Prefaces, Knowledge, and Questions
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22109334 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Frank Hong (0000-0002-6556-8348, University of Southern California, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 0 |
| Publication date | 2023-11-17 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2330-4014 • E-ISSN: 2330-4014 |
| Publisher | University of Michigan Library (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.3998/ergo.4631 |
| OpenAlex | W4388754520 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 30 |
The Preface Paradox is often discussed for its implications for rational belief. Much less discussed is a variant of the Preface Paradox for knowledge. In this paper, I argue that the most plausible closure-friendly resolution to the Preface Paradox for Knowledge is to say that in any given context, we do not know much. I call this view “Socraticism”. I argue that Socraticism is the most plausible view on two accounts—(1) this view is compatible with the claim that most of our knowledge ascriptions are true, and (2) provided that (1) is true, the costs of accepting Socraticism are much less than the costs of accepting any other resolution to the Paradox. I argue for (1) in Section 2 by developing a question-sensitive contextualist model for knowledge that shows how Socraticism is compatible with the claim that most of our knowledge ascriptions are true. I also argue how this contextualist model can achieve this result where other contextualist models fail. I then consider other closure-friendly solutions to the paradox in Section 3 and show how accepting those solutions forces us to give up a number of plausible epistemic principles
Contextualism · Epistemology · Linguistics · Political science · Sociology · Clinical Reasoning and Diagnostic Skills · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Artificial Intelligence
Knowledge and Lotteries
Putting Logic in its Place
On Quantifier Domain Restriction
Context and Logical Form
The paradox of the preface
Lockeans Maximize Expected Accuracy
Epistemic Operators
Elusive knowledge
How to be a Fallibilist
Believing Conjunctions
The epistemic virtues of consistency
Rigged lotteries
Epistemology Normalized
A Defense of Skepticism
Good Guesses
Knowledge and Evidence
Belief as Question‐Sensitive
Is Evidence Knowledge
Higher‐Order Evidence and the Limits of Defeat
Philosophical Explanations
| Citations per year | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |