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SENSITIVITY AND CLOSURE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2014

Mark McBride
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Abstract

John Hawthorne has two forceful arguments in favour of:

Single-Premise Closure (SPC) Necessarily, if S knows p, competently deduces q from p, and thereby comes to believe q, while retaining knowledge of p throughout, then S knows q.

Each of Hawthorne's arguments rests on an intuitively appealing principle which Hawthorne calls the Equivalence Principle. I show, however, that the opponents of SPC with whom he's engaging - namely Fred Dretske and Robert Nozick - have independent reason to reject this principle, and resultantly conclude that Hawthorne's arguments in favour of SPC are not knock-down.

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Articles
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Episteme , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 181 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

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