Open AccessIs epistemic safety threatened by Frankfurt cases? A reply to Kelp
Author(s) -
Domingos Faria
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
diametros
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.195
H-Index - 8
ISSN - 1733-5566
DOI - 10.33392/diam.1448
Subject(s) - counterexample , epistemology , threatened species , philosophy , modal , basis (linear algebra) , sociology , mathematics , discrete mathematics , ecology , chemistry , geometry , habitat , polymer chemistry , biology
I intend to argue that the counterexamples inspired by the Frankfurt-type cases against the necessity of an epistemic safety condition for knowledge are not plausible. The epistemic safety condition for knowledge is a modal condition recently supported by Sosa (2007) and Pritchard (2015), among others, and can be formulated as follows: (SC) If S knows that p on basis B, then S’s true belief that p could not have easily been false on basis B. I will try to argue that the safety condition, expressed in (SC), is still necessary for knowledge and that, therefore, epistemic safety is not threatened by Frankfurt-type cases. In particular, I want to show that Kelp’s counterexamples are ineffective against (SC).