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You can’t see that you’re not dreaming

(but you know it)
Author

Pablo Ilian Toso Andreu

Supervisor

Sven Rosenkranz
Co-examinadores

Manuel García-Carpintero y Michele Palmira

Facultad de Filosofía

Año 2017
 Contents
_____________________________________________________________________________________

1. Introduction p. 2

2. The Road to Global Skepticism

2.1. The Principle p. 3

2.2. The Challenge p. 5

2.3. A possible Response and an Unexpected Twist p. 7

3. Analysing the Blueprints of the Road

3.1. Dretske’s Strategy p. 9

3.2. What we Left Behind p. 14

3.2.1. Abominable Conjunctions and The Fundamental Rule of Assertion p. 14

3.2.2. Closure and Distribution p. 16

3.2.3. Manifestly Heavyweight Propositions p. 17

4. Reimagining the road –knowing without seeing (that you see) p. 19

Bibliography p. 22

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1. Introduction

Closure, the epistemic principle that says that knowledge is closed under known
entailment, prompts two different arguments: the skeptical argument and Moore’s anti-
skeptical argument. The former concludes that we lack knowledge of ordinary truths
such, as ‘I have hands’, since we cannot know the existence of the external world first.
The latter denies this declaring that, since we know that we have hands, we can prove
the existence of the external world. While the skeptic demands Moore to show how he
knows he has hands, Moore responds that he can know things that he cannot prove. In
either case dialogue between both seems irremediably impossible. Fred Dretske turns
the discussion into another direction: he focuses on closure.
Dretske defends that knowing p is having good reasons to believe that p. But,
were q entailed by p, the reasons to believe that p may not be good reasons to believe
that q as well, even knowing that p implies q. Should this be the case of q, Dretske says
that we would be in front of a heavyweight proposition. Heavyweight propositions are
the things that have to be true for what you know to be true, but that we have no
available way to know them true. Unable to know q, and were q entailed by p, we
cannot know p. The solution, Dretske says, is to reject closure. This is not an anti-
skeptical strategy more than an evasion manoeuvre. In result, we gain knowledge of
ordinary truths, such as ‘I have hands, at the expense of not knowing whether or not the
external world exists. It’s a half victory; still much better than a total defeat.
Nevertheless, John Hawthorne is not compelled by this argument. He fights
Dretske’s proposal alleging that abandoning closure may report more costs that
benefits. First, abandoning the principle forces us to embrace Keith DeRose’s
abominable conjunctions and violates Timothy Williamson’s fundamental rule of
assertion. Second, it moves us to reject another equally compelling argument,
distribution. Hawthorne also analyses Dretske’s explanation of heavyweight
propositions. While Dretske defines what a heavyweight proposition is, Hawthorne
explains how a proposition comes to be manifestly heavyweight. In any case, Hawthorne
does not give a solution to the problem of skepticism either. Yes, it’s true than
abandoning the principle may be epistemically more expensive than expected, but the
moment closure is back on the table, the skeptic’s charge is on again.
I believe that rejecting closure is a mistake. But I don’t share Hawthorne’s
reasons why. If the principle is the best explanation of why deduction is a way of
extending one’s knowledge, why not use it to give an argument capable of refuting the
skeptical conclusion without incurring in Moore’s dogmatism? Dretske’s rejection is
based on the intransmissibillity of reasons. But, while it’s true that reasons to believe
that p may not be reasons to believe that q, if p’s truth entails q’s, why not deduce that q
is the case from the fact that one knows p? This is not to say that the warrants I have for
believing p work as warrants for believing q, but that knowledge of p itself is a warrant
for believing q. If the argument is sound, then we might have won the battle against
global skepticism.
These are the ideas exposed in this paper. In unit 2 (The Road to Global
Skepticism), I expose the epistemic principle of closure (Section 2.1.), and how it
prompts both, the skeptical argument (Section 2.2.) and Moore’s anti-skeptical
argument (Section 2.3.). Next, in unit 3 (Analysing the Blueprints), I examine Dretske’s
analysis of closure and the reasons why he is committed to reject it (Section 3.1.), and
Hawthorne’s response to it (Section 3.2.). Finally in unit 4 (Reimagining the Road), I
present my own anti-skeptical argument that also presupposes closure.

