Disagreement in Philosophy: Notes on Jiří Fuchs

That philosophers disagree is a fact about which there is little disagreement, even among philosophers. But what this widespread and deep disagreement signifies is a topic of major disagreement. One issue is whether or not the fact of disagreement supplies a good reason to doubt the possibility of philosophical knowledge.  

The contemporary Czech philosopher Jiří Fuchs begins his book Illusions of Sceptics (2016) by considering this question.  He grants that the "cognitive potential of philosophy" is called into question by the "embarrassing fact that there is not a single thing that philosophers would agree on." (13) Nevertheless, Fuchs insists that we have no good reason to be skeptical about the possibility of philosophical knowledge. His view is that "Discord among philosophers can . . . be sufficiently explained by the frequent prejudices of philosophers . . . Consequently, the existence of discord among philosophers does not imply that their work is of fundamentally unscientific character." (16)

Besides the prejudices of philosophers, the lack of consensus among philosophers may also be attributed to philosophy's difficulty: "the discord may just be a consequence of the specific challenging character of philosophy."(19)

Fuchs maintains that "consensus has no relation to the core of scientific quality. . . ." (24). The core of scientific quality is constituted by "proof or demonstration." (24)  His claim is that interminable and widespread disagreement or lack of consensus has no tendency to show that philosophy is incapable of achieving genuine knowledge, where such knowledge involves apodictic insight into the truth of some philosophical propositions. 

There are two main issues we need to discuss. One concerns the relation of consensus and truth; the other the relation of consensus and knowledge. My impression is that Fuchs conflates the two issues. I will argue, contra Fuchs, that while it is obvious that consensus and truth are logically independent, it is not obvious that consensus and knowledge are logically independent.  My view, tentatively held, is that the lack of consensus in philosophy does tend to undermine philosophy's claim to be knowledge.

Consensus and Truth

I maintain, and Fuchs will agree, that the following propositions are true if not platitudinous.

1) Truth does not entail consensus. If a proposition is true, it is true whether or not there is consensus with respect to its truth.

2) Consensus does not entail truth. If most or all experts agree that p, it does not follow that p is true.

3) Consensus and truth are logically independent. This follows from (1) in conjunction with (2). One can have truth without consensus and consensus without truth. 

Lack of consensus, therefore, does not demonstrate lack of truth. Even if no philosophical proposition wins the agreement of a majority of competent practitioners, it is possible that some such propositions are true. But it doesn't follow that some philosophical propositions have 'scientific quality.'  To have this quality they have to be true, but they also have to be knowable by us.  But what is knowability and how does it relate to consensus? To answer this question we must first clarify some other notions.

Truth, Knowledge, Knowability, Cognitivity, Justification, and Certainty

I add to our growing list the following  propositions, perhaps not all platitudinous and perhaps not all agreeable to Fuchs:

4) Knowledge entails truth. If S knows that p, it follows that p is true. There is no false knowledge. There are false beliefs, and indeed  justified false beliefs; but there is no false knowledge. You could think of this as an conceptual truth, or as a truth about the essence of knowledge. These are different because a concept is not the same as an essence.

5) Truth does not entail knowledge. If p is true, it does not follow that someone (some finite mind or ectypal intellect) knows that p.  If an omniscient being, an archetypal intellect, exists, then of course every true proposition p is known by the omniscient being.

6) Truth does not entail knowability by us. If, for any proposition p,  p is true, it does not follow that there is any finite subject S such that S has the power to know p. There may be truths which, though knowable 'in principle,' or knowable by the archetypal intellect, are not knowable by us.

7) Cognitivity does not entail knowability. Let us say that a proposition is cognitive just in case it has a truth value. Assuming bivalence, a proposition is cognitive if and only if it is either true, or if not true, then false. Clearly, cognitivity is insufficient for knowability. For if a proposition is false, then it is cognitive but cannot be known because it is false. And if a proposition is true, then it is cognitive but may not be knowable because beyond our ken.

