Abstract
A novel solution to the knowability paradox is proposed based on Kant’s transcendental epistemology. The ‘paradox’ refers to a simple argument from the moderate claim that all truths are knowable to the extreme claim that all truths are known. It is significant because anti-realists have wanted to maintain knowability but reject omniscience. The core of the proposed solution is to concede realism about epistemic statements while maintaining anti-realism about non-epistemic statements. Transcendental epistemology supports such a view by providing for a sharp distinction between how we come to understand and apply epistemic versus non-epistemic concepts, the former through our capacity for a special kind of reflective self-knowledge Kant calls ‘transcendental apperception’. The proposal is a version of restriction strategy: it solves the paradox by restricting the anti-realist’s knowability principle. Restriction strategies have been a common response to the paradox but previous versions face serious difficulties: either they result in a knowability principle too weak to do the work anti-realists want it to, or they succumb to modified forms of the paradox, or they are ad hoc. It is argued that restricting knowability to non-epistemic statements by conceding realism about epistemic statements avoids all versions of the paradox, leaves enough for the anti-realist attack on classical logic, and, with the help of transcendental epistemology, is principled in a way that remains compatible with a thoroughly anti-realist outlook.
Highlights
The so-called knowability ‘paradox’ refers to a simple argument from the moderate claim that all truths are knowable to the extreme claim that all truths are known.1 Whether or not this result marks a genuine paradox, it is certainly surprising
Given the official statement of my restriction strategy—to statements that make no reference to the kind of cognitive capacities in terms of which anti-realism offers its epistemic characterization of truth—this means that ARnon-E can only be applied to statements that are both K- and B-free, which blocks the above derivation of omnicredence
The knowability paradox poses a serious problem for anti-realism by threatening to collapse the core principle of the view into an unacceptable omniscience claim
Summary
The so-called knowability ‘paradox’ refers to a simple argument from the moderate claim that all truths are knowable to the extreme claim that all truths are known. Whether or not this result marks a genuine paradox, it is certainly surprising. When I talk of solutions to the paradox I mean ways that anti-realism can respond to this problem Many such solutions have been proposed but perhaps the most prominent has been to restrict the anti-realist’s knowability principle in such a way as to avoid the collapse into omniscience. It is natural to ask whether there are resources in Kant that are relevant to the issue at hand It is the aim of this paper to show that there are, and a novel solution to the knowability paradox is proposed based on Kant’s transcendental epistemology. 3 I introduce a novel restriction of knowability to what I call ‘nonepistemic’ statements and argue that it is preferable to previous restriction strategies in two key respects: it yields a principle strong enough to form the basis of the anti-realist attack on classical logic but weak enough to avoid all versions of the paradox. This in turn provides a principled motivation for my proposed restriction of knowability to non-epistemic statements
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