The case for probabilistic knowledge

Abstract

This chapter develops and defends the thesis that we can know probabilistic contents. It is argued that we can get probabilistic knowledge in all the same ways that we get propositional knowledge, including by testimony, inference, memory, and a priori reflection. In addition, there are several reasons to think that we can have perceptual knowledge of probabilistic contents by having perceptual experiences that have probabilistic contents. Probabilistic beliefs can have many traditional epistemic virtues, including factivity, reliability, safety, sensitivity, and aptness. They can also exhibit the same sort of epistemic failure exhibited by justified full beliefs that fail to be knowledge. The chapter concludes by defending several applications of probabilistic knowledge in the philosophy of language. For instance, probabilistic knowledge can help us diagnose misguided criticism of conventionally female speech.