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2. The Road to Global Skepticism

2.1. The Principle

Closure is the epistemic principle that says that knowledge is closed under
known entailment. The schema is the following:

k) If S knows that p, and S knows that necessarily (p ⊃ q), then S knows that q.

The following argument presupposes closure:

I) S knows that p.
II) S knows that (p ⊃ q).
III) ∴ S knows that q.

Although closure presupposes modus ponens, it cannot be reduced to it. The

difference between modus ponens and closure lies in that closure is more demanding.
Through modus ponens one can infer the proposition that q from the proposition that p
and that (p ⊃ q). Modus ponens can only lead you this far. But closure tells you that S
knows that q from the fact that she knows both that p and that p entails q.
This makes closure very appealing. In fact, one of its most interesting aspects is
that it is the best explanation of the fact that deduction from known premises is a way of
knowing1. The question is whether closure is a plausible principle. This is, given two
propositions p and q, is knowledge of p and of (p ⊃ q) sufficient to know q? Consider
this first example:

a1. Luke knows that the transparent liquid in his glass is water.
b1. Luke is aware that if the transparent liquid in Luke’s glass is water, then the
glass he holds contains H2O.
c1. ∴ Luke knows that the glass he holds contains H2O.

Call this argument water. Water is intuitive. Yet one could reply that knowing
that water is H2O requires basic chemistry understanding that one may be lacking.
Although it’s not a fair complaint, it’s worth checking it. What would happen if Luke
didn’t know that ‘water’ and ‘H2O’ are co-referential names? In this scenario there are
two possible solutions: either c1 obtains, or ∼c1:

∼c1. Luke doesn’t know that the glass he holds contains H2O.

Reaching ∼c1 has an easy explanation: unaware of the entailment relation, Luke cannot
deduce from his known premise whether or not the liquid in his glass is H2O. The
question is how Luke manages to get c1? According to k, knowing that (p ⊃ q) is a
sufficient condition to know q. But it’s not a necessary condition. It is conceivable that
Luke could know that the glass he holds contains H2O by other means than deduction.
For example, he could have asked a friend. In any case, the way k is schematized,
leaves no place to this complain.

1 Williamson, Timothy (2000), Knowledge and its Limits, Oxford University Press, p. 117.

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 Yet, what happens when both of conditions are sufficed? What happens when
one knows that p and that (p ⊃ q)? Consider this other case:

a2. Jennifer knows that U2 was in Ciudad Condal last night.

b2. Jennifer knows that whatever takes place in Ciudad Condal, happens in
Spain.
c2. ∴ Jennifer knows that U2 was in Spain last night.

Call this argument Barcelona. Are we warranted to defend Barcelona’s

conclusion? We said that closure explain why deduction is a way of extending one’s
knowledge. But deduction takes cognitive effort. So, it is plausible that one could know
the antecedent and the relevant conditional, and still fail to know the consequent. There
is a chance that Jennifer might had not realized that U2 was in Spain last night. Thus, if
a friend asks her whether she knows that the band was in Spain, she could have
answered negatively.
Now, was Jennifer’s friend essential to know that U2 was in Spain yesterday, or
did she have all that it takes to know it by her self? According to Fred Dretske, “closure
is the epistemological principle that if S knows that p is true and knows that p implies q,
then, evidentially speaking2, this is enough for S to know that q is true”3. The structure
is the following:

c) If a subject S knows that p, and S knows that necessarily (p ⊃ q), then S has
all that it takes, evidentially speaking, to know q.

According to Dretske, having all that it takes, evidentially speaking, means that,
provided the knowledge of p and the knowledge of necessarily (p ⊃ q), nothing else is
needed to know that q. If knowledge is closed under known implication, then, if we
know p, and p implies q, and we are aware of that implication, then no further evidence
is needed. To Dretske, closure presupposes that the reasons I have to know that p, and
that that p implies q, are sufficient reasons to know q as well. For example, the reasons
Jennifer has to know that U2 was in Ciudad Condal yesterday –a TV forecast-, and that
whatever happens in Ciudad Condal happens in Spain –a geography book-, warrant her
to know that U2 was in Spain. This new knowledge is based on the evidence on which
she based knowledge of the premises. From now on, e is the take on closure I’ll be
discussing in what’s left of the paper.
Nevertheless, as we will see in the next section, closure is not only the best
explanation that deduction from known premises is a way of extending one’s
knowledge; it also prompts the skeptical argument. Ordinary knowledge, e.g., ‘I have
hands’, implies knowing that one is in not being massively deceived, e.g., ‘I’m not
dreaming to have hands’. The skeptic rejects deduction from known premises as a way
to know that one is not dreaming. Such attempt would prompt a circular argument and,
therefore, invalid. The skeptic thereby demands that knowing that one is not
dreaming must epistemically precede knowing that one has hands. As there is no
way to independently know this without incurring in circularity, the skeptic concludes
that, for all one knows, one may not have hands. Therefore, one does not know that has
hands. To analyse the structure of the skeptical argument I dedicate the next section.

2The highlight is mine for argumentative purpose.

3Dretske, Fred (2005), Is Knowledge Closed under Known Entailment, In Matthias Steup & Ernest
Sosa (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology. Blackwell. pp. 13-26, p. 13.

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2.2. The Challenge

Consider the following argument:

I. I know I have hands only if I can know I’m not a bodiless brain in a vat
(BIV).
II. I cannot know I’m not a BIV.
III. ∴ I don’t know I have hands.

This is a common example of the skeptical argument. Keith DeRose also calls it
the argument of ignorance (AI). The skeptical argument challenges our knowledge of
ordinary truths by introducing as a condition for this knowledge, having to antecedently
know that one is in no situation –an epistemic bad scenario- that would undermine this
knowledge. In order to understand the strength of the skeptical argument, lets pay
attention to these two components: homely truths and epistemic bad scenarios, and how
they relate to each other.
An everyday truth is a proposition that, in ordinary circumstances and in normal
conversational contexts, one seems warranted to know for sure. For example:

H: I know that I have hands.

H is a common sense truism. It’s a visceral assertion that even questioning or

giving arguments in its favour seems t absurd or irrational. For example, it would be a
quite unexpected irruption of mine if in the middle of a normal conversation I claim
that ‘I know that I have hands’. The people I’m talking to presuppose I know that. And
even if it were a proper locution, unlikely in such context, it would only make sense
were there a real doubt about its truth.
Nevertheless, it is precisely H’s truth what is at stake when considered the
skeptical argument. So, how do we manage to move from one proposition being a
common sense truism in one context into the same proposition being under the
scope of epistemological scrutiny?
H is immediately questioned when measured the possibility of one being in
an epistemic bad scenario. Duncan Pritchard says that an epistemic bad scenario
would be a scenario that is epistemically deficient in some significant way, such that the
agent doesn’t see that p, and hence doesn’t perceptually know that p either, but which is
perceptually and introspectively indistinguishable to a good case scenario.4
For example, picture the BIV hypothesis. All that you perceive is not real.
You’re not a real person, but a bodiless brain wired to a supercomputer that sends
electrical signals to you. This brain (you) interprets the inputs as the things you
daily perceive and live. Even more, nothing in the immediate surrounding leads
you to think that you are living in a dream world. Between the world you daily see
and the world that you would see if you were a BIV there is no significant
difference as to what you see. Thus, were you actually a BIV, you wouldn’t tell that
you are. Both scenes are indistinguishable. Therefore, drawing the line is impossible.
This possibility leads to uncertainty. While your assertion of H is true in the
real world (you are actually perceiving real hands), your assertion of H would not

4 Cfr. Pritchard, Duncan (2012), Epistemological Disjunctivism, Oxford University Press, p. 28.

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be true in the bad scenario (you would only be believing to perceive hands while
actually receiving electrical signals from a supercomputer). Yet, in either case
asserting that H implies knowing:

∼BIV: I’m not a brain in a vat.

