No Luck With Knowledge?
On a Dogma of Epistemology
Full paper at:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.19331592.2012.00622.x/abstract;jsessionid=E4CDE35A99EEC4A0D27A12B122ECFB87.d02t01
Peter Baumann
Abstract
Current epistemological orthodoxy has it that knowledge is incompatible with
luck. More precisely: Knowledge is incompatible with epistemic luck (of a certain,
interesting kind). This is often treated as a truism which is not even in need of
argumentative support. In this paper, I argue that there is lucky knowledge. In the
first part, I use an intuitive and not very developed notion of luck to show that
there are cases of knowledge which are “lucky” in that sense. In the second part, I
look at philosophical conceptions of luck (modal and probabilistic ones) and come
to the conclusion that knowledge can be lucky in those senses, too. I also turns out
that a probabilistic notion of luck can help us see in what ways a particular piece of
knowledge or belief can be lucky or not lucky.