Description
Many epistemological theories are built on possible world semantics, and thus identify all necessary propositions. Therefore, they cannot account for hyperintensional contexts, in which necessarily equivalent propositions should not be identified. For example, contexts in which knowledge of mathematical or logical truths is precisely what's at stake, perhaps because one wants to establish whether a student knows a particular mathematical theorem, cannot be adequately accounted for by epistemological theories that cannot make hyperintensional distinctions.In this talk I want to zoom in on relevant alternatives theories (RAT) of knowledge, and more specifically on David Lewis's version of RAT. According to RAT, a subject knows that A iff the subject's evidence eliminates all alternatives to A that are relevant in the context. In this paper, I present a hyperintensional version of Lewis's RAT in the framework of Kit Fine's exact truthmaker semantics. This will involve, first of all, a hyperintensional account of the elimination of alternatives by the evidence, in terms of exact exclusion. Secondly, this will involve hyperintensional versions of Lewis's rules that determine which alternatives are contextually relevant.
On a more exploratory note, I want to zoom out again to general epistemology, and briefly address some grand issues, namely how to respond to Gettier and how to account for evidence in a hyperintensional setting.
| Period | 24 Nov 2018 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Exploring Hyperintensional Semantics |
| Event type | Workshop |
| Location | Utrecht, NetherlandsShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |