ABSTRACT
It has been argued that an advantage of the safety account over the sensitivity account is that the safety account preserves epistemic closure, while the sensitivity account implies epistemic closure failure. However, the argument fails to take the method-relativity of the modal conditions on knowledge, viz., sensitivity and safety, into account. In this paper, I argue that the sensitivity account and the safety account are on a par with respect to epistemic closure once the method-relativity of the modal conditions is taken into account. Therefore, epistemic closure is no longer an arbiter in the debate.
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Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1. The sensitivity theorists include Adams, Barker, and Figurelli (Citation2012), Adams and Clarke (Citation2005), Becker (Citation2006, Citation2007, Citation2008, Citation2009, Citation2012a, Citation2012b, Citation2013, Citation2016, Citation2018), Bjerring and Gundersen (Citation2020), Black (Citation2002, Citation2008, Citation2011, Citation2019), Black and Murphy (Citation2007), Bolos and Collin (Citation2018), Broncano-Berrocal (Citation2018), Collin (Citation2018), Collin and Bolos (Citation2020), Cross (Citation2010), DeRose (Citation1995, Citation2010), Goldberg (Citation2012), Gundersen (Citation2003, Citation2010, Citation2012), Ichikawa (Citation2011), Murphy and Black (Citation2012), Nozick (Citation1981), Ramachandran (Citation2015), Roush (Citation2005, Citation2012), Topey (Citation2022), Wallbridge (Citation2017, Citation2018a, Citation2018b) and Zalabardo (Citation2012, Citation2017).
2. The safety theorists include Ball (Citation2016), Beddor and Pavese (Citation2020), Carter (Citation2010), Dutant (Citation2010, Citation2016), Greco (Citation2012), Grundmann (Citation2020), Hirvelä (Citation2017, Citation2019), Kelp (Citation2013), Lasonen-Aarnio (Citation2010), Luper (Citation2003, Citation2006a, Citation2006b), Luper-Foy (Citation1984), Manley (Citation2007), Neil (Citation2019), Peet and Pitcovski (Citation2018), Pritchard (Citation2002, Citation2005, Citation2007, Citation2008a, Citation2008b, Citation2008c, Citation2009, Citation2012a, Citation2012b, Citation2013, Citation2015, Citation2016, Citation2017, Citation2018), Sainsbury (Citation1997), Wedgwood (Citation2020) and Williamson (Citation2000, Citation2009). In Sosa (Citation1999a, Citation1999b, Citation2003, Citation2015) was also a main proponent of the safety condition, though he has recently developed a virtue-theoretic account of knowledge that does not draw upon the condition heavily, see Sosa (Citation2007, Citation2009).
3. Nonetheless, it has been argued that the sensitivity account, unlike the safety account, fails to account for inductive knowledge, See Pritchard (Citation2008b) and Sosa (Citation1999b). For the argument that the sensitivity account is able to account for inductive knowledge, see Wallbridge (Citation2018b). For the argument that the safety account also fails to account for inductive knowledge, see Zhao and Baumann (Citation2021).
4. Bernecker (Citation2012) also argues that epistemic closure cannot be used to adjudicate between the safety and the sensitivity accounts of knowledge. As he argues, sensitivity, as well as safety, fails to account for knowledge of necessary truths which is required in competent deductions. Because whether the safety/sensitivity account can account for knowledge of necessary truths bears little relevance to the topic of the paper, I shall not delve into his argument here. For related discussions, see Ball (Citation2016), Bernecker (Citation2020), Blome-Tillmann (Citation2017), Collin (Citation2018), Garrett (Citation1983), Grundmann (Citation2020), Hirvelä (Citation2017, Citation2019), Manley (Citation2007), Melchior (Citation2017a, Citation2021), Miščević (Citation2007), Paterson (Citation2020), Pritchard (Citation2009, Citation2012a, Citation2013, Citation2016), Roland and Cogburn (Citation2011) and Zhao (Citation2021a, Citation2021b, Citationforthcoming).
5. For discussions of the sensitivity condition as the anti-luck condition on knowledge, see Adams and Clarke (Citation2005), Becker (Citation2007, Citation2008, Citation2012b), Black (Citation2011, Citation2019), Bolos and Collin (Citation2018), Collin (Citation2018), Murphy and Black (Citation2012), Neil (Citation2019), Roush (Citation2005) and Topey (Citation2022).
6. For discussions of the safety condition as the anti-luck condition on knowledge, see Blome-Tillmann (Citation2020), Broncano-Berrocal (Citation2019), Carter (Citation2010), Collin (Citation2018), Grundmann (Citation2020), Hirvelä (Citation2019), Lasonen-Aarnio (Citation2008), Melchior (Citation2017a), Miščević (Citation2007), Neil (Citation2019), Peet and Pitcovski (Citation2018) and Pritchard (Citation2005, Citation2007, Citation2008a, Citation2008b, Citation2008c, Citation2009, Citation2012a, Citation2012b, Citation2013, Citation2015, Citation2016, Citation2017, Citation2018).
8. In addition to discharging putative counterexamples such as DACHSHUND, there are other motivations for relativizing the sensitivity condition to belief-formation methods. For instance, there is criticism of the sensitivity account that it cannot account for higher-order knowledge, see DeRose (Citation1995), Huemer (Citation2001), Kripke (Citation2011), Melchior (Citation2015, Citation2017b), Sosa (Citation1996, Citation1999b, Citation2002), Vogel (Citation1987, Citation2000, Citation2007, Citation2012), Williamson (Citation2000) and Zalabardo (Citation2012). Nonetheless, Bjerring and Gundersen (Citation2020) and Wallbridge (Citation2017, Citation2018a) argue that the criticism fails to take the method-relativity of the sensitivity condition into account.
10. This formulation needs some further qualifications. For example, S learns of no undefeated defeater for q. For the sake of simplicity, I shall avoid further complications here. For related discussions, see David and Warfield (Citation2008), Kvanvig (Citation2006), Luper (Citation2020) and Warfield (Citation2004).
13. I would like to thank Sven Bernecker, Duncan Pritchard, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments and suggestions.
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