The Basis Problem for Epistemological Disjunctivism Revisited

Duncan Pritchard has defended a version of epistemological disjunctivism which holds that in a paradigmatic case of perceptual knowledge, one knows that p in virtue of having the reflectively accessible reason that one sees that p. This view faces what is known as the basis problem: if seeing that p just is a way of knowing that p, then that one sees that p cannot constitute the rational basis in virtue of which one knows that p. To solve this problem, Pritchard has argued that seeing that p should be reduced to being in a good position to know that p rather than simply knowing that p. I argue that this proposal a) can only be properly understood if the concept of knowledge is taken as primitive, and b) is supported by an example that either fails to favor it over the alternative, or else backfires against the proposal itself. This leaves the new account of seeing that p unmotivated, thereby challenging the purported answer to the basis problem.status: publishe