An Epistemic Reduction of Contrastive Knowledge Claims

Abstract

Contrastive epistemologists say knowledge displays the ternary relation “S knows p rather than q”. I argue that “S knows p rather than q” is often equivalent to “S knows p rather than not‐p” and hence equivalent to “S knows p”. The result is that contrastive knowledge is often binary knowledge disguised.

Keywords:

• Contrastivism
• Knowledge
• Epistemology

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Darren Bradley and Adam Morton for helpful comments.

Notes

[1] See, for example, Jonathan Schaffer (2004, 2005, 2008), Adam Morton and Antti Karjalainen (2003, 2008), Walter Sinnott‐Armstrong (2004, 2006) and Martijn Blaauw (2008). For detractors, see, for example, Duncan Pritchard (2008), Ram Neta (2008), and Jonathan Kvanvig (2007). Articles by Pritchard, Neta, and Morton and Karjalainen appear in a 2008 edition of Social Epistemology devoted to contrastive knowledge (volume 22, issue 3).

[2] See Schaffer (2008).

[3] See Schaffer (2008) and Morton and Karjalainen (2008).

[4] This inference is legitimate given the following stipulations: S can evidentially eliminate q‐alternatives; and q‐alternatives are small in number. These stipulations are allowed in discussions of closure over contrastive knowledge states. See, for example, Schaffer (2004, 2005). The inference is prima facie invalid (replace q).

[5] For discussion about how “wide” contrast classes are, see Walter Sinnott‐Armstrong (2006, 83–97) and Martijn Blaauw (2008).

[6] See, for example, Schaffer (2004, 2005) and Pritchard (2008).