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Full Idea
If I utter 'I know I have a hand' then I can only be reckoned a cooperative conversant by my interlocutors on the assumption that there was a real question as to whether I have a hand.
Gist of Idea
Commitment to 'I have a hand' only makes sense in a context where it has been doubted
Source
John Hawthorne (The Case for Closure [2005], 2)
Book Ref
'Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (2nd ed)', ed/tr. Steup/Turri/Sosa [Wiley Blackwell 2014], p.44
A Reaction
This seems to point to the contextualist approach to global scepticism, which concerns whether we are setting the bar high or low for 'knowledge'.
| 19551 | How can we know the heavyweight implications of normal knowledge? Must we distort 'knowledge'? [Hawthorne] |
| 19552 | We wouldn't know the logical implications of our knowledge if small risks added up to big risks [Hawthorne] |
| 19554 | Denying closure is denying we know P when we know P and Q, which is absurd in simple cases [Hawthorne] |
| 19553 | Commitment to 'I have a hand' only makes sense in a context where it has been doubted [Hawthorne] |