Assurance: An Austinian view of Knowledge and Knowledge Claims

240 Pages·2013·1.615 MB·English

by  Krista Lawlor

Assurance
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Assurance
An Austinian View of Knowledge
and Knowledge Claims
Krista Lawlor
1
3
GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,ox26dp,
UnitedKingdom
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To my son, Ian
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Contents
Introduction 1
1 Thespeechactofassurance 9
2 Austiniansemantics 54
3 Austiniansemanticsandlinguisticdata 80
4 Paradox,probability,andinductiveknowledge 117
5 Idiosyncrasy,disagreement,andthereasonablepersonstandard 151
6 Assuranceandradicalskepticism 189
Bibliography 219
Index 227
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Introduction
We are asking ourselves: what do we do with a statement
‘I know...’?...And that is how one must decide whether some-
thingisknowledgeornot.
Wittgenstein(1969,}230)
Thereareagreatmanydevicesthatcanbeusedformakingclear...
whatactitisweareperformingwhenwesaysomething—toneof
voice,cadence,gesture—andaboveallwecanrelyuponthenature
of the circumstances, the context in which the utterance used...
Still,in spite of allthese devices thereis anunfortunate amount of
ambiguity...IfIsaysomethinglike‘Ishallbethere’,itmaynotbe
certain whether it is a promise, or an expression of intention or
perhapsevenaforecastofmyfuturebehavior...anditmaymatter
agooddeal...preciselywhichofthesethingsitis.Andthatiswhy
the explicit performative verb is evolved—to make clear exactly
whichitis,howfaritcommitsmeandinwhatwayandsoforth.
Austin(1979a)
Wittgenstein and Austin both advise us to start our study of knowledge
with knowledge claims, beginning with what one does when one says
‘Iknow...’.Whatisitthatonedoeswithsuchstatements?
Thesimpleansweris—oneclaimstoknowsomething.1Butclaimingto
know is more than making a report about one’s epistemic position. In
claimingtoknow,oneoffersone’sassurancetoothers.Whenoneclaims
to know that one’s phone is working again after the outage or that the
1 Onecanofcoursesaymanythingswith‘Iknow’,notalloftheminvolvingaclaimto
know.Forinstance,onecangiveencouragementtoalistener,orindicateboredom(‘Iknow,
Iknow...’).I’llbefocusingoncasesinwhichoneuses‘Iknow’togiveanexplicitassurance,
and‘Heknows’tocommunicateinformationaboutwhohasassurance-givingpower.