Seth’s Reviews > Epistemology: An Anthology > Status Update
Seth
is on page 283 of 944
Nozick grants the skeptic that the nature of the actual world is uncertain, then proceeds to define knowledge with reference to the actual world. Seems to me there are two ways to understand this apparent self-own. There's the silly way, which privileges hypotheses and makes it theoretically possible to 'know' that one is a brain in a vat. (Cont'd in comments.)
— Nov 30, 2021 01:13AM
Like flag
Seth’s Previous Updates
Seth
is on page 475 of 944
Greco's version of VE would consider victims of an evil deceiver to have the same epistemic status as people who countenance a norm of forming beliefs according to anti-induction. Seems sus.
— Nov 03, 2025 08:32PM
Comments Showing 1-4 of 4 (4 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Seth
(new)
-
added it
Nov 30, 2021 02:31AM
Then there's the slightly silly way, where by 'actual world', Nozick means the class of possible worlds that are consistent with empirical observations, and Nozick is obfuscating his own point for no discernible reason.
reply
|
flag
(I do admittedly have a few more pages to go in this paper, but I've at least skimmed them, and hold no hope that they will address my complaint.)
Hm, and there's a further problem for Nozick: Whence the certainty that the skeptic must assume that knowledge is closed under implication? Nozick assumes the starting point must be "I do not know that I am not in a brain in a vat", but "It may be true that I am a brain in a vat" is all that's really needed to undermine "It is true that I am typing on a keyboard", which in turn undermines "I know that I am typing on a keyboard."
I tell you, nothing makes me more skeptical than annoyingly bad refutations of skepticism, and sadly, there's no shortage of those to go around.
