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In Knowledge and Skepticism, Nozick provides an explanation of knowledge as tracking, of how belief should and should not vary with the truth of what is believed. Nozick pursues this explanation to reveal that global skeptical arguments do not follow from particular skeptical possibilities. Nozick offers an account of propositional knowledge based on tracking, interestingly without inclusion of the traditional justification condition. Noting that a subject S may arrive at the belief that p via multiple methods or ways of believing, and that Knowledge is a particular way of being connected to the world, having a specific real factual connection to the world: tracking it. In Philosophical Explanations, Robert Nozick spells out his four requirements for knowledge. His requirements are created as a direct response to Edward Gettiers examples of the failure of Justified True Belief to be sufficient conditions for knowledge.
According to Nozick, S knows that p, if the following conditions are satisfied: 1) p is true; 2) S believes that p; 3) If p weren't true, S wouldnt believe that p; 4) If p were true, S would believe that p. Nozick's account of knowledge employs the use of subjunctive conditionals in the formulation of the final two conditions. Nozick explains: This subjunctive condition is not unrelated to the causal condition. Often, when the fact that p (partially) causes someone to believe that p, the fact also will be causally necessary for his having the belief - without the cause, the effect would not occur. Nozick's forth condition leads him to deny known logical implication (closure principle). Stroud observes that, if the closure principle is in fact correct, tracking is not necessary for knowledge.
From here, Stroud suggests that we qualify the closure principle rather than, like Nozick, reject it, since, when properly qualified, the closure principle rules out accidental acquisition of true belief as knowledge. Stroud opts not to qualify tracking since it is prima facie possible that some method M is a reliable way for S to acquire knowledge that p in actual circumstances. However, it would not be reliable if not-p, in which case M might mislead S to believe that p. Stroud thus concludes that, by accepting the closure principle as sufficient for knowledge, and since inference preserves truth, Nozick's reply to skepticism does not follow. Several commentators argue that tracking, and specifically condition 3, is not necessary for knowledge. Stroud suggests that tracking is not necessary because the tracking conditionals do not hold with, for example, true beliefs not gained via any method (such as those Nozick labels central to our life-activities).
He also offers a proposition in which S knows without satisfying the two subjunctive conditionals: If S believes that p, where p is 'It is true of some of S's beliefs about beliefs (call them meta-beliefs) that S might not have such meta-beliefs', then, intuitively at least, S can know that p, contrary to Nozick's diagnosis since condition 3 fails (in that even if S had no such meta-beliefs, S would still, in a relevant possible world, believe as such). Stroud's moral from this example is that knowing is not always a matter of accepting, not always something we can control; since Nozick's tracking conditions restrict knowledge to knowledge subject to our acceptance (via the counter-factual possibilities), his conditions are not necessary. Luper-Foy constructs a similar proposition, where q is S does not believe everything. S here knows that q, even though S's knowledge violates condition 3 (which demands that, in the case where S believes everything, S would not believe that S believes everything: which is to say, S does and does not believe everything). Nozick's subjunctive conditional can be expressed by a notion of possible worlds.
Two possible worlds differ from one another in that the complete set of truth-values of all specific propositions are not identical; as long as at least one proposition is true in one world which is false in a second, those two worlds are different possible worlds. A subjunctive conditional is a conditional of form if it were the case that p then q would be the case, whether or not the antecedent is false. As we saw, it would be silly to assert a material conditional counter factually; so counterfactual conditionals tend to be subjunctive. This has led to confusing usage in which subjunctives are called counterfactual's regardless of the truth value of the antecedent p. On the other hand, according to Stalnakers definition, a conditional acts just like a material conditional when the antecedent p is true. For when p is true, the closest possible world to the actual world that satisfies p is the actual world itself, and hence the truth of the conditional depends only on whether q is true in the actual world.
In the following example, if p then q is true in w because q is true at w. Because p is true at w, w 1 is not even consulted. Also, such conditionals do not suffice to handle the brain in the vat example considered above. For if I am a brain in a vat who believes that I am, then the counterfactual if I were to be a brain in a vat I would believe it is true on Stalnakers account because the antecedent and consequent are both true. Nozick wanted to say that this conditional is false.
The central claim of externalism: what makes the difference between mere true belief and knowledge (or belief and justified belief) is a kind of condition which need not be accessible to the subject. Possible externals candidate is Nozick's tracking condition in terms of counterfactual's, an acquired by a reliable method condition. Externalism need not deny the relevance of the kind of condition internal ism favours, e. g. proofs and reasons; these can be seen as special cases the externals conditions. According to Craig, the externals does not say the extra condition must be inaccessible, only that it need not be accessible.
