Fake Barn Research Articles

Greco’s explanatory salience contextualism revisited

According to Greco’s early explanatory salience contextualism, S knows that p if and only if S’s cognitive abilities are the salient factor in a causal explanation of why S holds a true belief rather than a false belief or no belief at all. Greco abandoned this view because it cannot handle fake barn cases and because it proves impossible to analyze knowledge in terms of a quantitative characterization of explanatory salience. The paper argues that the core idea of explanatory salience contextualism could have been saved if only the causal notion of explanation had been replaced by an abductive notion.

Deepfakes, Fake Barns, and Knowledge from Videos

Recent develops in AI technology have led to increasingly sophisticated forms of video manipulation. One such form has been the advent of deepfakes. Deepfakes are AI-generated videos that typically depict people doing and saying things they never did. In this paper, I demonstrate that there is a close structural relationship between deepfakes and more traditional fake barn cases in epistemology. Specifically, I argue that deepfakes generate an analogous degree of epistemic risk to that which is found in traditional cases. Given that barn cases have posed a long-standing challenge for virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge, I consider whether a similar challenge extends to deepfakes. In doing so, I consider how Duncan Pritchard’s recent anti-risk virtue epistemology meets the challenge. While Pritchard’s account avoids problems in traditional barn cases, I claim that it leads to local scepticism about knowledge from online videos in the case of deepfakes. I end by considering how two alternative virtue-theoretic approaches might vindicate our epistemic dependence on videos in an increasingly digital world.

A new solution to the safety dilemma

Despite the substantial appeal of the safety condition, Kelp (J Philos Res 34:21–31, 2009; Am Philos Q 53:27–37; Good Thinking. A Knowledge First Virtue Epistemology, Routledge, London, 2018) has raised a difficult challenge for safety-theoretic accounts of knowledge. By combining Gettier-style fake barn cases with epistemic Frankfurt cases, he concludes that no formulation of safety can be strong enough to predict ignorance in the former and weak enough to accommodate knowledge in the latter. In this note, my contribution is two-fold. Firstly, I take up Kelp’s challenge and I show that, once properly understood, safety successfully rises to it. Secondly, I draw a more general lesson on the safety condition: a satisfactory solution to Kelp’s challenge calls for a revision of the standard formulation of safety, which must be indexed to both methods and environments. My conclusion will be that an environment-relative version of safety not only meets Kelp’s challenge, but it also advances our understanding of the safety condition on knowledge.

The Method of Cases: A Case Study

The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative interpretation of the method of cases, analyze two of its particular implementations in the theory of knowledge, and argue that the method of cases, according to this interpretation, is not prone to challenges posed by its recent critics, such as Edouard Machery (2017). The core of the proposed interpretation is that the method of cases consists of two steps (the case description and the target argument) and that the case description does not elicit judgments about the applicability of the concepts in question. In fact, case descriptions do not elicit anything at all; rather, they show some facts, usually some factual distinctions among relevant situations. Specifically, the Gettier cases and the Fake Barn cases show a certain differentiation in the ways of holding beliefs. How to adjust the concept of knowledge to such differentiation — if at all — belongs to the argumentative step.

Epistemic Luck and Epistemic Risk

We are witnessing a certain tendency in epistemology to account for the anti-luck intuition in terms of risk. I.e., instead of the traditional anti-luck diagnosis of Gettier cases and fake barn cases, a new anti-risk diagnosis seems to be preferable by many. My goal in this paper is twofold: first, I contribute to motivate that drift; and second, I defend that we ought to partially resist it. An anti-risk diagnosis is valid and preferable for fake barn cases, but we still need an anti-luck diagnosis for classic Gettier cases. The paper thus defends the Solomon-like result that we need both concepts—epistemic luck and epistemic risk—to deal with all the cases where knowledge is undermined.

Contextualism and the Problem of Knowledge Ascription

The paper explores the contextualist approach towards the semantics of knowledge ascriptions. The authors discuss the relevance of these studies in semantics for the major issues in virtue epistemology. It is argued that despite the advantages that contextualism has over its alternatives (in particular, relativism and subject sensitive invariablisism), it still requires a more elaborated compositional semantics that it currently has. We review several concrete contextualsit proposals to the semantics of the verb know in light of their applicability to the well-known type of examples known as the fake barn example, point out some of their particular shortcomings, and propose a revision, which represents a variant of D. Lewis’s general approach to the semantics of know.

Fake Barns and Our Epistemological Theorizing

Pure virtue epistemology faces the fake barn challenge. This paper explains how it can be met. Thus, it is argued that the thought experiment contains a hidden ambiguity concerning the visual ability typically ascribed to, or denied, fake barn subjects. Disambiguation shows fake barn subjects to have limited knowledge of the target proposition (e.g. that there is a barn ahead). This accords with a pure virtue-theoretic conception of knowledge that predicts and explains all the intuitionselicited by the thought experiment. As a result, the relationship between knowledge, luck and ability is illuminated, and our epistemological theorizing improved.

Judgment and Agency

<i>Judgment and Agency</i>

Knowledge Attributions in Iterated Fake Barn Cases

In a single-iteration fake barn case, the agent correctly identifies an object of interest on the first try, despite the presence of nearby lookalikes that could have mislead her. In a multiple-iteration fake barn case, the agent first encounters several fakes, misidentifies each of them, and then encounters and correctly identifies a genuine item of interest. Prior work has established that people tend to attribute knowledge in single-iteration fake barn cases, but multiple-iteration cases have not been tested. However, some theorists contend that multiple-iteration cases are more important and will elicit a strong tendency to deny knowledge. Here I report a behavioral experiment investigating knowledge judgments in multiple-iteration fake barn cases. The main finding is that people tend to attribute knowledge in these cases too. Ironically, the results indicate that the presence of fakes could prevent iterated errors from lowering knowledge attributions. The results also provide evidence that ordinary knowledge attributions are based on attributions of cognitive ability.

Knowledge attributions in iterated fake barn cases

In a single-iteration fake barn case, the agent correctly identifies an object of interest on the first try, despite the presence of nearby lookalikes that could have mislead her. In a multiple-iteration fake barn case, the agent first encounters several fakes, misidentifies each of them, and then encounters and correctly identifies a genuine item of interest. Prior work has established that people tend to attribute knowledge in single-iteration fake barn cases, but multiple-iteration cases have not been tested. However, some theorists contend that multiple-iteration cases are more important and will elicit a strong tendency to deny knowledge. Here I report a behavioral experiment investigating knowledge judgments in multiple-iteration fake barn cases. The main finding is that people tend to attribute knowledge in these cases too. Ironically, the results indicate that the presence of fakes could prevent iterated errors from lowering knowledge attributions. The results also provide evidence that ordinary knowledge attributions are based on attributions of cognitive ability.

KNOWING WHAT'S NOT UP THE ROAD BY SEEING WHAT'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU: EPISTEMOLOGICAL DISJUNCTIVISM'S FAKE BARN PROBLEM

ABSTRACTEpistemological Disjunctivism (ED) is the view that rational support for paradigm cases of perceptual knowledge that P comes from seeing that P – a state that is both factive and reflectively accessible. ED has the consequence that if I see that there is a barn before me, I can thereby be in a position to know that I am not in fake barn country. It is argued that this is a problem. The problem is distinct from familiar complaints about Neo-Mooreanism and easy knowledge. Potential ways of avoiding this problem are proposed. It is argued that they do not succeed. There is a way out of ED's fake barn problem but many will likely find it inhospitable.

The two faces of compatibility with justified beliefs

When discussing knowledge, two relations are of interest: justified doxastic accessibility\(S\) (for all the agent is justified in believing in \(x\), she is in \(y\)) and justification equivalence\(E\) (the agent would have in \(y\) exactly the same justified beliefs that she has in \(x\)). Speaking of compatibility with the agent’s justified beliefs is potentially ambiguous: either of the two relations \(S\) or \(E\) can be meant. I discuss the possibility of identifying the relation of epistemic accessibility\(R\) (for all the agent knows in \(x\), she is in \(y\)) with the union of \(S\) and \(E\). Neither Gettier’s examples nor the ‘fake barn’ cases contradict this identification. However, the proposal leads to justification equivalent scenarios being symmetric with respect to knowledge: we cannot know a true proposition in a scenario if it is false in a justification equivalent scenario. This analysis may appear to render non-trivial knowledge impossible. This conclusion follows if the extra premise is granted that for all relevant true propositions there is a justification equivalent scenario in which the proposition is false. I provide a meaning-theoretic argument against this premise. I conclude by pointing out problems that would ensue from giving up the proposed connection between \(S\), \(E\) and \(R\) and allowing asymmetry of justification equivalent scenarios relative to knowledge.

No achievement beyond intention

According to robust versions of virtue epistemology, the reason why knowledge is incompatible with certain kinds of luck is that justified true beliefs must be achieved by the agent (Sosa in A virtue epistemology: apt belief and reflective knowledge, 2007, Reflective knowledge: apt belief and reflective knowledge, 2009, Knowing full well, 2011; Greco in Philos Studies 17:57–69, 2007, Achieving knowledge, 2010, Philos Phenomenol Res 85:1–26, 2012). In a recent set of papers, Pritchard (The nature and value of knowledge: three investigations, 2010a, Think 25:19–30, 2010b, J Philos 109:247–279, 2012, Virtue scientia. Bridges between philosophy of science and virtue epistemology, Forthcoming) has challenged these sorts of views, advancing different arguments against them. I confront one of them here, which is constructed upon scenarios affected by environmental luck, such as the fake barn cases. My objection to Pritchard differs from those offered until now by Carter (Erkenntnis 78:253–275, 2011, Pac Philos Q, 2014), Jarvis (Pac Philos Q 94:529–551, 2013) or Littlejohn (Synthese 158:345–361, 2006) in that it is based on the claim that cognitive performances may not be properly considered as achievements beyond the scope of the agent’s intentional action—an idea that confers more explanatory power on my argument, and contributes to stregthening links between knowledge and agency.

