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Single Idea 8878

[filed under theme 11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 1. Knowledge ]

Full Idea

I am quite flexible on epistemic terminology, and am even willing to grant that a supermarket door can 'know' that someone is approaching.

Gist of Idea

It is acceptable to say a supermarket door 'knows' someone is approaching

Source

Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.6)

Book Ref

Bonjour,L/Sosa,E: 'Epistemic Justification' [Blackwells 2003], p.115


A Reaction

I take this amazing admission to be a hallmark of externalism. Sosa must extend this to thermostats. So flowers know the sun has come out. This is knowledge without belief. Could the door ever be 'wrong'?


The 10 ideas from 'Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues'

Much propositional knowledge cannot be formulated, as in recognising a face [Sosa]
We can't attain a coherent system by lopping off any beliefs that won't fit [Sosa]
Fully comprehensive beliefs may not be knowledge [Sosa]
It is acceptable to say a supermarket door 'knows' someone is approaching [Sosa]
In reducing arithmetic to self-evident logic, logicism is in sympathy with rationalism [Sosa]
Most of our knowledge has insufficient sensory support [Sosa]
Perception may involve thin indexical concepts, or thicker perceptual concepts [Sosa]
Do beliefs only become foundationally justified if we fully attend to features of our experience? [Sosa]
The phenomenal concept of an eleven-dot pattern does not include the concept of eleven [Sosa]
Some features of a thought are known directly, but others must be inferred [Sosa]