8) Knowledge entails justification. If S believes that p, and p is true, it does not follow that S knows that p. For knowledge, justification is also required. This is a bit of epistemological boilerplate that dates back to Plato's Theaetetus.

9) Knowledge entails objective certainty.  Knowledge implies the sure possession, by the subject of knowledge, the knower, of the object of knowledge; if the subject is uncertain, then the subject does not have knowledge strictly speaking.  Objective certainty is not to be confused with subjective certitude.

Consensus and Knowledge

Fuchs and I will agree that consensus is not necessary for truth: a true proposition need not be one that enjoys the consensus of experts. But consensus may well be necessary for knowledge.  Fuchs, however, seems to conflate truth and certainty, and thus truth with knowledge.  A truth can be true without being known by us; indeed, without even being knowable by us. But, necessarily, whatever is known is true.  On p. 30 we read:

By denying that the thought processes of philosophers can exhibit a scientific quality simply because of the existence of discord among philosophers, we make consensus a necessary condition for the general validity and potential certainty of scientific knowledge, which is the attribute of science. (Emphasis added.)

On the following page we find the same thought but with a replacement of 'potential certainty' by 'certainty':

. . . the necessary question of whether the consensus of experts is really such an essential and indispensable condition for the certainty and general validity of scientific knowledge. (31, emphasis added.)

When one speaks of the validity of a proposition, one means its truth. ('Valid' as a terminus technicus in formal logic is not in play here.) So it seems clear that Fuchs is maintaining that consensus is necessary neither for the truth of propositions nor for their certainty.  He seems to be maintaining that one can have certain knowledge of a proposition even if the consensus of experts goes against one. This is not obvious. Why not?

Knowledge requires justification. Now suppose I accept the proposition that God exists and that my justification takes the form of various arguments for the existence of God.   Those arguments will be faulted by an army of competent practitioners, not all of them atheists, on a variety of grounds. What's more, the members of the atheist divisions will marshal their own positive arguments, the strongest of them being arguments from evil. Now if just one of my theistic arguments is sound, then God exists.

But I do not, by giving a sound argument for God, know that God exists unless I know that the argument I have given is sound.  (A sound argument is a valid deductive argument all of the premises of which are true.) But how do I know that even one of my theistic arguments is sound? How can I legitimately claim to know that when a chorus of my epistemic peers rises up against me?  

If what I maintain is true, then it is true no matter how many epistemic peers oppose me: they are just wrong! Truth is absolute: it is not sensitive to the vagaries of agreement and disagreement. Justification, however, is sensitive to agreement and disagreement. My justification for considering a certain argument sound is undermined by your disagreement assuming that we are both competent in the subject matter of the argument and we are epistemic peers.  

In a situation in which my justification for believing that p is undermined by the disagreement of competent peers, there is no objective certainty that p. If knowledge logically requires objective certainty, and objective certainty is destroyed by the disagreement of competent epistemic peers, then I can no longer legitimately claim to know that p. So, while truth has nothing to fear from lack of agreement, knowledge does. For knowledge requires justification, and justification can be augmented or diminished by agreement or disagreement, respectively.

Interim Conclusion

Fuchs makes things too easy for himself by conflating truth and knowledge. We can agree that consensus is logically irrelevant to truth.  Protracted disagreement by the (morally) best and the (intellectually) brightest over the truth value of some proposition  p has no tendency to show either deductively or inductively that p is not either true or false. Truth is absolute by its very nature and thus insulated from the vagaries of opinion. But truths (true propositions) do not do us any good unless we can know them.  It is not enough to know that some truths are known; what we need is to know of a given truth that it is true. But disagreement inserts a skeptical blade between the truth and our knowledge of it.

Disagreement in philosophy undermines her claims to knowledge.  As I see it, Fuchs has done nothing to undermine this undermining.