The skeptic exploits this entailment. If you are a BIV that asserts H, the assertion
is not true. But if you’re not a BIV and yet assert H, your assertion is unwarranted and
therefore does not constituted knowledge either. Using one’s perception in defence of
the ∼BIV hypothesis incurs in circularity. That would entail rising an argument in
defence of your perceptions’ reliability, which considered the skeptic’s hypothesis gets
immediately under question. This leads into a circle: what ought to be confirmatory (H)
of the object under investigation (∼BIV) needs to be made convincing by the object
under investigation5.
But given closure, didn’t I have all that it takes, evidentially speaking, to know q
when (p ⊃ q) and I know p and also know (p ⊃ q)? What is missing? H is based on
perception; (H ⊃ ∼BIV) is based on perception and a bag of previous beliefs. But
perception is under epistemic scrutiny when the BIV hypothesis is on the table. As one
cannot base H on one’s perceptions unless one has proven the epistemic reliability of
them, the skeptic demands that, in order to justifiably assert that H, one has to
antecedently know ∼BIV.
Now, antecedent knowledge is not about temporal priority; it’s about epistemic
priority. According to Jim Pryor,

“Your justification for believing p1 is antecedent to your justification for believing p2

just in case your reasons for believing p1 do not presuppose or rest on your reasons for
believing p2. Your reasons for believing p1 cannot beg the question whether p2. [Thus]
you count as knowing p1 antecedently to knowing p2 just in case you know p1 and p2,
and the justification on which you base your belief in p1 is antecedent to the
justification on which you base your belief in p2.”6

Now, my reasons for believing that I have two hands rest on my perceiving hands,
presumably pertaining to the external world. Next, my reasons for believing ∼BIV rest
on my believing that what I perceive pertains to the external world. But this belief, -i.e.,
warrants for knowing ∼BIV-, is based on my perceiving objects from the, presumably,
external world, -i.e., warrant for asserting H. As the reasons had for ∼BIV rest on the
reasons had for H, knowledge of ∼BIV is not antecedent to H. The skeptic thus
concludes:

∼H: I do not know that I have two hands.

The result is unwelcome: we lack ordinary knowledge. A way to counteract the

skeptical argument would be alleging that its second premise is false. Next, we’ll
focuses on this argument and why, I think, fails to refute the skeptic’s conclusion.

5 Sextus, Outlines, I, p. 168.

6 Pryor, James, (2000), The Skeptic and the Dogmatist, Blackwell Publishers, p. 525.

6
2.3. A Possible Response and an Unexpected Twist

One way of counteracting the skeptic’s conclusion would be discussing whether

the second premise of his argument is false. This is G. E. Moore’s anti-skeptical
strategy. Consider his reasoning:

1) If I can prove that two hands exist, then I shall have proved that there are
things external to our minds.
2) I have proved that two hands exist.
3) ∴ I have proved that there are things external to our minds.7

The skeptic’s argument and Moore’s share the same logical structure. But they
do not talk about the same things. This difference will be relevant. Both arguments
concern about cognition, yet, whilst the former attends to knowledge, Moore focuses on
evidence. His worry is if we have proofs of the existence of the external world, not
whether we know its existence. And this is a direct response to the skeptic’s second
premise. The skeptical argument does not say that we don’t know that the external
world exists; it says that we cannot know if it does. By giving evidences of its
existence, Moore not only defends that we have proofs that the external world exists,
but also that we can know these evidence. And if we show that we actually can know
that we are not brains in vats, then the skeptic’s conclusion is no longer on the table.
The skeptic’s response is easy to imagine: how do you prove the existence of
hands? Moore appeals to instances of knowledge that claims he and everybody else has,
including the skeptic.

“There are conditions such that any one who fulfilled them might, conceivably, have
'perceived' the 'thing in question - might have seen it, if it was a visible object, have
felt it, if it was a tangible one, have heard it, if it was a sound, have smelt it, if it was a
smell.”8

So if a raise a hand and make a gesture and say, ‘here is one hand’, and then I raise the
other and say, ‘here is another hand’, Moore concludes that I have ipso facto proved that
two objects exist. But did I prove that the hands exist? Three conditions must be
sufficed:

a) The premiss that I adduced as proof of the conclusion has to be different

from the conclusion I adduced it to prove.
b) The premiss that I adduced has to be something that I knew to be the case.
c) The conclusion has to follow from the premiss.9

Are these conditions sufficed? Moore says yes. Raising my hands, making
gestures with them and saying that there are two hands, is in no way the same as
claiming that two external objects exist. The conclusion is different from the premises
(first condition). Next, Moore appeals to common sense. Through gestures and

7 This argument is inspired by Moore’s paper “Proof of an External World”: Moore, G.E. (1939),
Proof of an External World, in: Moore, G.E. (2013), Selected writings, Routledge, pp. 149-170.
8 Ibid. P. 152.
9 Cfr. Ibid. P. 166.

