believe it, then it would be true. My contention is that original set of four Nozick’s conditions is suitable for analysing the development of knowledge in the student, while safety [Nozick (5)] is better reserved for describing the reliability of the Sosa’s knowledge in her field of expertise. teacher’s Let us begin by considering the teacher beliefs in her specialist field, If is t’s F. t reliable in then her beliefs are safe: if she believes that (where is a non-peripheral F, p p part of then is in fact the case. F) p  p F p: Bt p p □→ This captures the idea that a knowledgeable teacher is a reliable epistemic source. The propositions in which she believes, in her area of specialisation, are (largely) true. Furthermore, if she asserts (A) any propositions from her field, these will be true, so learners can thus rely on her testimony. p  F At p: p □→ p However, while notion of safety is a useful one for describing the nature of Sosa’s stable beliefs (such as a teacher might hold) it is not as helpful in analysing the knowledge. When considering learning, we are interested in the learner’s developing genesis and maintenance of beliefs and not just in their safety. In this respect, Sosa’s definition of gives an unfortunate impression about the direction of causation. ‘safety’ Were we to apply it to the learner, we would seem to be implying a causal link between his beliefs and some aspect of the world, in which the cause is his belief, and the effect is becoming the case. It looks like act of believing makes it true, by fiat, as it p s’s p were. This was not intention, but we need to look elsewhere for arguments to Sosa’s quash this interpretation. William Harper offers a rival version to the ‘Ramsey Test’ (the latter being suitable only for analysing indicative conditionals, not subjunctive conditionals such as safety). Sosa’s On this rival account D E □→
believe it, then it would be true. My contention is that Nozick’s original set of four conditions is suitable for analysing the development of knowledge in the student, while Sosa’s safety [Nozick (5)] is better reserved for describing the reliability of the teacher’s knowledge in her field of expertise. Let us begin by considering the teacher t’s beliefs in her specialist field, F. If t is reliable in F, then her beliefs are safe: if she believes that p (where p is a non-peripheral part of F) then p is in fact the case. p  F p: Bt p □→ p This captures the idea that a knowledgeable teacher is a reliable epistemic source. The propositions in which she believes, in her area of specialisation, are (largely) true. Furthermore, if she asserts (A) any propositions from her field, these will be true, so learners can thus rely on her testimony. p  F p: At p □→ p However, while Sosa’s notion of safety is a useful one for describing the nature of stable beliefs (such as a teacher might hold) it is not as helpful in analysing the learner’s developing knowledge. When considering learning, we are interested in the genesis and maintenance of beliefs and not just in their safety. In this respect, Sosa’s definition of ‘safety’ gives an unfortunate impression about the direction of causation. Were we to apply it to the learner, we would seem to be implying a causal link between his beliefs and some aspect of the world, in which the cause is his belief, and the effect is p becoming the case. It looks like s’s act of believing p makes it true, by fiat, as it were. This was not Sosa’s intention, but we need to look elsewhere for arguments to quash this interpretation. William Harper offers a rival version to the ‘Ramsey Test’ (the latter being suitable only for analysing indicative conditionals, not subjunctive conditionals such as Sosa’s safety). On this rival account D □→ E
PhD%20Sean%20FINALL%202011.docx