His points in favour of externalism are that internal ism unfairly skews the whole debate its way by posing the question about the extra condition in a first person way. This may be natural but it inevitably encourages us to think of kinds of things which are available from this first person perspective and to overlook factors which may be accessible only from a 3 rd person perspective. But K is a notion having a central role in such 3 rd person contexts. Craig offers and defends a plausible theory of why it is that knowledge matters. Here is how he introduces the basic idea of his theory. Human beings need true beliefs about their environment, beliefs that can serve to guide their actions to a successful outcome.
They have on-board sources, eyes and ears, powers of reasoning, which give them a primary stock of beliefs. According to Craig, the concept of knowledge has the function of picking out those potential informants upon whom we can rely in forming our beliefs. Of course, once we have the concept, we can employ it for purposes other than the one for which it was designed, and we can fail to employ it successfully for the purposes for which it was designed. But to understand why knowledge matters, we should look at what the concept of knowledge is f Not many critics could defend Craigs hypothesis against all objections, or rehearse his detailed defense of it. The objections are so obvious that it may seem that Craigs hypothesis wrongly classifies thermometers as knower's, and wrongly fails to classify as knower's those whose knowledge is not publically detectable as such. Craig avoids the first problem by appealing to the distinction between reliance upon an informant and reliance upon other sources of information.
This distinction is grounded in our interest in cooperation and communication: reliance upon an informant can be part of cooperation or communication with that informant, but no such thing is true of reliance upon other sources of information. Informants can take the credit or blame for the information that they provide, but sources of information cannot. Craig avoids the second problem by appealing to the necessarily social nature of the concept of knowledge. For the concept to be of value in communication, we must be able to share access to the instantiation of the property it signifies. However, Craigs methods of objection to Nozick's theory are fruitful at least in three ways. First, on the proposed generalization of Craigs hypothesis, Ss belief that p has some positive epistemic status just in case S is a creditable informant with respect to the issue whether p.
But if S is a creditable informant, then there is something about her that makes her so. This helps to account for the widespread intuition that to possess an epistemic status with respect to a particular proposition p is a matter of basing ones acceptance of p on better or worse grounds. Given a sufficiently broad construal of grounds, this is a point on which almost all interna lists and externalist's can agree. Where they differ is on the question of what sorts of things can be included in ones grounds, and what gives a particular ground its epistemic value, i. e. , its power to confer epistemic status upon a belief that is based on it. Thus, the proposed generalization of Craigs hypothesis enables us to give determinate content to disputes between interna lists and externalist's in epistemology, and to see how we should address such disputes.
Such disputes concern the question of what makes someone a creditable informant with respect to a given issue. And part of what we should do in order to resolve such disputes is to consider exactly how best to fashion our practice of regarding people as creditable informants with respect to particular issues. It could turn out that there are different equally good ways to fashion this practice, some internals and some externals. If that is the case, then we should no longer argue about whether internal ism or externalism is true.
They would both be true, albeit true of different (but equally good) epistemological practices. Second, the proposed generalization of Craigs hypothesis can help show us how to solve the familiar epistemological problem of the regress of grounds. Foundationalists, coherent ists, and infiniti sts disagree about what structure the epistemic grounds for our beliefs must have. Nevertheless, on the present view, this becomes a dispute about what structure there must be in the epistemic grounds for the beliefs of a creditable informant. To resolve this dispute, we should once again consider exactly how we should fashion our practice of regarding people as creditable informants. What should we require of someone in order to count them a creditable informant with respect to some issue?
If what we should require of them is just that their beliefs cohere, then coherent ism is true. If what we should require of them is just that their non-basic beliefs are all based on basic beliefs of some kind, then foundational ism is true, and so on. Once again, its possible that different practices of epistemic appraisal are all equally good on the whole, and that coherent ism is true relative to some such practices, foundational ism relative to others, and infiniti relative to others. Finally, and most importantly for present purposes, the proposed conception of epistemic status serves as a substantial constraint upon theories of epistemic norma tivity, and thereby gives substance to questions concerning what confers positive epistemic status upon the beliefs of common sense. Craig attempts to show that the use of the tracking analysis against skepticism is either impotent or redundant. He argues that to use Nozick's analysis against skepticism, we must assert that no skeptical world is a close world.
