8/9/2019 E, K, JB, And T for Analysis July 2010

1/5

8/9/2019 E, K, JB, And T for Analysis July 2010

2/5

My response rests on two assumptions. First, it assumes that ife is evidence for h, there issome explanatory connection between e and hs probability. The probability ofh is higher than itwould have been otherwise because of e.1 The second is that because is factive.2 The firstassumption might be controversial. It might be possible for e to be evidence for h even if theprobability ofh on the total evidence is not increased by the addition of e. Fine. There has to be

some necessary condition on evidential support for e to be evidence for h. It might be a highlydisjunctive condition, but whatever that condition is, C is that condition. Unless e is evidence forh entails h satisfies C, e is not evidence for h. To argue against Factivity, you have to start with aputative counterexample in which (i) is true:

(i) e is evidence for h.This entails:

(ii) Because ofe, h satisfies C.But, this entails:

(iii) e is true.If (iii) is true, the example is not a potential counterexample to Factivity. If (iii) is false, (i) is false,and so the example is not a potential counterexample to any claims about what it takes for e to be

evidence forh. Essentially the same argument establishes that justifying reasons have to be factive,too. Ifp is a justifying reason for believing q, there must be some condition C such that belief in q

satisfies C ifp is a justifying reason for believing q. That p is a justifying reason for believing qentails that belief in q satisfies C. (This condition could be the trivial condition that something is ajustifying reason for believing q.) This entails thatp is true.

My response assumes because is factive. It is. Consider:(4) The colonists protested because the tea was taxed. Not only that,

the tea was taxed.(5) He knows that they are confused and angry protestors. Indeed,

they are confused and angry protestors.(6) I have someone in my family that is a member of the tea party

movement. Indeed, I have precisely one member of my familywho is a member of the tea party movement. Thank goodness Idont have two yet.

You cannot reinforce entailments (e.g., in (4) and (5)), but you can reinforce pragmaticallyimparted information (e.g., in (6)) (Stanley 2008).3

This seems contradictory and this seems to provide further support for the factivity ofbecause:

(7) The bolt snapped because there were too many people on thebridge, but nobody was on the bridge.

This would not be surprising if these were equivalent:(8) The bolt snapped because there were too many people on the

bridge.

(9) There were too many people on the bridge. Thats why the boltsnapped.

These do seem to be equivalent. It seems contradictory to assert (8) and (~9) or to assert (~8) and(9). It seems you cannot reinforce (8) with (9) or vice-versa.

1 Thanks to [omit] for raising this worry.2 Thanks to [omit] for raising this worry.3 Stanley credits the point to Sadock (1978).

8/9/2019 E, K, JB, And T for Analysis July 2010

3/5

Finally, consider Rizzieris example. Suppose he was under the impression that LD wastrue and so thought he had evidence that O was true. Suppose he said as he was leaving his office:

(10) Nobody will get into the office because the door is locked.Later, we discover that the door had not locked. We cannot say that he knew (10) was true whenhe uttered (10). Why not? He had excellent evidence for (10). He believed (10). If because is

not factive, (10) could be true. I suspect the reason you cannot say someone knew (10) was true isthat (10) is false if the explanans proposition is false.The objection to Factivity fails, but what should we say about evidence and justification?

The objection to Factivity assumed Justified Basis and that there can be false, justified beliefs:(JFB) Ifp is a contingent worldly proposition, it is possible for

you to justifiably believep even if ~p.Williamson and his critics agree that JFB is true. Should they? The argument for Factivity seems toshow that you cannot consistently accept JFB and Justified Basis. I think Williamsons critics areright to accept Justified Basis. Williamson and his critics seem to agree on this:

(Proper Basis) If you justifiably believe p, you have some justifyingreason for believingp and your belief is based on it.