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assertions I have expressed knowledge of there being two hands (second condition).
Moreover, it would be absurd to maintain the skeptic’s worry that I might not knew it,
but only believed it, while perhaps not being the case. Finally, the conclusion follows
from the premises (third condition).
The skeptic is still not compelled though. The absurdity of his claim does not
entail that its impossibility. This possibility is all that the skeptic needs. The question is
still open: How do you know that there are two hands? Unable to prove knowledge of
the premises, you cannot prove the conclusion (second condition).
To me, this is the crux of the matter, the point where it becomes clear that the
difference between the arguments, the skeptic’s and Moore’s, have an important weight
in the discussion. While the skeptic claims that Moore’s argument is question begging,
Moore replies that the question that is supposedly begged is non sequitur. Moore
specifically says:

“What [the skeptic] really wants is not merely a proof of these two propositions, but
something like a general statement as to how any propositions of this sort may be
proved. This, of course, I haven't given; and I do not believe it can be given: if this is
what is meant by proof of the existence of external things, I do not believe that any
proof of the existence of external things is possible.”10

Moore needs not to prove how he knows that there is a hand; he needs to show
he does. To Moore the possibility this knowledge entails (knowledge of the external
world) it’s all that it takes, and it is actually al that the skeptic demands (second premise
of the skeptical argument) to reasonably believe that one is not dreaming. But to the
skeptic the possibility of knowledge does not rule out the possibility of massive
deception. At this point, it seems to me that there is no possible discussion between
them both, and choosing sides is more a matter of conviction than compelling
argumentation.
A possible way out is Fred Dretske’s analysis. Dretske stresses that both
arguments, the skeptic’s and Moore’s, presupposes the same epistemic principle:
closure. Between them both, the only difference that remains is that, while the skeptic
performs a modus tollens, Moore does a modus ponens. But neither of them questions
the principle itself11. By showing closure’s inner mechanism, Dretske points out to
which side the balance falls. Unfortunately, the result leads Dretske to abandon the
principle. I believe this is a mistake (as I will show in 4.). But first, lets pay attention to
Dretske’s analysis of closure and his anti-skeptical proposal.

10Ibid. P. 169.
11Dretske, Fred (1970), Epistemic Operators, In Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 67, Nº 24, pp. 1007-
1023, p. 1011.

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3. Analysing the Blueprints

3.1. Dretske’s Strategy

How does Dretske manage to use closure in the benefit of knowledge without
incurring in an argument unacceptable for the skeptic? Well, he doesn’t. After analysing
closure, Dretske reaches the conclusion that, for the sake of keeping at least some
knowledge, the principle must be abandoned. Between partial knowledge and global
skepticism, the most logical way to go is the former. At the heart of Dretske’s anti-
skeptical strategy there’s not much of a response to skepticism rather than an evasion
manoeuvre. If closure motivates the skeptical argument, and yet fails to do the same
with an equally compelling counterargument, then closure has to go. This way, so
Dretske says, we reassure having knowledge of there being hands at the expense of not
knowing whether they are hallucinatory hands or not.
Dretske starts his argument presenting us with an accusation: not all
propositional attitudes are closed under entailment. For example, consider these two
arguments:

(R) 1) S regrets doing a.

2) a ⊃ b.
3) ∴ S regrets doing b.

(K) 1) S knows that p.

2) S knows that (p ⊃ q).
3) ∴ S knows that q.

