The Contingent Unknowability of Facts and its Relation with Informal, Epistemological Contexts

• Autores: Stanley Kreiter Bezerra Medeiros
• Localización: Principia: an international journal of epistemology, ISSN-e 1808-1711, Vol. 21, Nº. 1, 2017, págs. 61-76
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This paper focuses on elements that are involved in a specific type of judgment, namely, those involving facts that, in virtue of contingent reasons, are out of our epistemic reach. Its goal is to propose a philosophical explanation about why we, in informal contexts, take some facts as contingently unknowable. In order to accomplish that goal, we develop a theory that defines contingently unknowable facts in a very specific way. We establish three clauses that are jointly necessary and sufficient — so we argue — for taking an arbitrary fact as contingently unknowable. In a variety of contexts, this strategy has the potential of reducing efforts in an epistemological analysis of this particular type of unknowability.