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    The skeptical requirement that one rule out all alternati... — Carmelics
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    Home/Skepticism
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    The skeptical requirement that one rule out all alternatives entails the KK thesis

    Skepticism
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.The skeptic requires that to know φ, one must rule out all alternatives to knowing φ
      ?

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    • 2.One alternative to knowing φ is not knowing φ
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    • 3.Ruling out not knowing φ means knowing that one knows φ, which is KKφ
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The skeptic's requirement concerns ruling out alternatives to the truth of φ, not alternatives to one's epistemic standing toward φ.
      ?

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    • 2.P2 conflates object-level alternatives (¬φ) with meta-level alternatives (¬Kφ), smuggling in the KK thesis rather than deriving it.
      ?

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    • 3.Descartes and Hume demand certainty about the external world, not certainty about one's own cognitive states, showing skepticism need not ascend to meta-knowledge.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Timothy Williamson's argument in 'Knowledge and Its Limits' demonstrates that KKφ fails for creatures with margin-of-error constraints, even under strong epistemic requirements.
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    • 2.If KK is independently falsifiable by cases of borderline knowledge, its alleged entailment by skeptical requirements would make skepticism self-undermining rather than vindicating KK.
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    Topics

    SkepticismTruth & Knowledge

    Related

    Descartes and Hume demand certainty about the external world, not certainty abou...If KK is independently falsifiable by cases of borderline knowledge, its alleged...One alternative to knowing φ is not knowing φP2 conflates object-level alternatives (¬φ) with meta-level alternatives (¬Kφ), ...
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    Ruling out not knowing φ means knowing that one knows φ, which is KKφThe skeptic requires that to know φ, one must rule out all alternatives to knowi...The skeptic's requirement concerns ruling out alternatives to the truth of φ, no...Timothy Williamson's argument in 'Knowledge and Its Limits' demonstrates that KK...

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    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: formal-epistemology
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    What’s the philosophical payoff if we join Williamson in rejecting KK on these grounds? Skeptical arguments that rely on KK might be disarmed. For example, a skeptic might argue that to know something, you must be able to rule out any competing alternatives. For example, to know the external world is real, you must be able to rule out the possibility that you are being deceived by Descartes’ demon (Stroud 1984). But then you must also be able to rule out the possibility that you don’t know the e
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit