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    Philosophical Issues, 21, The Epistemology of Perception, 2011

    ON A FORM OF SKEPTICAL ARGUMENT FROM POSSIBILITY1

    Rogers Albritton

    Deceased. Long at Harvard and UCLA

    I.

    I have been intermittently obsessed for years with a certain form of

    skeptical argument from possibility, as I will say. The idea of it is ancient

    and familiar. Its that anythings possible, as we say, so you never know,as we also say. Anythings possible, so you never know. More expansively:

    you can always or practically always be wrong; but if you know, you cant

    be wrong; so, you never or practically never know. Thats it, really, wrapped

    up in old newspaper and string. You may wonder what this package could

    contain that wasnt rightly thrown out long ago. J.L. Austin dealt with it in

    1946, for example, in a section of Other Minds headed If I know I cant

    be wrong, and one might suppose that he had gotten rid of it forever. But

    you will gather that I dont think he did, brilliant as that essay was and is.

    Three preliminary points: (1) That if you know, you cant be wrongmight mean only that you cant both know and be wrong. From this generally

    agreed necessity that what you know be true, no necessity follows, of course,

    that what you know be a necessary truth or anything of the kind. Nor does

    the argument from possibility turn on any such modal fallacy or confusion.

    The principle of itthat if you know, you cant be wrongis, rather, this:

    that if, clearly, you may be wrong that p, you dont know that p. If you have

    been looking into the question whether p or not, and its looking as if p, but

    some possibility remains that not-p, then you dont yet know that p. Or if

    it isnt that youve been looking into the question, but youve heard that p,or you seem to remember that p, or youve always taken it for granted that

    pnever mind how you got it into your head that pand you have to admit

    that you may be wrong (you arent certain), then you dont know that p. You

    cant say, or think, Well, of course Im not certain that p, but all the same,

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    a waste of time, looking here. I told you it couldnt be here. Oh, here it is.

    All right, I was wrong. That it is here proves that whoever said it might be

    was right, I think, however groundless his hunch that it might be was, and

    it also proves that whoever said it couldnt be was wrong, however obviousit seemed that he was right; but it does not prove that whoever said it might

    not be was wrong, or that whoever said it had to be was right.

    (3) Fred Dretske and, later, Robert Nozick have urged in print that the

    set of things you know not only is not closed under logical implication, as

    Nozick puts it, but also is not closed under logical implication that is evident

    to you. That you are awake logically implies that you are not dreaming, and

    that implication is no doubt evident to you. But it doesnt follow that you

    dont know youre awake unless you also know youre not dreaming. If thats

    true, as I think it may well be, it looks as if it ought to be a great help inbashing philosophical skepticism. It is, however, no help in combatting the

    argument from possibility, which does not rely on any principle of epistemic

    closure. Modal closure can come into convincing you that most things you

    thought you knew, taken one by one, may be false. (Do you know where

    you were born? Isnt it possible that your parents lied, for unknown reasons,

    in telling you you were born there? Well then, its possible that you werent

    born there after all.) Modal closure, however, unlike epistemic closure, seems

    undeniable under any kind of implication, whether evident to anyone or

    not. If given that not-q, not-p, and if perhaps not-q, then at least perhapsnot-p, or if just conceivably (epistemic just conceivably) not-q, then just

    conceivably, at least, not-p. The only role of urging that you dont know

    youre not dreaming, in an argument from possibility, is to make room for

    the allegation that you may be. It doesnt of course follow, if you dont know

    you arent dreaming, that you may be, even from your point of view, much

    less from our point of view. But if you dont know you arent dreaming, then

    you are at least deprived of that defense against the suggestion that you may

    be, and you will be hard put to come up with any other. To all this, epistemic

    closure and nonclosure are irrelevant.

    II.

    Now for Austin. He says in Other Minds:

    When you know you cant be wrong is perfectly good sense. You are prohibited

    from saying I know it is so, but I may be wrong, just as you are prohibited

    from saying I promise I will, but I may fail. If you are aware that you may be

    mistaken, you ought not to say you know, just as, if you are aware you may break

    your word, you have no business to promise. But of course, being aware that you

    may be mistaken doesnt mean merely being aware that you are a fallible human

    being: it means that you have some concrete reason to suppose that you may be

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    4 Rogers Albritton

    mistaken in this case. Just as but I may fail does not mean merely but I am

    a weak human being (in which case it would be no more exciting than adding

    D.V.): it means that there is some concrete reason for me to suppose that I shall

    break my word. It is naturally always possible (humanly possible) that I maybe mistaken or may break my word, but that by itself is no bar against using the

    expressions I know and I promise as we do in fact use them. (1946: 170)

    Thus Austin.

    You are prohibited, you ought not, you have no business, he

    says, as if the trouble with I know it is so, but I may be wrong or

    I promise I will, but I may fail were a species of naughtiness. But it

    isnt, as I suppose he might agree. Its a species of what could quite naturally

    be called contradiction even in the case of I promise I will, but I mayfail, which, as he taught us, isnt as propositional as it looks. I promise I

    will in its promising use (which isnt, of course, its only use) doesnt say

    anything true or false, as Ill put it for short. I know it is so, on the other

    hand, has every appearance of doing just that: saying a true or false thing,

    like Daddy knows best, and not just saying that whatever is in question is

    so, either. Even It is so, I know, with I know parenthetical, in Urmsons

    term for such clauses, seems not to say only that it is so. I know it is so, at

    any rate, makes a strongly propositional impression; and I know it is so, but

    I may be wrong might, therefore, be a contradiction narrowly so called, forall Austin has told us to the contrary. Of course, propositional appearances

    can be false, or so we nervously think now, and one might well wonder if I

    may be wrong is as propositional as it looks, even if I know it is so is.

    But all the same, it seems fair to say that both I know it is so, but I may

    be wrong and I promise I will, but I may fail are cut out, absurdly, for

    a kind of self-contradiction. I cant quite honestly promise that I will keep

    our rendezvous if I think I may die on the way there, and thats logic, as it

    were, not morals. I promise to be there, but I may be unable to get there

    cancels itself, however useful it might rhetorically be for some purpose. Andthe same goes for I know it is so, but I may be wrong, which cancels itself

    as smartly as I know it is so, but I dont or I know it is so, but for all I

    know it isnt. Or so it seems to me.

    Austin doesnt actually deny anything Ive said thus far, to be sure, and

    perhaps he wouldnt. Instead he rather breezily writes as if it werent the

    point, or didnt matter. But why doesnt it, if it doesnt? To be sure, one

    feels dimly that it cant matter, that contradiction or no contradiction one

    just does know all sorts of things even though one may be wrong as to

    practically any of them. Thinking practically anything is risky, and thinkingyou know it is riskier; life is risk, and nevertheless we know a lot. Dont

    we? Even if you cant say that while you may be wrong and it may be that

    France is not in Europe, nevertheless you know that it is: isnt that exactly

    the position, whether you can say so or not? It is naturally always possible,

    Austin says with the parenthetical gloss humanly possible, that I may be

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    mistaken. Earlier on the same page he is a little more cautious: we seem

    always, or practically always, liable to be mistaken (my emphasis). How

    true, one thinks. We are practically always liable to be mistaken, maybe

    even always. Its our condition. But weve known that for centuries, haventwe? And yet we go right on saying we know it, and a lot else. So, we do.

    After all, the sun does rise and set, since we continue to say so even now that

    we know (as we suppose) the astronomical facts of the matter. The meaning

    of what we say conforms itself to what we know. How could it not? So even

    though you may be wrong, you know, often enough; unless perhaps you may

    well be wrong, which might be a bit much. But even knowing in the teeth of a

    strong possibility of mistake may be manageable. Who knows? The meaning

    of know must be rather relaxed by now. Perhaps its very relaxed, and we

    know even more than we think!But then, as one thinks it all over in this not altogether cheering way,

    trying to cozy up to it that knowing neednt after all be knowing, so to

    speak, one does feel the need of explaining away somehow that I know it

    is so, but I may be wrong seems no less unutterable with a straight face

    than if we hadnt long ago given up the quest for certainty, whenever we did

    that. And there, Austin is not very helpful. If you are aware that you may

    be mistaken, you ought not to say you know, he says. That is, I suppose,

    you will be lying if you door would Austin not admit that? In any case, he

    goes on, after another distracting parallel with I promise: But of course,being aware that you may be mistaken doesnt mean merely being aware

    that you are a fallible human being: it means that you have some concrete

    reason to suppose that you may be mistaken in this case. Just as but I may

    fail does not mean merely but I am a weak human being. . .: it means that

    there is some concrete reason to suppose that I shall break my word. Is

    Austin suggesting that the sentence or clause I may be mistaken or I

    may be wrong means, in some contexts, that there is concrete reason to

    suppose that I may be? It doesnt, of course. All it means is that one may be

    mistaken, or may be wrong. But perhaps the point is that one gives peopleto understand by saying the sentence, and leaving it at that, that one does

    have some concrete reason to suppose that one may be mistaken or wrong,

    in the case at hand. If so, that implicature, in Grices term, should be

    easy to cancel. Like this: I know he is honest. But I may be mistaken. I

    have no concrete reason, in this case, to suppose that I may be mistaken,

    much less that I am mistaken. But then, I didnt in that other case, either,

    though as you will recall I was disastrously mistaken, there. So if I were you,

    I wouldnt count on it that Im not mistaken again. Obviously, I may be. I

    wouldnt say, may well be. This chap is extremely convincing. But he maybe dishonest, of course. Nevertheless, as I was saying, I know hes honest.

    Thats the position.

    But this position doesnt exist. No implicature, if thats what it is, has

    been cancelled. On the contrary, the speaker has absurdly undermined what

    would have been a pretension to know, if he had said as much and shut up.

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    Or does he know? Perhaps he does, and should have said so at the end, if not

    at the beginning, more emphatically, in which case he would have cancelled

    his rambling concession that he might be mistaken.

    The fact is, I know and I may be mistaken cant be gotten througha logical intersection by adroit steering and some sounding of horns. They

    inexorably collide. Its no good saying, Well, I dont really know, but still

    I know, for example. If you dont really know, you dont know, though it

    doesnt follow that you had no business to say you did. We tolerate, rightly,

    we even welcome, a lot of loose talk. It saves time, and neednt mislead

    anybody. We all know what you mean when you say I know hes honest,

    I can feel it. We may congratulate you on your instinct in the matter of

    this shady type if he doesnt steal the spoons. But what you mean doesnt

    alter what what you say means. Saying a thing loosely isnt therefore sayinga looser thing. There may be no conveniently short way of saying the looser

    thing, indeed. You dont only believe the man is honest, or only feel that he

    is. It is as if you know he is, even if you dont exactly, quite. But we dont

    have all day for you to explain the position. So you say you know he is

    honest, trusting us to take it as you mean it, not au pied de la lettre. The

    spirit giveth life. All right. But the letter of a language isnt altered by just a

    lot of spirited or relaxed, unbuttoned talk, even year after year, if thats how

    the talk is taken, as it typically is. In short, the meaning of I know might

    be quite strict in the matter of whether you know if you may be wrong. Thatwe use the expression as we do in fact use it is no proof to the contrary, and

    the absurdity of I know it is so, but I may be wrong suggests that in this

    respect I know is quite strict, even if we are commonly not inconveniently

    strict in our use of it. It suggests, that is, that (after all) we dont know where

    we may be wrong, no matter how often and unobjectionably we say we do

    in a loose way of saying so.

    Austin would resist this suggestion, it seems; but I dont see that he gives

    any reason to resist it, or explains how exactly it is to be resisted. It would no

    doubt be ridiculous to think that the whole use of I know is more or lessloose, as if we never meant it quite seriously and it were in effect everywhere

    elliptical for I know well enough or I know for all practical purposes.

    That, I suppose, would be an incoherent idea; and the alternative idea that

    we mean it strictly, often enough, but are everywhere wrong that we know, by

    the argument from possibility or some other, is fantastic, or we wouldnt be

    having this conference. But how awful is the awful truth that we are fallible

    human beings? Are we so fallible that perhaps were gartersnakes and not

    human beings, if we only knew it? Or perhaps were human beings, all right,

    but human beings are gartersnakes. Is that in the cards? Austin writes asif it were. (It is naturally always possible (humanly possible) that I may

    be mistaken.) We are fallible human beings, unless were gartersnakes, as

    one might say with a little smile, but of course I dont mean to excite you.

    Did I excite you? I do apologize. I only meant unless were gartersnakes as

    one might say D.V.

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    On a Form of Skeptical Argument from Possibility 7

    Something is going wrong there, surely. Is it yesterdays news that we

    may be gartersnakes? I would have thought not. On the contrary, it seems

    a demented idea. What if it is, and lots of other such ideas are, and in fact

    we are not practically always liable to be mistaken? There might in thatcase be room for us to know a lot, or enough, even if the argument from

    possibility were valid. Enough I mean, to secure a contrast, in our use of

    I know, between strictly and not so strictly so saying; and that, in turn,

    would make a kind of room that might otherwise have seemed unavailable

    for the annoying suggestion that our use of I know (and you know and

    she knows and so on) is in very large part not strict. I dont accept that

    suggestion, myself, any more than (I suppose) Austin would. But I dont see

    that his remarks have any force against it.

    And I would expect a thoroughgoing skeptic to be unimpressed by thecontrast between concrete reasons to suppose that one may be mistaken

    in a particular case, as distinguished from other, similar cases, and general

    reasons to suppose that one may be mistaken in any such case. We are sadly

    fallible for example. How is that general reflection deficient in concreteness?

    The point is not that we are fallible human beings in some thin sense

    in which it verges on incoherence to suppose about a human being that hes

    infallible. The point is, we make lots of mistakes. We are far from infallible.

    My skeptic will remind me of the embarrassing day when I discovered, in

    a class on skepticism, that Albania is not somewhere between Russia andChina, and of the other day in, I believe, another class on skepticism when

    I discovered that I had firmly confused a certain undergraduate before me

    with a certain absent graduate student. To be sure, I have never taken anyone

    else for my mother. But has no one? Could no one?

    Again, that isnt a logical question. Its the question whether as the

    world goes its impossible in the nature of things or on the contrary possible,

    though no doubt unlikely, that a sane grownup should be taken in by someone

    who is not his mother, assume that she is his mother, and be flat wrong. Are

    people infallible when it comes to their mothers? Of course not.The argument, here, is from natural possibility to epistemic possibility.

    Imagine a philanthropic lottery in which almost everyone wins, but to keep

    things exciting, though not very, there are a few losing tickets. I have a ticket,

    like all the others. I have no concrete reason to suppose that it, in particular,

    as distinguished from others, may lose. But this lottery is so set up that some

    tickets do lose. Thats a perfectly concrete fact about the lottery, and is a

    compelling reason (other things being equal) to suppose that this ticket Ive

    bought may lose. I dont know that it will, but I dont know that it wont,

    either. Why dont I know that it wont? Because it might and therefore may,obviously. So I dont know that it will win, rosy as it is like all the others. I

    may say I do. Its a winner. I just know it! But I dont, if the lottery is a

    fair lottery and I have no mysterious powers.

    Why arent what we take for things we know like that, like tickets in

    a lottery about which we know, if we know anything, that there are losers

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    among these indistinguishable tickets? Ive bought this thing, so to speak:

    namely, that Monaco is smaller than the Soviet Union, say. Its a winner. Im

    sure of it. I cant believe it isnt. On the other hand, there was that loser about

    Albania. There are losers, among the things people think they know, haveevery reason to think they know, and cant, out of their heads, distinguish

    from any of the other similar things they think they know. Can I refuse to

    admit that this one about the relative sizes of Monaco and the Soviet Union

    may lose, might be wrong: not logically might, but actually might, might

    conceivably in the ordinary sense, which again isnt merely logical? Is it

    inconceivable that I am mixed up even on this point, as I was about the

    location of Albania? I have no special reason to think I am, certainly, or

    even may be. But do I need one? Isnt there concrete reason all the same to

    think that I may be? But now, if I do admit that I may be, might be wrong,and Monaco may be, might be, for all that I cant believe it, as big as the

    Soviet Union or bigger, do I, seriously speaking, know that it isnt? Surely I

    dont. Isnt it like the lottery? Isnt it even probable that among the things I in

    particular think I know, some that I cant identifyin my present position,

    at leastare wrong? Why not this one? I cant believe it, but thats the point:

    even things people cant believe are wrong are, sometimes, wrong. So even

    a thing that I cant believe is wrong may be wrong. This one, for example;

    that Monaco is smaller than the Soviet Union. So I dont actually know that

    Monaco is smaller than the Soviet Union.Thats the argument, again. Does Austin explain it away? I dont see that

    he does. May be (or might be), in the use the argument makes of it,

    isnt ambiguous. Its the may be of she may be for all I know or the

    might be of She might be, I suppose. Who knows? (Could be has the

    same use: She could be; dont ask me.) The argument doesnt equivocate

    on any of these expressions. I may be wrong means nothing different in

    I may be wrong; he denies he did it, and she says he was with her from

    what it means in I may be wrong, I suppose; Im not infallible. Moreover,

    the paradox of I know it is so, but I may be wrong does not yield to themethod by which Moores paradox, Its raining, but I dont believe it can

    (apparently) be shown to be merely pragmatic, namely by recasting it in

    the third person: Its raining, but he doesnt believe it. He knows it is so,

    but he may be wrong is as bad as I know it is so, but I may be wrong.

    (He promises he will, but he may fail is, of course, all right. But it isnt a

    transform of I promise I will, but I may fail.)

    One thinks: Well, wait a minute. I know it is so, but I may be wrong

    cant be a contradiction, because surely the clash of it derives from the

    clash of It is so, with it may not be, which isnt contradiction. Thatit may not be so doesnt logically imply that it is not so. You cant locate

    people by eliminating all the places they may not be, as if they could only

    be where they must be. So its obvious that It is so, but it may not be

    doesnt contradict itself. If a thing may not be so, it can, nevertheless,

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    be so. (That can is logical, of course.) So why cant we know what

    may not be so, when it nevertheless is so? And therefore know what we

    may be wrong about, but arent wrong about? I know it is so, but I

    may be wrong is an absurd thing to say, and its absurdity is in a wayincurable; but one doesnt contradict oneself by saying it, so whats the

    problem?

    Answer: In the first place, it isnt clear that the absurdity of I know

    it is so, but I may be wrong does derive from that of It is so, but it may

    not be, and therefore isnt the absurdity of self-contradiction. It may derive

    instead from the clash of some other implication of I know that it is so

    with I may be wrong. What if I know that it is so meant something

    like I can see that it cant be false and I may be wrong, in the context,

    implied, as it seems to, that the thing in question may be false? In that case,I know it is so, but I may be wrong would express a contradiction narrowly

    so calledor pretty narrowly so called, depending on how propositional it

    cant be and it may be are, in this epistemic use. Their conflict is surely

    logical, in a sense, in any case. Its logically out that a thing may be false

    and yet I can see that it cant be false.

    In the second place, suppose that the trouble with I know it is so, but I

    may be wrong isnt that it says anything self-contradictory, any more than

    It is so, but it may not be does. Does that matter? Isnt the point, rather,

    this: that by I know it is so one unavoidably represents oneself as beingin a certain position with regard to the question whether it is so or not, a

    position, namely, of entitlement to say that it is, to assert flatly that it is. Not:

    It is so, God willing. Or: It is so, unless Im wrong. But simply: It is so. It is

    so, if Im not mistaken is all right. I know it is so, if Im not mistaken is

    not in the same way all right (though it might be put to good transitory use

    by someone who for the time being felt a little unsureas one canwhether

    he really knew what he seemed to know, or not). The position of knowing a

    thing just is one or another position to take it as true, flat, definite, and, to

    say it, if there is occasion to do so, without any such qualification as unlessIm wrong or if Im not mistaken. And of course if one says but I may

    be wrong or anything of the kind, one unavoidably represents oneself as

    precisely not in that position. Theres no having it both ways. Either youre

    in a position to take it that p, or you arent. And if you arent, you dont

    know that p, strictly speaking, however tolerable and convenient it may be

    for you to say you do.

    Thats the problem, and it isnt dissolved by suggesting, as Austin does,

    that Deo Volente isnt an exciting addition to what would otherwise be flat

    promises, and that a similar addition to what would otherwise be flat claimsto know isnt very exciting either. D.V added onto I promise that I will

    converts I promise that I will into the lesser promise that I will if I possibly

    can, in effect, which is unexciting because thats no doubt about as much as

    I would have been understood to mean anyway, except by a child who hasnt

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    caught on yet, or by God, who doesnt go for D.V as a qualification of

    promises to Him, I bet. But with knowing, the case is different. I know

    that Monaco is smaller than the Soviet Union, unless of course it isnt is

    nonsense, and so are the rest of that tribe of inconsistent representationsof ones epistemic position. The addition of but I may be wrong doesnt

    convert I know it is so into a claim to know rather less than that it is so,

    as far as I can see. I know it is so, but I may be wrong has no use. If it

    said anything, it would say that I both am not and may be mistaken that it

    is so: that is, it would represent me as both in and not in a position to know

    that the thing is so, which I can hardly be. A possibility we may neglect is

    a possibility. Not quite being in a certain position is a variety of not being

    in it. The argument that since anythings possible, you never know, as one

    might put it, may or may not be formally valid. My guess is that it isnt. Butit seems presuppositionally valid at worst. If Im in no position to reject

    it that I may be wrong, then I dont simply know; in other words, I simply

    dont.

    Am I pervasively in no position to reject it that I may be wrong, as the

    argument from possibility supposes? If so, I see in Austins discussion no

    means of evading the conclusion that I dont know anything like as much as

    I think (so to speak). Not that I have adequately discussed that discussion.

    Indeed, I have skirted its centerpiece: the analogy between I know and I

    promise, on which Austin expands for pages. I dont deny the analogy. Iknow its there is, among other things, intrinsically performative. So is

    Its there, I know. And so is Its there. Even the undecorated declarative

    sentence is, among other things, performative: it cant be said straight

    without putting what it says on offer, as it werea lesser performance than

    of straightsaying I know its there, but a performance of the same genre.

    Indeed, It is so, but I dont know that it is is itself malformed, if not

    ill formed. What I dont see is how these analogies with I promise,

    You have my word, I guarantee it, and so on, defeat the argument from

    possibility.

    III.

    Whats wrong with the argument, then, that couldnt be cleaned up if we

    had the time? Its the possibilities, I think. In some sense they arent there in

    sufficient quantity for the arguments skeptical purpose. They cant be, since

    in fact one knows a lot.

    I know perfectly well not only that I was born and the like, asG.E. Moore would invite me to notice, but also that I was born in Ohio,

    not in Albania, and that Monaco isnt a patch on the Soviet Union,

    and so forth and so forth. We know a lot. We cant in good faith think

    otherwise, if we keep our heads. And if we dont keep our heads and do

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    think otherwise, we do so inconsistently with what we know perfectly well,

    namely that we know a lot. One can work up a certain enthusiasm for the

    idea that we dont know anything. Think of the freedom of it! The vista

    of possibilities! Everything unstuck, as far as the eye of the mind can see!Enormous Monaco, perhaps, with its steppes, its tundras! The moon just

    possibly so tasty that it beats Roquefort! Every one of us a genius, maybe!

    But in truth, its not like that in the least, and if it were, so to speak, we

    could not entertain any possibilities whatever, nice or nasty. Nothing would

    make them possibilities. Epistemic possibilities are grounded in fact. We who

    so variously think all sorts of things are necessarily stuck with an equally

    various stock of what we can only call knowledge, if we call it anything of the

    kind. An immense stock. Its laughable, for the most part, to call it belief,

    as if I believed that I am not dead, for example, or have knees. Whats tobelieve?

    There is not, I do not face, any possibility that I have no knees. Not

    that its impossible that I have no knees. What it is, as Wittgensteins On

    Certainty has I think taught me, is senseless in my present position, that I

    may or cant have no knees. Ive got it, indeed Im stuck with it, for the

    present, that I have knees. And that puts it out of question whether I may or

    cant have none.

    Do I, perhaps, if thats right, not know, but as it were better than

    know, that I have knees? As to that, On Certainty oscillates, and I havedark misgivings. But on balance, I count myself as one who knows perfectly

    well that he has knees. Wittgensteins suggestion that I shouldnt, because

    the use of I know is too specialized to permit that I know, or dont, that

    I have knees (and the like) leaves me obstinate (cf. Wittgenstein 1969: ss.

    111). But the use of (epistemic) may, cant, must and their kind does,

    I believe, deprive me of it that I may conceivably have no knees, cant have

    no knees, must have knees or anything of the kind. And thats the usual

    position among us, if anyone wants to know, though other, more poignant

    positions are of course imaginable.Is anything impossible, then, in, in the relevant sense? Yes, of course,

    though impossibles are interestingly harder to think of than sillies. Its

    impossible, I take it, that every mailman simply loves his job. Do they all

    say they do? Well, then, theyre lying. Or the poll was faked, or God knows

    what; but dont tell me that just maybe there isnt a single mailman alive who

    doesnt find it enthralling to deliver all that mail. I wasnt born yesterday.

    The thing is impossible.

    So do I know that not every mailman loves his job? Well, no, not exactly.

    Know it? I dont even know any mailmen. But of course it isnt that I dontknow but what every mailman does simply love his job, either. Here I know

    and I dont know do seem adrift. We dont say we know in such cases, or

    that we dont know either. The linguistic facts are very complicated, in this

    matter of knowledge and possibility. Theres no help for it.

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    IV.

    Am I making any progress? I wonder. But before I look for more

    precise pressure points, I want to say one thing that must be said, howeverbaldly. Antiskeptics and skeptics alike should resist as a wicked seduction the

    ecumenical proposal that although there is a high or deep sense or way of

    knowing in which only a god or one with a god in him could know the time

    of day, there is surely another, quite humble little sense or way of knowing

    enough to come in out of the rain, which isnt threatened by the argument

    from possibility. In the film of The Great Gatsby, Karen Black, as I recall,

    says savagely to Bruce Dern, I believe, Youre so dumb you dont even know

    youre alive! Its hard to believe that were that dumb. Dont we in some low

    sense know were alive, even though we may be dead, and where we are, eventhough we may be elsewhere?

    That seems to me wrong. And the correlative idea that skepticism is

    irrefutable if it sticks to a terrific sense of know is wrong. There is no

    such sense, that mysteriously attaches itself to the word know if you say

    it dramatically enough. I put it to you, sir, that you dont actually know

    which end is up, now do you? In all honesty, you wouldnt defy the deity

    on the most elementary point of logic, would you? Would you actually defy

    the deity, you miserable little philosopher, if the deity advised a certain

    caution in the matter of the so-called law of noncontradiction? And youhave the audacity to say you know this and that about Monaco, which you

    have never so much as visited, if you arent mistaken! I cant believe my

    ears!

    One feels as if the sense of the word know were fracturing, under

    this sort of pressure into a low sense in which we know enough to get by,

    none of it certain, naturally, and a high, superlative sense in which God

    knows if we know anything. But this high sense of know and therefore the

    low sense too, are entirely illusory. That we dont really know anything, or

    really know pitifully little, and that little not even securely speakable (I?Whats I? Whats thinking? Whats existing?) registers, in a grotesquely wrong

    register, that the word know has buckled under what Wittgenstein calls a

    metaphysical emphasis (1969: s. 482) and gone nonsensical. What would

    this superlative knowledge be, if we had any? It wouldnt be anything, and it

    isnt that we dont have any, therefore.

    A misguided skeptic might say, I dont mean to deny that you know all

    sorts of things (we all do) in a weak sense. The question isnt whether you

    know youve got feet as contrasted with some poor soul kept wrapped up in

    wet sheets and taught that hes a fish from the waist down, or something.Come on! The question is whether you really know, for certain, that youve got

    feet. I want to say Sure. Of course. Someone else, in bizarre circumstances,

    might be in some doubt as to whether he had feet or not. He might say,

    piteously, just his head emerging from the wet sheets, Theyre lying. I know

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    theyre lying. Ive got feet like everyone else. Theyve glued them together

    or something, dont you think so? God, I wish I knew for certain! But I

    cant get out of these sheets. Why wont you help me? How can you be so

    heartless? And so on. Not me. No such uncertainty surrounds the questionwhether Ive got feet. I know for certain that I do, and I wonder if anyone

    actually ever hasnt known for certain whether he had feet or not? I suppose

    so. It must be awful, unless perhaps you hated your feet anyway. And so

    on. At which the skeptic may protest that Im missing the point again. The

    question, he says, is not whether you are or arent, with regard to whether

    you have feet or not, in a standard sort of situation of not knowing for

    certain whether p or not. Of course you arent. You couldnt be in a better

    position to know for certain that you have feet. There is no such better

    position, in this life. If anybody knows absolutely for certain that he hasfeet, you do. But do you? Does anybody? Dont just say you know you have

    feet in that boring way, or even that you know it for certain, in an equally

    boring way. Say it in a nonboring way, if you dare, like Moore! Come on,

    do you really think you know, with certainty, that you have feet? And dont

    give me feet as contrasted with a fishtail or hooves, or with papier-mache

    feet. I want real, material, external feet as contrasted with an undetectable

    illusion of feet. And dont pretend you dont know what that would be

    like!

    I reply: I suppose it would be exactly like having feet. Youre damnright, he says.

    But never mind the feet, for the moment. What about the knowing? In

    the skeptics last remarks, the verb know is buckling. Do I know, with

    certainty, that I have feet? Under this stress, the word can seem to take on a

    superlative sense, as one might say.

    But what would it be to know anything in this superlative sense? As

    God knows it, one thinks. But how does God know it? Have we any idea?

    He cant be wrong, one thinks. But how not? Why not? Do we understand

    the vague notion of infallibility that is operating here? Not just that he neveris wrong, but that he cant be. Whats that? A human being can be wrong.

    Yes indeed, and what would it be like if he couldnt? Have we any idea of

    it? Of course, it would be terrifically surprising if someone who had a bad

    headache believed that he didnt, and insisted sincerely that he felt perfectly

    fine, but unlike some other philosophers I dont see that this couldnt possibly

    happen. If the fellow didnt at some level know that what he was saying

    was false, hed be crazy, I suppose. But why shouldnt he be crazy? I dont

    understand what knowing in the superlative sense that one has or doesnt

    have a headache, even, is supposed to be, unless perhaps just having one ornot. And I have a similar problem with the suggestion that I superlatively

    know what five and five make. Ten, of course. And of course there could

    be a strange lapse of mind, a little craziness, or a big craziness, even as

    to some question of elementary arithmetic. So what would I be claiming

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    if I claimed to know that five and five make ten, by God, and defied God

    himself to say to me Your gears are slipping? I dont know what I would be

    claiming. Of course I know that five and five make ten, as most grownups do.

    Thats not superlative knowledge, just very common knowledge, hardly worthmentioning. I know more interesting things than that, believe me. But as to

    knowing, knowing, that five and five make ten, I dont know what that would

    be. Would it be knowing (without emphasis) that they really make ten? If so,

    my problem shifts to that really. What is it for them to make ten really?

    Really as contrasted with what? Apparently? That five and five apparently

    make ten would be an absurd thing for any of us to say. A very young

    child might say it, looking up from her precocious arithmetical labors with

    a skeptical frown; but not one of us. Five and five make, what? Ten. Period.

    And theres no room at all for apparently and really in these peculiarmatters.

    Theres always that one exists, of course. How could one be wrong that

    one existed? Even a maniac can hardly go wrong if he sticks to that little point

    about himself. Its boring, but there it is: he exists. In some sense he does.

    He isnt mythological or fictitious, for example, or even dead. But is this an

    item of superlative knowledge hes got? I know I do, he says maniacally, I

    can tell. But can he? Is this knowledge at all? Perhaps it is, but if so doesnt

    it come of knowing the use of the first person pronoun, rather than of any

    superlative acquaintance with oneself? Even if Im all confused as to who Iam and even what I am, I can hardly think Im just an old wives tale. But why

    not? Because that sentence and others like it have no literal meaning, Id say,

    and therefore there is no such literal thought to think as Im fictitious, for

    example. Its a cute sentence, but its not in the language, except for playing

    with. Its like a label reading This is fictitious or This no longer exists.

    I know that I exist in the same sort of way I know that this is today, not

    any other day, or know were here, wherever we are, not elsewhere, Im over

    here! shouted in a dense fog doesnt express any superlative knowledge, I

    bet, for all that it cant be contradicted; and neither does I exist, as far as Ican see.

    So I dont know what superlative knowledge, divinely perfect certainty,

    is, or would be, and therefore cant think clearly either that we havent got

    any or that weve got some. I think we have no clear idea, even, of what this

    superlative knowledge would be like, in any case at all. We dont superlatively

    know anything, not even that we exist, because the idea of this superlative

    state, in which the fact itself is handed to us on a platter, or ferreted out

    and grasped with a grasp that makes Madame Sosostris look like a piker, is

    not a clear idea. Its not an idea at all, one may say. Its pictures, metaphors,analogies.

    But it isnt only this incurably unclear ambition ofsuperlatively knowing

    one has a head that is frustrated if, after all, one may not have a head.

    Its any, even quite ordinary, knowing one has a head. The argument

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    from possibility should stick to this sinister objective, and not go running

    off after the kite of superlative knowledge like a lightminded dog. Was

    Descartes thus guilty of barking up the wrong tree? I dont know. I

    doubt it.To be sure, one neednt go in for the nonidea of superlative knowledge,

    and its correlative nonidea of the disheveled knowledge weve got, by thinking

    to distinguish strong and weak senses of the verb know. One might instead

    think that what crystallizes under the pressure of possibility is the true sense

    of know, which it has had all along. And theres something in that. But

    again, one must be careful not to mistake this true sense for a highflying

    nonsense, which jumps right up into the intense inane with all the other

    crystalline senses that determine quite wonderful referents: the really flat,

    the really solid, the really one, the really simple: in short, the really perfect.The character of knowledge strictly so-called does indeed emerge under

    pressure: He has a twin, I remind you: do you really know it was he in

    the black raincoat, fleeing the scene? I put it to you that you dont. And

    thats right, I dont. (Or if I do, it wont do for me to come out with it that I

    just do and I dont care how, under this inquisition. What I need is a drink.)

    But under illicit pressure, the idea of real knowledge goes nonsensical, as if

    knowing really for a fact or knowing really for certain were an unattainable

    species of knowledge, and we had better face it that we can never, or hardly

    ever, claim more than to know but not for a fact, or not for certain, likeeveryone else. There is no such thing as knowing but not for a fact or not for

    certain. Theres knowing, thats all. Knowing for a fact, for certain, and the

    like, arent knowing with bells on, greater knowing as contrasted with lesser

    knowing. There are no greater and lesser knowing. What for a fact does,

    in I know for a fact that he loathes her is only to underline that you do

    know, and arent saying so as lightly as someone might. The same goes for

    beyond doubt and so on. I dont deny that some or all of these locutions

    have an additional function of indicating the strength of ones position to

    know, how it would fare under attack. One may expect attack, indeed, andbe announcing, in effect, that it is doomed. He would say that. What else

    would he say? But a position to know is a position to know, strong or not

    so strong. And Im not admitting that one can know in a weak sense or way

    if ones position to know is compromised by present possibilities. Present

    possibilities is a redundancy there, of course. Im not endorsing a category

    of clear and absent dangers. Thats exactly what I want to reject.

    V.

    Now then, finally, can I make out that there is no such pandemic of

    possible error as the argument from possibility requires? I think I could if

    I understood possibility better than I do. But I dont, and will only try to

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    persuade you that even if there were all those possibilities, right and left,

    and therefore we knew hardly anything, no skeptic would know it, or have

    any reason to believe it, or be able to give us any. We cant have all these

    possibilities to delight and depress us, even if they were there.The critical points are two: first, that epistemic possibility is not

    subjective, or even merely intersubjective, but objective. Second, as Ive

    already said rather cryptically, it is not ideally objective like facts as one

    metaphysically imagines them without a shred of appearance on.

