Premium
Knowledge, Cognitive Achievement, and Environmental Luck
Author(s) -
Jarvis Benjamin
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/papq.12012
Subject(s) - luck , cognition , pace , psychology , cognitive psychology , subject (documents) , epistemology , philosophy , computer science , geodesy , neuroscience , library science , geography
This article defends the view that knowledge is type‐identical to cognitive achievement . I argue, pace D uncan P ritchard, that not only knowledge, but also cognitive achievement is incompatible with environmental luck. I show that the performance of cognitive abilities in environmental luck cases does not distinguish them from non‐abilities per se . For this reason, although the cognitive abilities of the subject are exercised in environmental luck cases, they are not manifested in any relevant sense. I conclude by showing that this explanation is not ad hoc as it can be generalized to apply to causal features besides cognitive abilities.