and its Limits. Oxford University Press.
Williamson, T. (2000). Tennant on Knowable Truth. Ratio, 13(2), 99-114. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9329.00113
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work after publication simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
