Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: Despite the substantial appeal of the safety condition, Kelp (J Philos Res 34:21–31, 2009; Am Philos Q 53:27–37; Good Thinking. A Knowledge First Virtue Epistemology, Routledge, London, 2018) has raised a difficult challenge for safety-theoretic accounts of knowledge. By combining Gettier-style fake barn cases with epistemic Frankfurt cases, he concludes that no formulation of safety can be strong enough to predict ignorance in the former and weak enough to accommodate knowledge in the latter. In this note, my contribution is two-fold. Firstly, I take up Kelp’s challenge and I show that, once properly understood, safety successfully rises to it. Secondly, I draw a more general lesson on the safety condition: a satisfactory solution to Kelp’s challenge calls for a revision of the standard formulation of safety, which must be indexed tobothmethods and environments. My conclusion will be that an environment-relative version of safety not only meets Kelp’s challenge, but it also advances our understanding of the safety condition on knowledge.
Source: Synthese
Author: Dario Mortini
Institution: University of Glasgow
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,990
OpenAlex ID: W4223466008