    One is tempted to think that even if fallible human beings see no

    possibility that, say, they no longer have any feet, it is nevertheless possible

    in the sight of God, so to speak, that our feet have gone the way of all

    flesh by some exotic route, and we are all hallucinating, or whatnot. But

    nothing is possible in the sight of God. Possibility in the epistemic senseof the argument from possibility is not in that limiting degree objective. In

    the sight of God (the God of this way of speaking) we have feet, or we

    dont (ignoring the vagueness of have feet), and there is no place for it

    in His sight that we may or may not or must or cant. God sees no such

    possibilities or impossibilities. To see any, one must be situated, somehow,

    which God, being God, isnt. His view is the view from nowhere, to borrow

    Tom Nagels nice phrase. There is no divine perspective on the question of

    our having feet, or on any other question, in which it might seem (and

    therefore be) possible that so and so but impossible that so and so. However,possibility in the sense of the argument from possibility is not relative to

    just my situation, if I am the one considering whether a thing is possible or

    not. I who thought a thing possible can learn that it isnt and wasnt. It was

    possible for all I knew, and seemed perfectly possible, but now I know better

    and see that it isnt possible after all. The missing dog is a Great Dane? Oh

    well, then, we can forget the crawlspace. (What happened to your darling

    little whatever it was? Good God, in a punchbowl? Im so sorry.) Possibility

    and impossibility of the type in question here are objective even if they

    vanish at the ideal limit of objectivity, where we like to think the facts are. Itdoesnt sufficiently register their objectivity to describe this possibility and

    impossibility as intersubjective, even. Everyone may think it possible (or

    impossible) that p and be just wrong, as matters eventually turn out but no

    one could reasonably have guessed in the old, ignorant days. It may turn out

    that p, for example, which will dispose nicely of the once universal opinion

    of the reasonable that of course it was out of the question that p. True

    believers and village skeptics will be cheered by this turn of events, though in

    fact it will prove nothing of interest; and the elderly reasonable will perhaps

    think what next!! and hope that whats next will be one in the eye for theunreasonably credulous or incredulous. A thing like that could happen, and

    therefore may happen. I dont deny it and dont mean to concede only that

    it logically might. I dont know that any such awful hotfoot has ever been

    administered to the reasonable. I suspect not. The earth has turned out to

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    be round, I believe, and to revolve around the sun, and everything is pretty

    funny deep inside things, and so forth. But my guess is that there has been

    no debacle of the kind I mean. No truly awful discovery that what only a

    crank, or the like, would have thought possible (on reflection) is a fact (or iseven possible) after all; and no truly awful discovery that what only a crank,

    or the like, would have thought impossible is impossible, after all. I doubt

    that there is any precedent for such a discovery as, for example, that there

    was no Peloponnesian war, or that some pigs can fly, or that the queens of

    England may have been men, or that it is actually impossible that the earth

    is round because the people in China would fall off if it were.

    To be sure, when Anaximander asserted, as it seems, that the earth has

    no support and nevertheless doesnt move from where it is because it is

    equidistant from its surroundings in three dimensions, quite ordinary peopleof the time may have snorted, or whatever one did then, and said, in Greek,

    Impossible! If so, that was hasty of them. They should have reflected. They

    should have thought that they might be mistaken. Should we think that we

    too might be mistaken even now, and that just possibly the earth rests on a

    column of some invisible material, like a ball on a pedestal? No we should

    not; indeed, we cant (we in this room cant, that is) except in conflict with

    believing, or (I would say) knowing perfectly well, that it would be idiotic

    in this day and age to think that the earth may rest on this or that, like

    a ball on a pedestal. The column of invisible material is good. ScientistsSay Earth May Rest on Huge Tortoise strikes the wrong note, somehow.

    But as we all know, there isnt the slightest possibility that the earth rests

    on a column of anything, except of course in some sense. I wouldnt bet my

    allowance that children will never be told in ordinary schools that in a sense

    the earth rests on as it were a sort of column, and so on. Its like that, in a

    certain way, because. . .well, after the because I give out, but that doesnt

    prove anything. Indeed, I suppose one might say even now, in a desperate

    effort to explain things to a rather weird child, that its as if the earth rests

    on a column of invisible material sticking up out of the sun, you see, Johnny,because: and so forth. But that doesnt prove anything, either. I mean, these

    last concessions dont entail that the earth does or may rest on a column of

    invisible material like a ball on a pedestal. We know now that it isnt at rest,

    it goes around the sun, and so forth.

    The example is a bad example of impossibility, in fact, because impos-

    sible is too weak a word for the actual status of the idea that the earth

    rests on an invisible column and therefore doesnt fall. Fall where? Well,

    never mind. Impossible is the wrong word for this idea. What it is is just

    absurdly false, at best, or nonsensical (I am trying to speak for us, of course,not sixth century Greeks, or God), not impossible. It doesnt get as far as

    impossible, so to speak. We havent that distance on it. Its a nonstarter, dead

    at the starting gate with its legs in the air. Its no more impossible than that

    we are a troop of baboons. There needs to be a little more prima facie room

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    for it that p in order for it to be quite impossible that p, absolutely impossible

    that p. Is it possible that they have a cage of live pterodactyls at the Moscow

    zoo? No, Virginia, it isnt; pterodactyls have been extinct for centuries.

    Am I sure? Yes Im sure. Pterodactyls were a prehistoric creature, like thedinosaur. Why are you such a sucker for whatever that rotten Popov kid

    says? Last week it was Godzilla, now its pterodactyls. Wise up, for Gods

    sake! There, perhaps, is impossibility properly so called. (Not Godzilla,

    which is worse than impossible, but the pterodactyls.) That we are a troop

    of baboons, however, though thinkable by someone, no doubt, in imaginable

    circumstances, is a suggestion that we can only pretend to entertain, and

    can only pretend to reject as impossible, therefore, though again, someone

    might, I suppose, be in a position to entertain it and reject it as impossible.

    Baboons? They cant be baboons. I can hear them talking. All right. Fine.But not fine in our mouths or heads, here and now. It isnt even that we can see

    that we arent baboons. If anyone thought it possible that we were baboons,

    he would be mistaken, certainly. But why? Because thats not possible, as

    we all know? I wouldnt say we knew any such thing. What we know (as

    some unfortunate men and women might not, though theyve heard of both

    baboons and human beings) is that we are human beings, not baboons, a

    fact (if fact is the word for it) from which it does not follow that we cant

    be baboons or must be human beings. No such modal remarks are in order,

    as far as I can see, in our present situation. And it seems equally out of orderthat the earth may or cant be supported by a huge tortoise or a transparent

    column with holes in it for the moon and so forth. Out of order in our actual

    situation, that is, which I cant help. I didnt invent it. Nobody did. One can

    invent others. What one cant invent is a position outside all such epistemic

    confines, in which the question Is it possible or not? nevertheless has its

    usual purchase and from which it is evidently possible after all that the earth

    is supported by a huge tortoise and we are baboons. That position, in which,

    as one imagines it, no question would have an answer already, and we would

    be free to think absolutely anything possible (what else could we think?)would on the contrary be one in which the question, whether it is possible or

    impossible that p, could not have its usual sense, and indeed no question could

    have its usual sense, since its sense would be in question too, so to speak.

    In the position from which one would see that anythings possible, if one

    could see anything, one couldnt see anything, or think anything either. The

    idea of this position in which nothing is settled yet is illusory, as far as I can

    see, and so is the idea, which might seem more promising, of the position in

    which nothing a posterioriis settled yet, or nothing a posterioriexcept that it

    looks as if there were physical objects about (and the like), which might seemstill more promising. Words and their meanings are as external as trees. If I

    have to think that perhaps there are no such words, then I have to think that

    perhaps my very own as it were words have no meanings either, and therefore

    I am not, as I would have thought, thinking. And that isnt thinking.

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    All the same, I dont say that no truly awful surprise could possibly be

    in store for us, or for me. I dont mean to be packing it into the idea of a

    truly awful surprise that no such surprise is possible, that nothing we are in

    no position to think possible is or even may be true. For all I know, or weknow, something or other that it would be absurd, in our situation, to think

    possible may be true nevertheless and may even get discovered, in the fullness

    of time. There are, I think, logical limits on what could be discovered, as

    we understand that word. Could it be discovered by intrepid tourists that the

    earth has an edge after all, just south of Tijuana, though this awful fact has

    been kept from us by a vast conspiracy of guff about Latin America and

    other such inventions? I would say not. Not by intrepid tourists and not in

    any other way either. But it doesnt follow, even if thats right, that nothing

    utterly surprising, which had seemed impossible or, so to say, better thanimpossible in the fashion of our being baboons, will ever be discovered. Some

    such stunning discovery may be in store for our descendants, or even for some

    of us, perhaps. Why not? What doesnt follow from that, however, is that we

    may be baboons, for instance. I concede that something we think impossible,

    or even cant think possible or impossible, in our cultural situation, and can

    only think false as everyone in that situation knows, may someday turn out

    to be true, or may be true even if it never does turn out to be true. (If it

    logically couldnt, thats another matter, which I set aside here.) What I

    dont concede is the formula which would permit universal instantiation,namely that for anything p such that we in our blinkered condition can only

    think it false or (at worst) impossible, it may nevertheless be true, if only we

    knew it, that p. There would be a kind of contradiction in conceding that

    and instantiating it to our being baboons, say, since if the instantiation were

    valid it would prove that it wasnt. That is, it would prove that our being

    baboons isnt an instance of a thing we can only think false or impossible

    in the relevant sense. If there is any such thing, then we cant, by hypothesis,

    think of it that it may be true, and cant consistently quantify over it as one

    among other things that may after all be true. To put this simple matter(about which I am not altogether clear in my mind) in another way: that

    something maximally ridiculous may be a fact, which I concede, doesnt

    entail that if anything is maximally ridiculous, it may be a fact, which of

    course I dont concede. Why should I? I dont see that I should, or indeed

    could.

    That doesnt of course dispose of the question whether anything p is

    maximally ridiculous or not, in the sense that one is in no position, unless

    ones position were somehow altered, to think it anything but false or

    impossible that p. It seems to me evident that one must be in no position tothink it possible that p, for some p, if one is in a position to think anything at

    all, and that our own position is one in which large numbers of things are in

    this sense beyond doubt. Such positions change over time. But they are not

    altered by the reflection that they do change over time, or by the reflection,

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    which I dont deny, that even our own, to say nothing ofmy own in particular,

    is no doubt in for a number of shocks as time goes on and may be in for some

    shock of unprecedented magnitude. Theres no misuse of may be in that

    thought, and the thought is a commonplace, I suppose, or it should be. Onemight pleasantly work it into a sermon on the text You never know. But

    it is too general, and of the wrong logical form, to enforce the absurd ideas

    that we may be baboons, or may be in Tokyo, or may all be naked or (better)

    have no bodies, or may all have slipped into thinking crazily that Monaco

    is smaller than the Soviet Union although actually its bigger and that five

    and seven make twelve although of course they make eight. I see no case at

    all for the view that any of those things is possible, or even impossible. All

    of them are just, silly. Impossibles are harder to think of than sillies, again.

    I keep thinking of sillies, instead. Lets see. What is another impossible? Isuppose its impossible, as one might say to a worrisomely serious child, that

    Hitler has taken refuge in another solar system. I believe thats impossible.

    He couldnt have gotten there even by now, if Im not mistaken, and thats

    not the only trouble with the idea, Im sure. Do I know that its absolutely

    impossible? I wouldnt say I knew it, exactly. Im not expert about these

    things. Well, then, isnt it possible? No, Im sure it isnt, not even remotely;

    there werent even any rocket ships in those days. Do I know that? Well yes,

    I remember those days well enough to know that. And what if there were

    rocket ships but they kept it quiet and it hasnt come out? Isnt that possible?No, Im sure it isnt, again for reasons of which I have no mastery; so, again,

    I dont exactly know it isnt possible. But that is no reason whatever, given

    my massive ignorance of the history of science and technology, for me to

    think it possible that any such rocket ship had been built and hidden and so

    forth; and really, Im quite sure that it isnt even remotely possible. Possible is

    epistemic throughout here, but, again, not speaker relative. Whether Hitler

    may or cant be holed up in another solar system doesnt depend on the little

    I know, thank heaven; but I know enough to be sure that he cant be. Ive

    been around. Another solar system? Come on! Perhaps it logically might bepossible that that is where he went, if he had gone anywhere. But if so, it

    doesnt follow that thats where he may be, or even for all I know may be. I

    believe not.

    I hope not because if, soberly, I must think that for all I know Im

    mistaken and it is just possible that Hitler is enjoying the sunshine in another

    solar system, then Im afraid I must also think that I dont exactly know that

    he isnt. Im afraid it wont work out that while I dont exactly know that I

    know he isnt, nevertheless I may and probably do know he isnt. There my

    sympathies are with Prichard. But then, I wonder if I do know that Hitlerisnt alive in another solar system. Do I? The question is hard to get hold

    of. Perhaps I shouldnt touch it. But what if in sober truth I dont know any

    such thing. How would I know any such thing? Perhaps I dont. Does it

    follow that he may be living in another solar system, or that I should take

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    On a Form of Skeptical Argument from Possibility 21

    the suggestion that he may be with any, even philosophical, seriousness? No,

    it doesnt, as far as I can see. I have no intention of even verbally behaving

    as if he may be, except out of courtesy or the like. I dont believe he may be.

    I see no possibility that he is. I assume that there is none, because he couldntpossibly have gotten there (that couldnt possibly have is not epistemic). If

    I werent a gentleman Id bet a lot (though not my immortal soul, if I had

    one) that no means existed then by which any such voyage could have been

    undertaken except in ignorance or delusion. I have no doubt that Hitler cant

    be alive on Mars, even, or the moon, much less on some planet of another

    solar system! He cant conceivably; its a preposterous idea. Do I know he

    cant? No, strictly speaking I dont, though I assume that many are well

    enough informed to know exactly that: that he cant be, for such and such

    reasons. Dozens of reasons, I imagine.And now, can a philosophical skeptic give me reason to hedge this

    assumption at all, to say, for example, not Of course Hitler isnt alive on

    Mars, you idiot! How can I get it into your thick head that people lie in

    print, and even on television! but something more measured, like He cant

    be, if Im not mistaken. I think that a skeptic has no such reason in his

    repertoire, including the point, correct as I think it is, that strictly speaking I

    dont know that Hitler cant be alive on Mars and therefore (given the special

    character of the question whether he is or isnt) dont in strict truth know (in

    the ordinary sense) that he isnt. I dont need to know that, it seems to me,either by knowing that he cant be or by knowing anything else either (except

    a hawk from a handsaw, to put it politely) in order to treat the lament that

    we may never know but what Hitler got away to Mars as crazed, if I ever

    run into it.

    I dont mean that it would be no cause for lament if we might never

    know, or could never know, but what we had no feet. Even I know that

    people have feet, and that I do, and would think it lamentable if I didnt.

    What would I know, I wonder, if I didnt know that? Not much, probably.

    And again, I would be sorry (though I could live with it) not to know thatMonaco is smaller than the Soviet Union because I can never remember

    what sort of place Monaco is: a city, a country, a continent, what? I keep

    forgetting. Is Monaco another name for Africa perhaps? Ive lost it about

    Monaco again. Well, too bad. But I had marbles to spare, I suppose. I should

    be thankful.

    These cases are not the same as not knowing, if I dontnot knowing,

    exactlythat Hitler isnt alive on Mars. Im not conceding that I dont know

    much. Im claiming that I may be in a position to dismiss out of hand

    the suggestion that perhaps p, for some p, even though I personally dontprecisely know that not-p, if you insist on precision. Its a question of truth,

    you say, not precision? All right: I dont know that not-p, if you insist on

    truth. And I dont see that I must, in order to hold out against the idiotic

    idea that maybe, just possibly, p.

