Browsing by Author "Chapman, Dean"

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    Knowledge through communication : a response to the question of how testimony-based knowledge is possible
    (2014) Dewhurst, Thérèse; Weiss, Bernhard; Chapman, Dean; Jeremy Wanderer
    The aim of this thesis is to offer a response to the question of how it is that a hearer can get knowledge from testimony. The project has two main components. The first is to suggest that the obstacle to getting knowledge through testimony (the obstacle of epistemic vulnerability) is one that can be ignored. The second is to set out how it is that mere communication could be sufficient to explain how testimony can be a source of knowledge. The first component constitutes a proposal to reject the problem of testimony as it is usually conceived. Testimony is often seen to be epistemically distinct and interesting because of the apparent epistemic vulnerability posed by its being an indirect source of knowledge. Viewing the problem in this way has led most epistemologists to set out on a project of justification: the challenge is to explain how it is that hearing an assertion can be sufficient grounds for coming to know what is asserted. Whether one is a reductionist or a non-reductionist, the aim has been to establish that essential link between hearing a speaker assert that p, and p's being true. I will argue that seeing the problem of testimony as one of epistemic vulnerability is only inevitable if one has a particular view of knowledge. If we take knowledge to be a state metaphysically distinct from belief, a state not dependent on its justification to establish it as knowledge, then the indirectness of testimony does not inevitably result in a problem of vulnerability. The second component constitutes a positive explanation for the possibility of knowledge through testimony. I argue that (rather than seeking to justify our testimony-based beliefs) we ought to try to understand the mechanism whereby knowledge can be made available to a hearer simply by understanding an assertion. In this endeavour, I propose a certain theory of communication, such that understanding a communicative utterance entails coming to recognise the speaker's actual mental state. If successful communication gives the hearer access to the speaker's actual mental state, then successful communication can explain how understanding an assertion that p can get a hearer to know that p. I argue that correctly understanding an assertion that p entails coming to know that p. I defend the idea that the institution of communication explains how knowledge through testimony is possible.
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    Logic and the limits of explanation: the justification of deduction, Carrollian Regress, logical validity, and deductive inferential knowledge
    (2006) Chapman, Dean; Weiss, Bernhard
    This essay engages with the problems of the justification of deduction, Carrollian regress, and deductive inferential knowledge. Also, it is considered whether Lewis Carroll's tale of what the tortoise said to Achilles can be interpreted as suggesting an argument against the possibility of logically valid argument. Such an argument is presented and shown to be unsound. Any justification of one of our basic rules of deductive inference, such as modus ponens, will inevitably make use of the very rule it means to justify. It will be a 'rule-circular' argument and invite charges that it begs the question and 'keeps bad company'. Following Paul Boghossian, the contention in this essay is that a thinker need not know that the rule according to which a given inference proceeds is sound in order to be entitled to carry out the inference. Thus, a rule-circular argument for the soundness of modus ponens does not beg the question. Also, by a conceptual role semantics which takes as its starting point that of Boghossian, and with insights gained from Robert Brandom's inferentialism, it is argued that a thinker who carries out an inference which is meaning-constituting of some concept for her is entitled to that act of inference, in part because she is epistemically blameless in it. One of the ways to counter a Cartesian sceptic is to maintain that some of our beliefs are beliefs we are entitled to have no doubt about. To make that claim good, it is argued, one must hold two things: first, that some of our beliefs are such that we have conclusive evidence for them, evidence which guarantees their truth; and second, that for some of these beliefs, we know that we have conclusive evidence for them - there are infallibilist and intemalist constraints on the possibility of us having knowledge that is certain. Pace Boghossian, the contention here is that anyone who carries out an inference which is meaning-constituting of some concept for her, in fact knows that inference to be valid.
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    The Problem of Easy Knowledge - Critical Perspectives on Cohen and Others
    (2019) White, Matthew Neil; Chapman, Dean
    In this paper, I aim to explore the problem of easy knowledge, outlined by Stewart Cohen (2002). I will examine the solutions given by Cohen (2002, 2005), Markie (2005), Black (2008),Klein (2004) and Becker (2013), and outline the problems that each faces. These problems, I will argue, constitute sufficient grounds to reject each of these theories as they stand. Following this, I will argue that we can adjust Becker’s (2013) theory such that it is able not only to adequately avoid the problem of easy knowledge, but also to give us a reasonable account of when and how we know and do not know propositions about the world. The central adjustment that I will make to Becker’s theory is to adopt a kind of epistemic contextualism. In particular, I will be drawing heavily on Jonathan Ichikawa’s (2011) essay on closure and contextualism in modal theories of epistemology. The consequences of adopting this perspective are that in heavyweight philosophical contexts, we turn out to know nothing at all - however, in ordinary everyday contexts, we can justifiably claim knowledge about the kinds of propositions we think we ought to be able to claim knowledge about. This consequence is pleasing to me, as it gives skeptical hypotheses their due - it treats them with the seriousness that they deserve, and admits that they are (often) unsolvable - while still preserving our intuitive belief that we can know many things about the external world.