<p>According to strong verificationism, all truths are known. According to weak verificationism, all truths are knowable. That strong verificationism entails weak verificationism is unsurprising – if all truths are known, then all truths are knowable. That weak verificationism entails strong verificationism, however, is surprising – how could it be that if all truths are knowable, then all truths are in fact known? The collapse of weak verificationism into strong verificationism is at the core of Fitch’s Paradox. Typically, this paradox is taken to suggest that all forms of verificationism must be rejected. But abstractly, the lesson seems to be more general: Given certain properties of a modal operator, the modally qualified weakened form of a principle is not always more defensible than its corresponding strengthened form. The aim of this paper is to apply this lesson and show that Fitch’s Paradox bears on a range of epistemological principles, with a particular focus on closure.</p>

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Fitch’s Paradox Beyond Verificationism: On a Puzzle for Closure and Some Modally Qualified Principles

  • Sebastian Liu

摘要

According to strong verificationism, all truths are known. According to weak verificationism, all truths are knowable. That strong verificationism entails weak verificationism is unsurprising – if all truths are known, then all truths are knowable. That weak verificationism entails strong verificationism, however, is surprising – how could it be that if all truths are knowable, then all truths are in fact known? The collapse of weak verificationism into strong verificationism is at the core of Fitch’s Paradox. Typically, this paradox is taken to suggest that all forms of verificationism must be rejected. But abstractly, the lesson seems to be more general: Given certain properties of a modal operator, the modally qualified weakened form of a principle is not always more defensible than its corresponding strengthened form. The aim of this paper is to apply this lesson and show that Fitch’s Paradox bears on a range of epistemological principles, with a particular focus on closure.