As such, then we either can or cannot assert that the actual world is a close world. If we can, then the actual world is not a skeptical world -- in which case we refute skepticism without appeal to tracking. If we cannot, then we cannot use tracking, since we do not know that the skeptical world is not close. Brueckner (1991) attempts to defend Nozick against Craig's accusation. Brueckner observes that Nozick's denial of the closure principle does not depend on any assumptions concerning the character of the actual world, nor on any presumption that the actual world is not a skeptical world (contra Bed). Of course, the skeptic could argue against Nozick by proposing a restricted closure principle not falsified by forth condition.
If the skeptic restricts forth condition so that an entailing p and an entailed q are such that false antecedent worlds are sufficiently close to false consequent worlds (in which case forth condition would not lead us to deny this restricted closure principle), then the skeptic needs to be able to assert that the actual world is a skeptical world, since non-SK worlds would not count as sufficiently close to SK worlds, and (p and p entails q) follows from a restricted closure principle only if pertinent false antecedent worlds are sufficiently close to false consequent worlds, which are SK worlds. As in Brueckner's observation above, here the skeptic again begs the question that the actual world is an SK world. Brueckner observes that the skeptic cannot, without inconsistency, accept Nozick's subjunctive analysis of knowledge. If the skeptic does, he must argue that one of the subjunctive conditionals are not satisfied by S's claiming to know that p. If the skeptic chooses, for instance, condition 3, he must show that in the world closest to the world in which p, S mistakenly believes that p. To show this, the skeptic must introduce relevant SK.
To introduce SK, however, is to maintain that SK obtains in the actual world (since it is in a world close to the actual world) -- this, however, is an unwarranted and question-begging claim. In response to Brueckner's demonstration, Craig replies that Nozick's account does not prove the skeptic wrong but only explains the possibility of knowledge of typical contingent truths. The skeptic can still maintain, without inconsistency, that even though knowledge is possible on this account, we have no reason whatever to believe that it is ever actual (62). That is, though the skeptic cannot consistently claim that certain conditions of knowledge fail to obtain, he can maintain that we still have no idea whether anyone has ever actually known anything or not. We can describe holographic vase example in a following way: Bert can point to a vase and say, That is beautiful, in the same manner on two occasions, and refer to its shape on one occasion, and its color on another for instance, in the context of a discussion with Ernie about favorite colors. It must be that what Bert refers to depends on features of the act other than the utterance and demonstration components.
Thus, we can fix character and vary cognitive significance. On the other hand, consider a science fiction example. Ernie is showing off his new invention, which unnoticeably vaporizes whatever object is on a certain platform and replaces it with a qualitatively identical holographic projection. He says proudly, pointing at the object, Bert, watch. That...
is not that, where the second that refers to the hologram. Although linguistic character and perceptual perspective are both fixed here, cognitive significance varies because Ernie and Bert know what the machine does. In Holographic vase example, we should generalize it by claiming that the various terms of epistemic appraisal are designed to flag informants that are creditable to various levels, or in various ways. Thus, it is epistemically better to have made sure that p than it is to be justified in believing that p, and again better to be justified in believing that p than to be merely entitled to believe that p, and so on. In general, to possess an epistemic status with respect to a particular proposition p is a matter of being a more or less creditable informant as to whether or not it is the case that p. This example is as much a proposal for how to use the term of art epistemic as Church's thesis is for how to use the term of art 'computable': both theses propose a good thing to mean by the term of art in question.
They are to be judged by appeal to their fruitfulness. Posing all the problems for Nozick's truth tracking theory described above it is necessary to discover what makes the reliability of these methods of information-acquisition detectable to normal people. How can we, who dont know the relevant science, tell that vision and recognition are trustworthy? This is a question that belongs to the study of our capacity to trust selectively. A proposed answer to the question how these concepts relate to Nozick's theory succeeds just in so far as it succeeds in answering the four component questions specified above. Of course, people may reasonably disagree about how well different methods succeed in answering these questions, but thats to be expected: at least there are substantial issues that theyre disagreeing about, and those issues can be settled by appeal to empirical facts about the particular information-acquisition processes and their reliability, facts about our interests in cooperation and communication, and facts about how those interests guide us in distinguishing informants from mere sources of information.
Bibliography: Brueckner, Anthony. Unfair to Nozick. Analysis 1991, p. 61 - 64. Brueckner, Anthony L.
Begging the Skeptics Question. Philosophical 1987, p. 523 - 529. Luper-Foy, St. (ed. ), 1987, The Possibility of Knowledge: Nozick and His Critics. Stroud, Barry. 1984.
The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism. Oxford University Press: Oxford. Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations, reprinted in The Possibility of Knowledge, Steven Luper-Foy, Ed. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield. 1987. a demon is committed to systematically fooling you.
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