Comments

[John Paul West]

I have long been fascinated by your metaphilosophical skepticism, because I take myself to have philosophic knowledge... I would go so far as to say I know that I have philosophic knowledge. Yet, I also grant that the disagreement of intelligent and competent people should be taken as potential evidence against one's view. So, I have long lurked on your blog, trying to see if I can find a flaw in your arguments for metaphilosophic skepticism.
I'm not sure if I've found one yet, but I have a proposal I'd like to throw out to see how you would refute it. I take the key premises of your argument to be,
1. "My justification for considering a certain argument sound is undermined by your disagreement assuming that we are both competent in the subject matter of the argument and we are epistemic peers."
2. We can safely assume there is disagreement between epistemic peers who are both competent on the subject matter of the argument on every substantial philosophical thesis.
Both premises have a surface believability; they both seem probable. Where then, as someone knowing he has philosophic knowledge, can I disagree? I would put pressure on the second thesis.
I would propose that there are some theses for whom the evidence is so powerful, when attended to correctly, that one who has seen the evidence can safely assume that all who disagree have not attended to the evidence correctly. Two important theses that I take to be evident in this way are, "being is not non-being" and "something exists". Slightly less important but still interesting are statements like "I currently have the sensations of white and blue".
This thesis puts me in the awkward position of appearing arrogant. For you, I assume, take yourself to have attended correctly to the evidence for my theses and have not found them convincing. Who am I to assume we are not epistemic peers? These are weighty questions to which I cannot yet articulate satisfying answers. Perhaps such questions cannot be answered in words and require something like Alyosha's kiss as a response.

[Elliott]

Happy Thanksgiving, Bill!

This is a very interesting post. (1) – (8) are hard to deny. (9) is a topic of disagreement, though I’m inclined to accept (9). Some want to deny (9) because they don’t like the skepticism it entails.

I also agree that disagreement between morally and intellectually competent epistemic peers “inserts a skeptical blade between the truth and our knowledge of it.”

Can you elaborate on what you take to be some features of objective certainty? For example, does OC entail infallibility? In other words, if S is objectively certain that p, does it follow that given S’s reason for believing that p, S cannot be wrong that p?

How about indubitability? If S is objectively certain that p, is p indubitable for S? If so, it seems to me that since disagreement between competent peers is a good reason for doubt, such disagreement undermines objective certainty, as you noted. In other words, if competent peers disagree whether or not p is true, such disagreement is a good reason to have some degree of doubt concerning the truth p.

[EG]

Hi Bill,

A wonderfully rich post, lots of areas for discussion.

I’d say (9) is a corollary to (4).
Is (7) equivalent to a computational quality of truth qua truth value?

And perhaps I might raise a question that occurs around your justification proposition. Does Truth need to be communicable? Or perhaps said another way, do all true things need to be understandable, is that a constraint on truth or is that something particular to our ability to perceive and hold truth, and thus a limitation intrinsic to us and our being?

[BV]

And the same to you and yours, Elliot. We have much to be grateful for this year. It is heartening to know that the nation is finally regaining its sanity.

>> . . . does OC entail infallibility? In other words, if S is objectively certain that p, does it follow that given S’s reason for believing that p, S cannot be wrong that p?<<

I am inclined to agree with Butchvarov on this and say that knowledge entails objective certainty, and that OC is impossibility of mistake. Now if it impossible that S be mistaken about the truth-value of p, then S knows infallibly that p. OC entails infallibility. See here: https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2019/12/butchvarov-knowledge-as-requiring-objective-certainty.html

[BV]

Elliot @ 5:52:

>>How about indubitability? If S is objectively certain that p, is p indubitable for S? If so, it seems to me that since disagreement between competent peers is a good reason for doubt, such disagreement undermines objective certainty, as you noted. <<

Or at least it undermines objective certainty WRT to those propositions we would most like to be objectively certain about, e.g. *God exists,* *The will is free,* *The soul is immortal,* and so on.

These are propositions not about states of mind and not about purely formal states of affairs.