(R) is not a valid argument. Say that S regrets having fought with her friend.
Having fought with her friend entails that S has a friend. Does S regret having a friend?
If the conclusion is that she does, then this conclusion does not follow from premise 2.
If S really does regret having a friend, the reason for this regret is something that (R)
fails to capture. If regret is not closed under entailment, why thinking that knowledge
is?
Every time we adopt such and such propositional attitude towards a proposition
we are operating over that proposition. The result is a new proposition. For example,
over the proposition:

s: There is a shark in the water.

I can say:

P: It is possible that there is a shark in the water.

S: It is strange that there is a shark in the water.
B: I believe that there is a shark in the water.

The prefixes used for P, S and B, are three different sentential operators. A
sentential operator, or operator, is a prefix that “when affixed to a sentence or

9
statement, they operate on it to generate another sentence or statement”12 In this
case, we get a proposition about possibility (P), a proposition about oddity (S), and
a proposition about conviction (B). Now, consider f :

f: There is a fish in the water.

According to Dretske, for some operators, if q is a necessary consequence of

p, then the statement we get by operating on q with one operator should be a
necessary consequence of the statement we get by operating on p with the same
operator.

(p ⊃ q) ⊃ [(O)p ⊃ (O)q]

Only when an operator respects this schema, Dretske says we are before a
fully penetrating operator. Consequently, are all operators fully penetrating? Take
the following three propositions. Given (s ⊃ f), which of them should be recognized
as a necessary consequence of P, S and B respectively?

P1: It is possible that there’s a fish is in the water.

S1: It is strange that there’s a fish is in the water.
B1: I believe that there’s a fish is in the water.

Each of the operators used in these propositions penetrates at a different

degree.

a) Is P1 a necessary consequence of P? Yes, it is. If it is possible that there is

a shark in the water, then it is possible that there’s a fish in the water.
There is nothing odd in this supposition. On the contrary, would be odd
not to think about it. Therefore ‘it is possible that’ can be considered as a
fully penetrating operator.
b) Is S1 a necessary consequence of S? No, it’s not. Why from that fact that it
is strange that there is a shark in the water would follow that it is
strange that there’s a fish in the water? Think of the reasons one would
have to assert that it’s strange that there is a shark in the water: there is
a sign at the beach that reads ‘free sharks water’; and local authorities
have informed that it’s practically impossible that there will be a shark-
attack any time soon. Although these are good reasons to believe that it
is strange that there is a shark in the water, they are not good reasons to
believe that it is strange that there’s a fish in the water. In this case ‘it is
strange that’ is a nonpenetrating operator.

But what exactly does it mean that an operator does not penetrate? Dretske
claims that, to know p, one needs to have good reasons to believe that p; where a
good reason to believe that p would be any piece of evidence that

(R) Were p not the case, reasons R would not be a good reasons to believe that p.

12 Ibid. Dretske (1970), p. 1007.

10
 Are the proofs that I have for asserting S good reasons? The evidence
available would have constituted good reasons were s not the case. But s is the
case. So, as the counterfactual condition is not sufficed, the evidence cannot be
counted as such. Nevertheless, they can still count as good reasons for asserting S.
When I assert S I’m expressing my surprise that s is the case. S stresses the
weirdness of how events turned out to be given the evidence at hand. Thereby,
although these proofs were not good reasons to believe ∼s, they can still count as
good reasons to assert S. This is, when we operate over a proposition, when we
adopt such and such propositional attitude, we do so on specific basis. Given two
propositions (p, q), if (p ⊃ q), then operators are penetrating so long the reasons I
have to adopt any particular propositional attitude toward p transmit in such a
way that I can adopt the same propositional attitude toward q. Thus, if ‘it’s strange
that’ were a fully penetrating operator, given that (s ⊃ f), then, given the evidence at
hand, I should be able to adopt the same propositional attitude on f that I do on s;
therefore forming the materially implied pair of propositions (S ⊃ S1). But, while
the proofs I have tell me that it’s strange that there is a shark in the water, those
same proofs do not equally indicate me that it’s strange that there’s a fish in the
water. According to Dretske, operators such as ‘it is strange that’ are victims of
what he calls to be the intransmissibillity of reasons.
How does the intransmissibillity of reasons affect knowledge? When I say of
a proposition (p) that ‘I know that p’, that ‘I believe that p’, or that ‘I have reasons
to think that p is true’, I’m epistemically operating over p13. Within the spectrum of
fully penetrating operators and nonpenetrating operators, Dretske says that
epistemic operators stand in between. Epistemic operators penetrate only to some
of p’s consequence, not all of them. For example, epistemic operators find no
problem in functioning alike in both, antecedent and consequent, in most of the
examples given so far in this paper:

a1) Luke knows/believes/has reasons to think that if the liquid in his glass
is water (p), then the glass he holds contains H2O (q).
b1)Luke knows/believes/has reasons to think that the liquid in his glass is
water (p).
c1) ∴ Luke knows/believes/has reasons to think that the glass he holds
contains H2O (q).

a2) Jennifer knows/believes/has reasons to think that whatever takes place

in Ciudad Condal (p), happens in Spain (q).
b2)Jennifer knows/believes/has reasons to think that U2 gave a concert in
Ciudad CondaI (p).
c2) ∴ Jennifer knows/believes/ has reasons to think that U2 was in Spain
(q).

13 For the sake of the argument, I’m treating these epistemic operators alike. I do not wish to
entrance in the psychology of each one, nor their modal status. We can all agree that knowledge is
modally and psychologically stronger that beliefs, and that beliefs is modally and psychologically
stronger that mere thinking. If what I want to show works for knowledge, it should also work for
belief and mere thinking.

11
For each argument, the evidence the agent has to know/believe/think that the
antecedent (p) is true and that (p ⊃ q) is true too, also serves the agent to
know/believe/think that the consequent is true as well (q). Apparently, John, Luke
and Jennifer have all that it takes, evidentially speaking, to know (q). This well
functioning of epistemic operators prompts closure:

e) If a subject S knows that p, and S knows that necessarily (p ⊃ q), then S has
all that it takes, evidentially speaking, to know q.

The problem with e, the problem that Dretske denounces closure has, is that
the principle ignores that epistemic operators do only penetrates to some of p’s
consequence, not all of them. Closure assumes that, “the epistemic worth of a
proposition is hereditary under entailment, that whatever the epistemic worth of
p, at least the same value must be accorded to known consequences of p”14 .
Dretske calls this the Thesis of penetrability. The thesis of penetrability relies on
transmissibility of reasons. But there’s a very specific set of propositions implied by
p to which epistemic operators do not penetrate, to which the transmissibility of
reasons fails. These propositions are what Dretske calls the heavyweight
implications of p15. For example:

a3) Claudia knows/believes/has reasons to think that the animals in the pen
are zebras (p).
b3)Claudia knows/believes/has reasons to think that if the animals in the
pen are zebras (p), then they are not cleverly painted mules to look like
zebras (q).
c3) ∴ Claudia knows/believes/has reasons to think that the animals in the
pen are not mules cleverly painted to look like zebras (q).

According to closure premisses a3 and b3 are enough, evidentially speaking,

to know/believe/think that c3 is true. What reasons does Claudia have to
know/believe/think that a3 and b3 are true?

(R1) to know/believe/think a3: the sing reads ‘zebras’.

(R2) to know/believe/think b3: quadruped stripes equines are zebras.

Given Dretske’s definition of what good reasons are neither R1 nor R2 are good
reasons to know/believe/think that c3 is true. If the animals in the pen were
cleverly painted mules, R1 and R2 would still lead me to know/believe/think that
they are zebras. As R1 and R2 fail to transmit, operators know/believe/think that do
not penetrate to q; q is not part of what is operated on when Claudia operates on p.
In this case, q is apparently a heavyweight implication of p. But a quick reading on
Dretske’s definition of the heavyweight implications, shows that the propositions
‘the animals in the pen are not cleverly painted mules’ (q) is not one of them.
According to Dretske, heavyweight implications are the things that have to be
true for what you know to be true, but that we have no available way to come to know

