Possible knowledge of unknown truth

Synthese 173 (1):41 - 52 (2010)
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Abstract

Fitch’s argument purports to show that for any unknown truth, p , there is an unknowable truth, namely, that p is true and unknown; for a contradiction follows from the assumption that it is possible to know that p is true and unknown. In earlier work I argued that there is a sense in which it is possible to know that p is true and unknown, from a counterfactual perspective; that is, there can be possible, non-actual knowledge, of the actual situation, that in that situation, p is true and unknown. Here I further elaborate that claim and respond to objections by Williamson, who argued that there cannot be non-trivial knowledge of this kind. I give conditions which suffice for such non-trivial counterfactual knowledge.

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Dorothy Edgington
Birkbeck, University of London

Citations of this work

Actuality and knowability.David J. Chalmers - 2011 - Analysis 71 (3):411-419.
What can we know about unanswerable questions?Thomas Raleigh - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.
Fitch's Paradox and Level-Bridging Principles.Weng Kin San - 2020 - Journal of Philosophy 117 (1):5-29.

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References found in this work

Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
On the Plurality of Worlds.David K. Lewis - 1986 - Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.
Naming and Necessity: Lectures Given to the Princeton University Philosophy Colloquium.Saul A. Kripke - 1980 - Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Edited by Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel.
Naming and necessity.Saul A. Kripke - 2010 - In Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel (eds.), Arguing about language. New York: Routledge. pp. 431-433.
Naming and Necessity.S. Kripke - 1972 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 45 (4):665-666.

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