Ifp

is non-inferentially justified, maybe your belief inp

is based directly on the fact or some factivemental state (e.g., seeing thatp). Given the argument for Factivity, it is obvious that such a beliefcan only be justified if true. The content of the belief and the justifying reason are the same. Ifp isinferentially justified, it is either based on propositions that entail p or propositions that do notentailp. If the former, given the argument for Factivity, you cannot justifiably believep if ~p.

Those are the easy cases. What about cases of inferential belief based on non-entailingevidence? Could these be cases where you justifiably believe a false proposition on the basis of truepropositions? Williamson thinks so, but here is a reason to be skeptical. Consider:

(Same Basis) If you and another subject both believep on the basis of a justifying reason, these will only be different justifyingreasons if your justifying reasons for believing p differ orthere is some difference in your non-factive mental states.

The thought behind Same Basis is that your justifying reasons for believing something are not justjustifying reasons (i.e., facts), they are the things you treat as if they are reasons and that dependsupon your mental states rather than the facts. Let me introduce one further assumption:

(J-Closure) If your belief in p is justified, you have sufficient justification for believing the obvious consequences ofpand can justifiably believe these consequences if thesebeliefs are arrived at by means of competent deduction.4

You believe p on the basis of non-entailing evidence, r. You are the non-factive mentalduplicate of someone who believesp on the basis ofrin ap-world. Are you also in ap-world? Yes.You both deduce q fromp because you both know that q is an obvious consequence ofp. Accordingto J-Closure, you both justifiably believe q. According to Same Basis, you both believe q for the

reason that p. According to Proper Basis, you justifiably believe q only ifp is a justifying reason.But, Factivity says, this is true only ifp is true. So, yes, you are in ap-world.

Ifp is non-inferentially justified, Proper Basis says that p is the justifying reason forbelievingp. Factivity says thatp must be true. Ifp is inferentially justified and based on entailing

4 Comesaa and Kantin (2010) claim that this principle causes trouble for E=K and Factivity.Here, I try to turn their argument against Williamson against them and against JFB.

8/9/2019 E, K, JB, And T for Analysis July 2010

4/5

evidence, Factivity implies that p is true. Ifp is inferentially justified and based on non-entailingevidence,p still turns out to be true. So, JFB is false.

I dont know how Williamson would try to block the argument. In his discussion ofperceptual error, he says:

In unfavorable circumstances, one fails to gain perceptual

knowledge, perhaps because things are not the way they appear to be. One does not know that things are that way, and E = Kexcludes the proposition that they are as evidence. Nevertheless,one still has perceptual evidence, even if the propositions itsupports are false. True propositions can make a false propositionprobable, as when someone is skillfully framed for a crime ofwhich she is innocent. If perceptual evidence in the case ofillusions consists of true propositions, what are they? The obviousanswer is: the proposition that things appear to be that way. Themountain appears to be that shape (2000: 197).

Williamson can say that your evidence in the case of illusion consists of propositions about

appearances and say that this is the evidence the belief is based on. If he says this and also acceptsSame Basis, he has to say that our beliefs cannot be based on evidence that consists of propositionsabout the external world. Either, this means that our knowledge of the external world cannotjustify our beliefs or we cannot have knowledge of the external world. He wouldnt want to saysuch things. So, should he deny Same Basis? To say that someone based her belief on such and suchreasons is to say, in part, that the reasons for which they believe are such and such. The form sucha reason explanation takes should not depend upon whether the agents beliefs are true or false(Dancy 1995: 13; Williams 1981). Rizzieri stresses this point in his discussion and I think he isright to do so.