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    22 Rogers Albritton

    That there would be nothing to do about it if just possibly not-p, since

    if just possibly not-p, then just possibly anything I might do about it would

    be instantly fatal, is true. If there might be an enormous diamond under this

    floor for the finding, there might equally be a booby trap set to kill us all. Ifthis building may be about to collapse, any move we make may be just what

    will bring it down; or alternatively the ground outside may catastrophically

    give way if we rush out of the building: the building perfectly sound, perhaps,

    but the ground isnt. Who knows? And thats right: who knows? Not I, at

    any rate. But the question is not whether it would be rational to take steps in

    view of some such possibility, absent even a funny feeling that might serve to

    select it from among all the others; the question is whether this sort of thing

    is a possibility or not, has to be acknowledged as possible, even if only just,

    or not. I say not. Some such things, and not others, are no doubt possible, ifonly one knew it. But which ones? Not which ones are not merely possible

    but actual? Just which ones are so much as possible? We dont know,

    thats all. By hypothesis we dont. And neither do skeptics. Philosophical

    skepticism is a pretension to know. Deprive it of that inconsistency and it

    hasnt a leg to stand on, as far as I can see. Of course I may be wrong; and

    thats not philosophical skepticism.

    To sum up, what I am, calling a skeptical argument from possibility

    can skirt various errors, I believe, without disappearing en route. It neednt

    and shouldnt confine itself to arguing that there is no knowledge in somehigh, remarkable sense. There is no such sense, and the argument can seem to

    threaten knowledge ordinarily and soberly so called. Moreover, the argument

    need not confound logical possibility or the like with possibility in an

    ordinary epistemic sense or use of the word. It can seem to give us good

    reason to admit that possibly not-p over an unnerving range of things p. The

    principle of the argument, moreover, is sound, not a sophism: if the position

    is, really, that possibly (even just possibly) not-p, then no one in that position

    does know that p. It may be that not-pwe are fallible human beingsbut

    all the same we know that p, of course is a sort of contradiction. No modalfallacy is involved in thinking so, and the (sort of) contradiction it is is not

    cured by calling it pragmatic. There is no doubt some contrast between

    semantics and pragmatics, but it doesnt help here. That we all know that p

    although just possibly not-p cannot be Griced into the company of I have

    two fingers on my left hand, but I didnt say just two fingers, did I? and I

    have five, so I have two, so I win. Nor can it be Austined into irrelevance

    by distinguishing senses or forces or strengths of just possibly, if thats

    what Austin was up to. Just possibly and its kind are as univocal, in their

    relevant use, as know is. Their performative aspect, like that of I know,is no help. Nor is it any help that the possibility in question isnt a live

    possibility, if its determinately a possibility at all. If I may be wrong, and

    thats the position, then I dont actually know, and this emphasis need not

    be the one Wittgenstein calls metaphysical, which, as he says, the word

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    On a Form of Skeptical Argument from Possibility 23

    know doesnt tolerate. I mean it only as it would be meant in everyday

    talk, as a way of stressing that the question whether I actually know or not is

    to be taken strictly. The concept of knowledge is strict anyway, in the respect

    at issue, though (according to me) not analyzable in any interesting sense.Finally, the closure or nonclosure of the imaginary set of things I know

    under evident logical implication (evident to me, that is) is irrelevant to the

    argument from possibility, since possibility is closed under every kind of

    implication. If I dont know that the man I take to be Zeno Vendler, there,

    isnt an impostor, that matters only insofar as it suggests that he may be one,

    in which case he may not be Zeno Vendler.

    Whats wrong with the argument from possibility, unless Im wrong, is

    the allegations of possibility with which it begins, not the rest of it. These

    allegations seem irrefutable. In fact, I hope, they are typically indefensibleover an immense range of what we say, or would saymuch too great a range

    to satisfy a philosophical skeptic, whether cracker-barrel or cosmopolitan.

    The idea that skepticism is irrefutable is supine, unless the skepticism at

    issue has been allowed to drift or balloon into irrefutable nonsense. Keep

    know and may humble and intelligible, and it should seem, I think, that

    while anythings possible, and you never know, not just any damn thing is

    possible, and you may therefore know a lot (most of it uninteresting, to be

    sure). But thats interesting, perhaps, if not unexpected. I think it may be

    obvious, moreover, that neither you nor I could have understood a word ofthis paper if we didnt know a lot. And, as Ive let on, it often seems to me,

    dimly, self-evident that everything cant be epistemically possible any more

    than everything could be financially possible. Or if that isnt self-evident, I

    bet its demonstrable, at worst. Needless to say, I havent demonstrated it, or

    anything else. It would be pleasant to think at least that I had thoroughly

    canvassed the grounds on which a skeptic might reasonably hope to show

    us that we are enmeshed in possibilities of error much more numerous than

    we can gracefully acknowledge. But I know I havent. Its all very well,

    perhaps, to mock such creatures of philosophy as the illusion that we may beflamingos fast asleep in our cage, for all we know. But is it a mere amusement

    that I may not have left my car where I know I left it (know in scare

    quotes), or that although the marquee reads The Hustler and The Color

    of Money, as we expected, we may nevertheless be in for The Apu Trilogy?

    I have stuck nervously to sillies and impossibles, but these arent (necessarily)

    sillies or impossibles. Arent they and their kind very commonly possibles,

    in the usual course of events, and contrary to what we say we know: where

    we left our cars, whats on at the Fox Venice, and the like? Is it irrelevant

    that I wouldnt bet a grand on any of those things I know (know inscare quotes again)? Or that my perfect confidence that I saw Sheila on the

    very daywe even said hellowould probably erode under routine cross-

    examination? I think it is irrelevant, but I do not yet see clearly why it is. The

    ordinary use of I know in these everyday regions goes quite smoothly, but

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    24 Rogers Albritton

    not all that smoothly. Dont I know perfectly well that I may not have left

    my car where I know I left it, so to speak, and isnt it in that last phrase,

    where I know I left it, that I know must be put into scare quotes to

    clean up the question? No. I dont believe it, because, you see, I think I knowperfectly well, as I often do, still, where I left my car. Im not that far gone.

    But I dont know for sure what to do about these cases. Isnt that a blessing?

    I might keep talking just a little longer, if I did. Thank you.

    Note

    1. Rogers Albritton died in 2002 leaving behind a large volume of papers. Most

    of the papers are handwritten notes and fragments on diverse subjects that hewas thinking and teaching about. This piece on a certain form of skeptical

    argument from possibility was one of a few finished items. The typescript

    is untitled and undated, but pencilled notes on some copies indicate that it was

    delivered as a talk at a conference at UC Irvine in Spring, 1987. As Albritton

    himself mentions, he worked for years on skepticism and skeptical arguments.

    Some have reported that ideas in this talk were presented in seminars at UCLA

    as early as 1974.

    Albritton began to sort through his papers in the years before his death, but

    did not live to review the bulk of them. He was an inveterate reviser, rethinker

    and restarter, so it is hard to know what he would have done with this piece hadhe lived. The paper has circulated and stimulated some discussion, so it seems

    fitting to publish it here. The typescript is reproduced without change, except for

    a few obvious errors of spelling and punctuation, the format of the notes and

    the presentation of the quote from Austin at the beginning of section II.

    I thank Carol Voeller for assistance in preparing this type script for

    publication.

    Andrew Hsu (UCLA)

    References

    Austin, J. L. (1946), Other Minds, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary

    Volumes, v. 20: 148187.

    Wittgenstein, L. (1969), On Certainty, ed. by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. v. Wright. Oxford:

    Basil Blackwell.


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