Single Idea 8800

[catalogued under 13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 8. Social Justification]

Full Idea

If one reads of a genuine assassination, but then fails to read the reports next day which untruthfully deny the event, one probably does not know of the event. But we must conclude that knowledge has a further 'social aspect'.

Gist of Idea

If you would deny a truth if you know the full evidence, then knowledge has social aspects

Source

report of Gilbert Harman (Induction [1970], §IV) by Ernest Sosa - The Raft and the Pyramid Appx

Book Reference

'Epistemology - An Anthology', ed/tr. Sosa,E. /Kim,J. [Blackwell 2000], p.150


A Reaction

I doubt if this is enough to support an externalist account of defeasibility. Wise people don't 'know' of an event after one report. For 24 hours the Royalists thought they had won Marston Moor! You know he's dead when you see the Zapruder film.