Knowledge, Stakes and Error

We are all competent in the usage of the term "knows". For instance, we regularly say things like "Hannah knows that we are coming" or "I don't know if this is going to work out". Making sense of this usage though turns out to be exceedingly difficult. One phenomenon stands out in the debate as particularly hard to explain: Our willingness to ascribe knowledge depends not just on familiar features such as how much evidence the putative knower has or whether she truly believes what she putatively knows. Whether we ascribe knowledge also depends on practical and conversational factors such as how much is at stake and which error-possibilities we happen to take seriously. This book provides an extensive overview of the relevant data from both armchair and experimental philosophy. On that basis, it discusses a class of candidate accounts collectively referred to as insensitivism. A novel insensitive account is offered that brings to bear results from cognitive psychology.