Knowledge, despite Evidence to the Contrary

Abstract

Can new evidence against what one knows defeat one’s knowledge? It depends on whom you ask. Strong views of knowledge claim that knowing cannot be defeated by counterevidence. Weak views of knowledge claim that knowing can be defeated by counterevidence. I discuss recent versions of those views of knowledge—Maria Lasonen-Aarnio’s and Peter Klein’s, respectively—and argue that both are wanting. Strong views have to account for the defeat intuition (i.e., the inclination some of us have, at least some of the time, to think that knowledge is defeated in particular cases). Weak views have to solve the indeterminacy problem (i.e., explaining, in a principled way, when and why knowledge is defeated). I argue that Lasonen-Aarnio’s view cannot account for the defeat intuition, and that Klein’s view cannot account for the indeterminacy problem. I then offer a novel version of the strong view of knowledge, one that improves on the version previously discussed.