Abstract
Several philosophers have claimed that S knows p only if S' s belief is safe, where S's belief is safe iff (roughly) in nearby possible worlds in which S believes p, p is true. One widely held intuition many people have is that one cannot know that one's lottery ticket will lose a fair lottery prior to an announcement of the winner, regardless of how probable it is that it will lose. Duncan Pritchard has claimed that a chief advantage of safety theory is that it can explain the lottery intuition without succumbing to skepticism. I argue that Pritchard is wrong. If a version of safety theory can explain the lottery intuition, it will also lead to skepticism.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 95-120 |
| Number of pages | 26 |
| Journal | Erkenntnis |
| Volume | 77 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 10 Jul 2011 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 2012 |
Bibliographical note
A paid open access option is available for this journal.Authors own final version only can be archived
Publisher's version/PDF cannot be used
On author's website or institutional repository
On funders designated website/repository after 12 months at the funders request or as a result of legal obligation
Published source must be acknowledged
Must link to publisher version
Set phrase to accompany link to published version (The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com)
Articles in some journals can be made Open Access on payment of additional charge
Keywords
- counterfactuals
- knowledge
- chances
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Safety, Skepticism, and Lotteries'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Impacts
-
NIP Public
Luca Moretti (Coordinator), Dylan Dodd (Coordinator), Carl Edward Baker (Coordinator), Aidan McGlynn (Coordinator) & Francesco Berto (Coordinator)
Impact