What about Proper Basis? Those who deny Proper Basis have to say that its possible for abelief to be justified even if its not based on evidence. Anyone who denies Proper Basis faces adilemma. Either they have to say you do not need evidence forp to justifiably believe it or theyhave to say that you have to have evidence but dont have to base your beliefs on it. If Williamsonsays we do not need evidence that supports our beliefs to justifiably hold these beliefs, he cannotthen say that knowledge is what justifies belief. But this is central to his account of evidence.Should we say instead that justified belief doesnt have to be based on evidence? I think not. Wewant to capture the intuition that someone who believes on the evidence is epistemically better offthan if they just happen to have evidence that supports what they would have believed anyway. Totake a stock example, if the racist is aware of evidence that supports their beliefs but is moved bytheir prejudice and not the evidence, their beliefs do not count as justified because they happen tohave reasons that a right thinking person would recognize as good reasons.

We know why Williamson accepts JFB:Knowledge figures in the account primarily as what justifies, not as

what gets justified. Knowledge can justify a belief which is not itselfknowledge, for the justification relation is not deductive (2000: 9).

I agree that the justification relation is not deductive. You can justifiably believep on the basis ofnon-entailing evidence. This does not force us to accept JFB. The justification of a belief is lockedup if your evidence rules out the possibility of error. The justification of a belief depends on what itis based on andwhat it can do for you. A belief is not justified if it cannot provide reasons forfurther beliefs. True beliefs based on sufficiently strong but non-entailing evidence can do that, butfalse beliefs based on the same evidence cannot. This is why there cannot be false, justified beliefs.

8/9/2019 E, K, JB, And T for Analysis July 2010

5/5

The mistake I think Williamson makes is in thinking that the justificatory standing of abelief is fixed by what the belief stands on, its basis or the evidence that supports it. Williamsonscritics make the same mistake in attacking his view. The justificatory standing of a belief depends,in part, upon whether it stands on a proper basis, but also upon whether it can shoulder its burdenin providing support for further beliefs. Given the arguments for Factivity, only true beliefs can do

that. Given the arguments against JFB, there is no reason to think that only beliefs based onentailing evidence can do that. So, Williamsons remark that the justification relation is notdeductive is correct, but potentially misleading.

So, what are justifying reasons? Roughly, justifying reasons are what you believe when youbelieve with justification.5 Does this mean that evidence is not knowledge? Not necessarily. Itdoes mean that evidence and justifying reasons are facts and the distance between knowledge andjustified belief is not nearly so great as Williamson and his critics tend to believe.

References:Comesaa, J. and H. Kantin. 2010. Is Evidence Knowledge? Philosophy and Phenomenological

Research 80: 447-54.

Conee, E. and R. Feldman. 2008. Evidence. In Q. Smith (ed.)Epistemology: New Essays

. New York:Oxford University Press: 83-104.Dancy, J. 1995. Why There Really is No Such Thing as a Theory of Motivation. Proceedings of the

Aristotelian Society95: 1-18.Goldman, A. 2009. Williamson on Knowledge and Evidence. In P. Greenough and D. Pritchard

(ed.) Williamson on Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press: 73-92.Lowy, C. 1978. Gettiers Notion of Justification. Mind87: 105-08.Rizzieri, A. Forthcoming. Evidence Does Not Equal Knowledge. Philosophical Studies.Sadock, J. 1978. On Testing Conversational Implicature. Syntax and Semantics 9: Pragmatics: 281-

97.Stanley, J. 2008. Knowledge and Certainty. Philosophical Issues 18: 33-55.Sutton, J. 2005. Stick to What You Know. Nous 39: 359-96.Williams, B. 1981. Moral Luck. New York: Cambridge University Press.Williamson, T. 2000. Knowledge and its Limits. New York: Oxford University Press.

5 According to Sutton (2005), justified beliefs are items of knowledge. I think this is wrong, butthere is not space here to give a detailed explanation as to why Gettier cases shows that justifiedbeliefs need not be knowledge. Comesaa and Kantin (2010) will naturally object that anyone whodenies JFB denies that there are Gettier cases. I think this is wrong, too. This neglects a distinctionbetween a believerbeing justified in believing a false proposition and a belief in a false proposition being justified. This distinction played an important role in defending Gettier from misguidedobjections. See Lowy (1978) for discussion.