Fake Barns and Our Epistemological Theorizing
- 1 Universidad de Murcia. Departamento de Filosofía
ISSN: 0011-1503
Año de publicación: 2018
Volumen: 50
Número: 148
Páginas: 29-53
Tipo: Artículo
Otras publicaciones en: Crítica: revista hispanoamericana de filosofía
Objetivos de desarrollo sostenible
Resumen
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 intuitions elicited by the thought experiment. As a result, the relationship between knowledge, luck and ability is illuminated, and our epistemological theorizing improved.