Being in a Position to Know and Closure: Reply to Heylen

Now let be ‘No one ever knows ’; then ¬( & ) follows (Fitch 1963). Plausibly, however, if K holds, so does . Hence, ¬K( & ) follows. (1) would accordingly imply ¬(K & K). And yet, where is ‘No one ever knows ’, there are for which this conclusion would seem clearly unacceptable. Thus let be a fleeting truth of little interest, e.g. ‘There are at present exactly seven blossoms on the bougainvillea’, in a context where the plant is in full view, a storm is about to hit, one is the only one around, the latter facts are known, and one also knows by introspection – and a fortiori is in a position to know – that one is far too unconcerned ever to find out about the matter. In such a case, both K and K should hold, contrary to what (1) predicts – at least there would seem to be nothing inherent in the notion of being in a position to know that would preclude this. Therefore, (1) fails, and hence so does KK. The case generalises to propositional justification. Let J be ‘is justified’. Plausibly, the following principles both hold