That I feel good right now is both subjectively certain and objectively certain. And the same is also true -- though it is less obvious -- in the case of such propositions as *a = b iff b = a.*

[BV]

Mr. West,

Thank you for your comments. You write, >>Two important theses that I take to be evident in this way are, "being is not non-being" and "something exists". Slightly less important but still interesting are statements like "I currently have the sensations of white and blue".<<

See my 5:08 response to Elliot. Your first example is a formal-logical truth. It is a truth true in virtue of its logical form alone. Its truth rests on LNC which only the dialetheists have had the chutzpah to question. But I don't have to join their ranks. It is enough for me to say that the truths of formal logic are no threat to my thesis that the classical problems of philosophy are all of them genuine (as opposed to pseudo), some of them important, but none of them soluble by us.

The truths of logic are not substantively philosophical in the way that *Evil is privatio boni* or *the soul is immortal* are. And the same goes for sensory reports such as *I feel nauseous* and your example of sensing white.

And the same goes for *Something exists.* I know with objective certainty that these thoughts about existence exist, whence it immediately follows that something exists. What does not follow is that something exists that is independent of my thoughts or thinkings.

[BV]

EG,

Thanks for your kind words, and Happy Thanksgiving.

>>I’d say (9) is a corollary to (4).<<

4) Knowledge entails truth.

9) Knowledge entails objective certainty.

(4) says that whatever one KNOWS (sensu stricto) is true. There cannot be false knowledge. 'Knows' used strictly is a 'verb of success,' unlike 'believe' which is not.

(9) says that whatever one KNOWS (sensu stricto) one knows in such a way that the knower cannot doubt that he knows it.

Now if I have properly explicated (9), then (9) s not a corollary of (4): it is conceivable that (4) is true and (9) false.

Elliot, I need your help on this.

[Anthony Flood]

For my two cents on this topic, please see my 1978 paper for Albert Hofstadter (1910-1989), when he taught at the New School for Social Research: "Philosophic Diversity and Skeptical Possibility: A Confrontation with Hegel," the text of which I appended to a recent post:
https://anthonygflood.com/2024/10/how-i-philosophized-when-i-put-philosophy-before-christ/

[john doran]

Bill,

your #8 is much vexxed: I thought Gettier's '63 paper had largely discredited the whole "knowledge is justified true belief" trope; at the very least made it (much less) than self-evident, and much more in need of substantive...uhh...justification.

i can't make sense of your #9: on the one hand, you seem to use "objective certainty" and "sure possession" as interchangeable, but then, on the other, to contrast "objective certainty" with "subjective certitude".

what do you mean when you describe someone to be "objectively certain" about the truth (or falsity) of some proposition p? as opposed to having "subjective certitude" with regard to the truth-status of that proposition?

i find that i can't disentangle the idea of an "objective certainty" with regard to p, rooted in the consensus of the "experts", from my "subjective certitude" that those experts are mistaken: "certitude" describes my subjective sense of confidence in the truth or falsity of p.

your response to EG on this point:

(9) says that whatever one KNOWS (sensu stricto) one knows in such a way that the knower cannot doubt that he knows it.

strikes me as a bit tendentious.

what is "doubt"? while i believe myself to know (sunsu stricto) certain propositions, at the same time i countenance the possibility that i am mistaken about the truth of those propositions.

is that doubt?

ultimately, this seems like a conflict between epistemological internalism and externalism.

[EG]

Hi Bill,

Let me ask a possibly strange question:

Is our Being a constraint on what we can accept or understand as real/true?

[BV]

Tony,

Happy Thanksgiving! Trump's great triumph over the forces of darkness and destruction is the main thing to celebrate tomorrow. Change has restored hope. Our petty lives mean little in comparison to the fate of the greatest nation that has ever existed.

I am also thankful for your 1978 essay. Here are some comments.

>>I submit that diversity of philosophic position, and ultimately of all “rational opinion,” is unsettling to the belief in universal reason, the presupposition of all philosophical undertaking, and consequently in objective truth. <<

I agree that the philosophical enterprise presupposes reason, and I agree that said enterprise presuppose objective truth. But while the diversity of philosophical positions threatens to undermine reason as the way to the ultimate truth, it is no threat to objective truth.

