Belief, Sensitivity and Safety

Abstract

Much recent work on knowledge and skepticism has been concerned with delineating requirements whose satisfaction is supposed to lead to the obtaining of knowledge and thwarting the threat of skepticism. One of these conditions, sensitivity, has been the subject of much discussion, not least because it seems to call into question the principle of closure. In response, some theorists have proposed an alternative requirement, known as the principle of safety, as what a belief requires in order to count as knowledge. Needless to say, both principles have been criticized for a variety of reasons. In this chapter, while focusing mostly on safety, I shall try to evaluate these criticisms by putting a new gloss on these principles. To reinforce the conclusions reached in previous chapters, it will be argued that these principles should be seen, not as stating requirements for knowledge, but rather as giving expression to distinct cognitive goals involving the truth-directed character of belief. Accordingly, while we may then be able to preserve what is plausible about such principles, it will also follow, pace the standard account, that they can coexist because they involve different cognitive tasks.