Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

A number of philosophers have argued that the concept of knowledge is incoherent in the sense that it is constituted by principles which, if sufficiently pressed, issue in conflicting instructions as to when to apply the term "knows" (see Vogel 1990, Schiffer 1996, Spicer 2008, Weiner 2009). In this talk I assess two sorts of arguments in favour of such Epistemic Incoherence: global and local arguments. The former proceed via a kind of Global Incoherentism (cf. Scharp 2013). The latter proceed via various puzzles and paradoxes concerning knowledge such as the Knower Paradox and Cartesian Scepticism. I argue that neither route provides a convincing case for Epistemic Incoherence.