Thanks for the quotations from Charles Bigger and from John Wisdom. You may recall that you sold me Bigger's book. (I received it 14 Sept 2022)

>>That this negative circumstance obtains, I believe there is general agreement. Philosophers tend to manifest their recognition of this otherwise unnerving state of affairs by good-naturedly conveying the sentiment that, “Of course, I could be wrong.” (Even Professor Bigger, midway in his attempt to undo the “positive scandal” in Platonic studies, admits that access to Plato’s “real view” of time, pertinent to an accurate account of participation, is probably impossible and hence all we may hope for is “interesting error” in the remainder of his book.[5]) Such an attitude betrays an epistemological relativism that, I hold, no philosopher can consciously accept and continues his work.<<

I think you are confusing epistemic humility with epistemological relativism. "I could be wrong" expresses epistemic humility, not epist. relativism.

>>But—and this is my central claim—if the state of affairs described in the preceding paragraph obtains, then the possibility of a successful pursuit of truth, assumed by all philosophers, can only be formally assented to, but never concretely grasped.<<

You could have put this more clearly. I think what you are saying is that the scandalous fact of philosophical disagreement makes it impossible to arrive at objective truth by the use of reason in such a way that we know that we have arrived at objective truth.

If that is what you are saying, then I agree. More later.

[BV]

Tony,

>>Existence Postulate<< You say that for any position in philosophy, no matter how carefully articulated and rigorously argued for, there exist competent practitioners who reasonably reject it.

I agree if the point is put exactly as I have put it.

>>Assumption<< You tell us that every philosopher seeks the truth, and "attempts to say what is the case." I of course agree, but to add specificity I would add: he seeks the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters.

>>To refute a philosopher is to say that what he or she says is false, that his or her attempt to get at the truth has failed. No philosopher can be indifferent to such a judgment.<< Now I don't much cotton to that 'his or her' PeeCee bullshit, but you were a young guy when you wrote this (1978), so I'll it pass. [GRIN] But a qualification is needed. If Beavis or Butthead, or both, take issue with what I say on a philosophical topic, I may justifiably remain indifferent to their verbal outbursts.

It is also worth noting -- not that you deny it -- that 'refutes' is NOT a verb of success.

More to come.

[BV]

Tony,

>>Claim<< Your claim is on the right track, though your formulation is poor. I would put it as follows. There is exactly one total Way Things Are. The ultimate truth is the truth about the total Way things Are. Philosophers seek to lay bare, to express, at least some of this truth by the use of discursive reason aided by the senses.

You then write: >> if philosophers never reach agreement as to what Truth is . . . then philosophy has been, is, and foreseeably will be a failure on its terms.<< Minor point: you should distinguish between Truth -- that in virtue of which a truth, a true proposition, is true and truths, the totality of which would be the truth, not Truth. You are ignoring an important distinction, so maybe my point is not so minor after all. Be that as it may.

But you are on the right track. There is lot more to say about this, however, and I say it in my metaphilosophy book (in progress).

[BV]

Tony,

>>Dogmatism<<

>>persistence in philosophy in the face of such a situation [perennial disagreement among competent practitioners] indicates a dogmatism incompatible with the philosopher’s claim to objective, reasonable thought.

The dogmatism either takes the form of conceit in the superiority of one’s philosophical efforts such that those who disagree must of necessity be blind, incompetent, or under the spell of some discredited tradition (in other words, diversity implies error—someone else’s); or it takes the more common form of annoyance with any critical effort that tends to call into question philosophizing itself.<<

I like what you are saying here. The first form of dogmatism I call "privileging one's own position" and I'm against it.

The second form of dogmatism is beneath refutation. Who does it?

But here is a challenge for you (I am not speaking in my own voice). It might be urged that while it is true that no philosophical dispute has ever been resolved to the satisfaction of all competent practitioners, it is a BAD INDUCTION to conclude that no phil. dispute will ever be resolved to the satisfaction, etc. After all, we've been at this game for less than three millennia . . . and who knows what the future will bring once Trump MsAGA, Elon Musk colonizes Mars, and we make contact with advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, etc.

What would you say to the BAD INDUCTION objection?