Knowledge is Not Belief for Sufficient (Objective and Subjective) Reason

Mark Schroeder has recently proposed a new analysis of knowledge. I examine that analysis and show that it fails. More specifically, I show that it faces a problem all too familiar from the post-Gettier literature, namely, that it is delivers the wrong verdict in fake barn cases.

Frankfurt in Fake Barn Country

AbstractIt is very widely held that Frankfurt‐style cases—in which a counterfactual intervener stands by to bring it about that an agent performs an action but never actually acts because the agent performs that action on her own—show that free will does not require alternative possibilities. This essay argues that that conclusion is unjustified, because merely counterfactual interveners may make a difference to normative properties. It presents a modified version of a fake barn case to show how a counterfactual intervener can make the difference between an agent knowing a fact or merely truly believing that fact, by eliminating veretic epistemic luck. If counterfactual interveners can make this kind of difference to the epistemic status of agents, the essay argues, there is no reason why they can't make an analogous difference to agents' moral responsibility. It concludes that reflection on these cases reveals that despite the mountains of words spilled on the topic, we still don't fully understand what role access to alternative possibilities plays in whether or not agents are morally responsible for their actions.

UNREFLECTIVE EPISTEMOLOGY

AbstractVirtue epistemological accounts of knowledge claim that knowledge is a species of a broader normative category, to wit of success from ability. Fake Barn cases pose a difficult problem for such accounts. In structurally analogous but non-epistemic cases, the agents attain the relevant success from ability. If knowledge is just another form of success from ability, the pressure is on to treat Fake Barn cases as cases of knowledge. The challenge virtue epistemology faces is to explain the intuitive lack of knowledge in Fake Barn cases, whilst holding on to the core claim that knowledge is success from ability. Ernest Sosa's version of virtue epistemology promises to rise to this challenge. Sosa distinguishes two types of knowledge, animal knowledge and reflective knowledge. He argues that while animal knowledge is present in Fake Barn cases, reflective knowledge is absent and ventures to explain the intuition of ignorance by the absence of reflective knowledge. This paper argues that Sosa's treatment of Fake Barn cases fails as it commits Sosa to a number of highly counterintuitive results elsewhere in epistemology.

Scepticism and Reliable Belief * By JOSE ZALABARDO

Nozick (1981) famously advocated a tracking theory of knowledge according to which S knows that p only if S would not believe p if p were false and S would believe p if p were true. These two modal conditions on knowledge, sensitivity and adherence respectively, seem initially to provide a neat solution to the Gettier problem and the problem about scepticism. For instance, the reason you fail to know there�s a barn in fake barn county despite having a justified true belief is that you would still believe there�s a barn if instead you were looking at one of the many barn facades. And while both conditions are met when it comes to your belief that you have hands, your belief that you are not a handless brain in a vat (BIV) is insensitive, and so you cannot know that you are not a BIV. So, your lack of knowledge of the negation of sceptical hypotheses seems to inflict no damage on your putative knowledge of everyday propositions. So far, so good. The problem with the requirement that sensitivity be a necessary condition on knowledge is twofold. First off, given your knowledge that having hands entails not being a BIV, Nozick�s anti-sceptical strategy implies that knowledge is not invariably closed under known entailment. Secondly, there are intuitive cases of insensitive knowledge. Some of these, including Nozick�s own grandmother case, can be handled by insisting that S sensitively believes p just in case S would not believe p using the same method that S uses in the actual world if p were false. But, as Zalabardo notes, method-relativization of sensitivity fails to deal with all such cases, including Sosa�s (1999) rubbish chute. You drop a rubbish bag down the chute in a high-rise condo. Intuitively, moments later you know that �

Sosa’s Virtue Epistemology

Ernest Sosa’s latest epistemology remains a version of virtue epistemology, and I argue here that it faces two central problems, pressing a point I have made elsewhere, that virtue epistemology does not present a complete answer to the problem of the value of knowledge. I will press this point regarding the nature of knowledge through variations on two standard Gettier examples here. The first is the Fake Barn case and the second is the Tom Grabit case. I will argue that Sosa’s latest virtue epistemology fails to handle either case acceptably, and that as a result, cannot explain the value that knowledge has over that of the sum of any of its proper subparts.

You Can't Get Away with Murder That Easily: A Response to Timothy Mulgan

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 Tim Mulgan, ‘How Satisficers Get Away with Murder’, International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 9 (2001), pp. 41–6. 2 The principle could be modified to take into account the agent's epistemic perspective, (rationally) expected rather than actual outcomes, etc. 3 Campbell Brown proposed a similar revision in his comments on a weblog post at Fake Barn Country, http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Philosophy/Blog/Archives/004572.html. This paper is a descendant of that post. 4 Thanks to Campbell Brown, Jamie Dreier, Allan Hazlett, and David Hunter for helpful feedback on relevant material.

The Real Guide to Fake Barns: A Catalogue of Gifts for Your Epistemic Enemies

Perhaps the concept of knowledge, prior to its being fashioned and molded by certain philosophical traditions, never offered any stable negative verdict in the original fake barn case.