Clarity about concessive knowledge attributions

reply to Dodd

Trent Dougherty

Patrick Rysiew

pp. 395-403

in: Synthese 181 (3), 2011.

Abstract

Recently, Dylan Dodd (this Journal) has tried to clear up what he takes to be some of the many confusions surrounding concessive knowledge attributions (CKAs)—i.e., utterances of the form “S knows that p, but it’s possible that q” (where q entails not-p) (Rysiew, Noûs 35(4): 477–514, 2001). Here, we respond to the criticisms Dodd offers of the account of the semantics and the sometime-infelicity of CKAs we have given (Dougherty and Rysiew, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78(1): 121–132, 2009), showing both how Dodd misunderstands certain central features of that view and how the latter can, pace Dodd, be naturally extended to explain the oddity of those “For all I know” statements to which Dodd draws attention.

Cited authors

Dodd Dylan