But there is another point I should make. You seem to think that philosophy proceeds reasonably only if it achieves agreed-upon results. I deny that as I have argued many times. Why do you accept it?

[BV]

Tony,

Do you want to sell me the book you cite in which Q. Lauer's paper is to be found? The Flood Wing of the Bibilioteca Vallicelliana is eager to expand.

Lauer is spot on when he writes: >>the “perennial problem . . . has been the universalizing of a reason whose activity takes place in individuals, but whose validity transcends the limits of individual reason.”[9]<<

You wrote your essay when you were 24 or 25 yrs old. Pretty good stuff for a young whippersnapper! I agree with much, and I sympathize with the frustration you felt with the technical minutiae and Wittgenstein exegesis you were subjected to at NYU.

You and I are alike in that we both take the problem of phil. disagreement very seriously and we both have devoted our lives to the quest for the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters, whatever it is, and however it is to be attained, whether by specifically philosophical methods and routes, or by extra-philosophical methods and routes.

And I believe we are alike in that we both view philosophy existentially, which implies that we see the quest for the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters as pertaining to our very identity. And so for me, and I think also for you, the questions What is philosophy? and How is it possible? are intimately related to, and practically identical with the questions Who am I? What am I about in this life? How can I live an authentic life, a life in truth. And so I, and maybe you too, despise the academic functionaries, the blase time-servers, the intellectual gamesmen, the unserious scum for whom philosophy is just a way to fill one's belly with no heavy lifting and summers off.

So I think you and I have much common ground. The difference is that you have opted for a presuppositionalism that to me makes no sense and is a privileging of a arbitrarily adopted position. I have shown to my satisfaction that TAG is a non-starter. You of course disagree. This is yet another phil. disagreement. You may think you are beyond philosophy and that philosophy is, as you term it 'misosophy,' but you are still stuck at the phil. level.

[Elliott]

BV at 4:37 AM on Nov. 26:

>> I am inclined to agree with Butchvarov on this and say that knowledge entails objective certainty, and that OC is impossibility of mistake. <<

And I’m inclined to agree with you and Butchvarov that knowledge entails OC. Why? For one thing, the thesis of epistemic infallibilism seems immune to the epistemic luck present in Gettier cases. Or as Socrates might put it, OC tethers true belief so that it doesn’t run away (Meno) at the sight of epistemic luck. For another thing, epistemic infallibilism explains why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief.

A common objection to epistemic infallibilism is that it eliminates much of what we ordinarily take ourselves to know. For example, I justifiably believe that I am now looking at a lamp with a blue lampshade. But since it’s possible that I’m wrong, I don’t know that I’m looking at the lamp. Some want to say that I know I’m looking at the lamp. The infallibilist can say that I know I’m having an experience as of looking at the lamp, or that I know I’m being appeared-to-bluely, but I don’t know (precisely speaking) that I’m looking at a lamp.

One point to discuss further: What is meant by “impossibility of mistake?” What sort of possibility is at work here?

Re: Fuchs:

Consensus is logically irrelevant to truth, as you noted. Truth does not entail consensus, nor consensus truth. And consensus does not entail objective certainty, but OC entails both truth and consensus among epistemic peers (at least regarding publicly available matters). If Socrates has objective certainty that p, and Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant are Socrates’ epistemic peers, then P, A, D, and K have objective certainty that p.

[Elliott]

Bill,

You wrote: >>That I feel good right now is both subjectively certain and objectively certain. And the same is also true -- though it is less obvious -- in the case of such propositions as *a = b iff b = a.*<<

That looks right to me. Regarding *a = b iff b = a*, what seems correct to me is to say that this proposition is objectively certain and for any person, that person has a right to be subjectively certain about the proposition, is subjectively certain when thinking clearly, and ought to be subjectively certain when thinking clearly.

Suppose Smith is prone to unreasonable nervousness and lack of self-confidence. Smith is a logic student. It’s test day. One question on the test is: “Is *a = b iff b = a* a true proposition?” Smith has objective certainty about the correct answer, and has the right to subjective certainty, but because of his self-doubt, he’s not subjectively certain. He’s too worried about making a mistake. (I suppose that this case could be explained in such a way that Smith doesn't doubt the proposition but instead doubts himself.)

