Knowledge of the Future and Reliable Belief-Forming Processes

Abstract

This paper embraces the view that we have substantial knowledge of the future and investigates how such knowledge fundamentally differs from knowledge of the past and present. I argue for a new source of context-sensitivity with respect to knowledge attributions arising from presuppositions about reliable belief-forming processes. This context sensitivity has important consequences for knowledge of the future, as well as the appropriateness of assertions about the future. I argue that not only is knowledge of future events typically brought about by fundamentally different processes from those that bring about knowledge of past events, but also that this is the case is often presupposed in attributing knowledge. I argue that this new source of context sensitivity naturally extends to explaining the recent puzzle of ‘easy foreknowledge’.