So, what we might say is that *a = b iff b = a* is subjectively certain for anyone who understands it and is in his right mind when considering it.

[Elliott]

>> 4) Knowledge entails truth.
9) Knowledge entails objective certainty.
…
Now if I have properly explicated (9), then (9) is not a corollary of (4): it is conceivable that (4) is true and (9) false. <<

Bill, that seems right to me. (4) is a philosophical axiom. Most (perhaps virtually all) philosophers accept it, though a few recently have questioned it. But many deny (9). One of their challenges is to handle Gettier cases while also holding that knowledge is consistent with fallible justification. It seems to me that fallible justification allows for epistemic luck, which is inconsistent with knowledge.

[BV]

Excellent comments, Elliot.

I hope to respond tomorrow, perhaps in a separate post after I think about how the Gettier cases interact with the infallibility thesis.

Who has questioned (4) and why?

[Elliott]

Hi, Bill.

I'd be interested to read your thoughts about this topic.

As Gordon notes, “Knowledge is almost universally taken to be to be factive.” (Understanding in Epistemology, IEP; https://iep.utm.edu/understa/#H2 ) In other words, to know that p entails that p is true.

However, a few have argued that knowledge is not factive. In The Myth of Factive Verbs, Hazlett argues that the verb ‘to know’ is not factive and raises doubts that knowledge itself is factive. (Phil. and Phen. Research, Vol. 80, No. 3, 2010. https://aristotle.rutgers.edu/joomlatools-files/docman-files/Hazlett.pdf )

Bricker argues that the view that knowledge is factive commits one to an implausible version of epistemic externalism. (Knowledge as a (Non-factive) Mental State, Erkenntnis, June 2023)

Shaffer argues that knowledge does not entail truth, and that one can know a proposition that is approximately true though precisely false. (Can Knowledge Really be Non-factive? Logos and Episteme: An International Journal of Epistemology 12 (2):215-226 (2021), https://philarchive.org/archive/SHACKR )

Buckwalter and Turri argue that “if knowledge requires truth, then the fact that many of our beliefs are false threatens skepticism.” To avoid skepticism, they propose abandoning the truth requirement for knowledge and allowing propositions that are approximately true (though false) to be knowable. (Knowledge and truth: A skeptical challenge, Pac. Phil. Qtrly. 101 (1) 2019, https://files.turri.org/research/factivity_skepticism.pdf )

Popovic argues that truth is not a necessary condition for knowledge. (The Tesseract, the Cube and Truthless Knowledge; Why Truth is Not a Necessary Condition for Knowledge )

Goh and Choo argue against cases that knowledge is not factive, defending the thesis that knowledge entails truth. (Addressing two recent challenges to the factive account of knowledge; Synthese (2022) 200:435 ; https://philarchive.org/archive/GOHATR )

In "Proof that Knowledge Entails Truth," Kyle uses modal logic to argue that the denial that knowledge entails truth leads to a contradiction, thus showing (by reductio) that knowledge entails truth. https://philarchive.org/archive/KYLPTK

[Elliott]

Bill,

It is interesting to note that the infallibility thesis (IT) entails that knowledge is factive. On the IT, knowledge entails objective certainty, which entails infallible belief. But whatever is believed infallibly is true. Hence, according to IT, knowledge entails truth.

[EG]

Hi Bill and Elliot,

In RE: the comment by Elliot on Saturday 11/30/24 @ 1:45PM

What is worrying about "factivity" getting us? Are we moving closer, or have we simply moved the conversation to a different set of concepts?

[EG]

Call it an extra-philosophical guess, but I suspect that a deep part of unpacking some of these puzzles will be to properly understand our consciousness, say what it is and how it relates to our inescapable subjective experience of an "external reality." From my position, no amount of logical argument is going to guarantee the truth (as opposed to a stipulated/putative truth-value) of anything, since I don't think you actually have to argue for true things at all.