14 Ibid. P. 2011.
15 Dretske (2005), Ibid. p. 20.

12
that they are true16. This is not true for (q). Even though the reasons Claudia has to
know/believe/think that p and that (p ⊃ q) is true do not transmit to q, She can still
know q independently: Claudia can ask the local authorities whether those seemingly
zebras are not actually cleverly painted mules; she can get close to the fence and see
whether those specimens are painted or not, etc. There are a number of ways in which
Claudia can come to know that q. This is of importance, because it establishes that
although her knowledge/belief/though of p and that (p ⊃ q) fails to give her all that it
takes, evidentially speaking, to know/believe/think that q, she can still come to
know/believe/think that q by other means. And since closure only establishes that
knowledge of the necessary entailment relation is a sufficient condition to know q, the
fact that Claudia can know q independently shows that this particular example does not
challenge the principle, nor her knowledge of p. It also shows how the
intransmissibillity of reasons works. The skeptical argument exploits this.
The skeptic adopts the thesis of penetrability that ensures closure adducing that:

“If S does not know whether q is true or not, thus for all he knows it might be
false. If q is false, however, and p cannot be true unless q is true, then p must also
be false. Hence, for all S knows, p may be false. Therefore, S does not know that p
is true.”17

Every proposition that is based on perception implies some heavyweight

presupposition that perception along cannot prove to be true. But in this case, we have
no other independent way to come to know that this presupposition is true or not. This
is what prompts the skeptical argument. Ordinary things we come to know/believe/think
that are true by perception, e.g., ‘I have hands’, imply the negation of one being
massively deceived in an undetectable way. But perception cannot tell me whether I’m
being massively deceived or not. And there are no other ways to come to know them
false. If for all I know I can be deceived, and if I cannot assert knowledge of there being
hands unless I can know that I’m not deceived, then for all I know that there are hands
may be false. Therefore, I don’t know that I have hands. Reasons fail to transmit,
operators fails to penetrate, knowledge does not obtain.
The solution is the next: we have to abandon the thesis of penetrability. Reasons
do fail to transmit in particular cases, those cases that imply heavyweight propositions.
Instead of following the skeptic and accept that we don’t know ordinary things based on
perceptions, we have to accept that perception can grant knowledge of ordinary things.
What we have to reject is the idea that perceptions can grant knowledge that perceptions
are working well. For all I know, my eyes are working properly and they are seeing a
pair of hands. Whether my eyes are working properly that’s not a thing that my eyes can
prove. But neither is a thing that I need to know to know that they see a pair of hands.
Partial knowledge is much better than no knowledge at all.
Reasons may fail to transmit, epistemic operators do not always penetrate and
the epistemic worth of a proposition is not hereditary under known entailment. Dretske
is final: closure has to go.

16 Ibid. P. 14.
17 Dretske (1970), Ibid. P. 1011.

13
3.2. What We Left Behind

Dretske gives a compelling argument against closure. Were closure in a balance,

it would fall on the skeptic’s side. As radical skepticism is unacceptable, closure has to
go. That way, we gain the right to assert knowledge of ordinary truths. In turn, we
accept that there are chunk of epistemic possibilities, which although its truth are
implied by our everyday truths, remain out of the range of our cognitive capacities: the
heavyweight propositions. Yet, Dretske’s is not an argument against skepticism. Rather,
it is an evasion manoeuvre. The skeptical threat is on again the moment closure is back
on the table. But this manoeuvre is not cost free. And for some, that cost is too high.
John Hawthorne is of this opinion: we cannot get rid of closure without either
abandoning other equally compelling principle or incurring in the incoherence or both.
At this respect, Dretske’s proposal faces three important obstacles:

I) Keith DeRose’s abominable conjunctions and Timothy Williamson’s

fundamental rule of assertion
II) Closure and the distribution principle
III) Manifestly heavyweight propositions

In what follows, we’re going to pay attention to these obstacles and decide whether
Dretske’s proposal is or is not worth the cost.

3.2.1. Abominable Conjunctions and The Fundamental Rule of Assertion

According to Dretske, the skeptic’s mistake is supposing that you can know that
you have hands only if you also know that you’re not a BIV. The strategy is to deny this
supposition (first premise of the skeptical argument). As a result we get a very
confusing conjunction:

1. ‘I don’t know that I’m not a bodiless handless brain in a vat, but I know that I
have hands.’

Yet, given the analysis Dretske gives, there’s seems to be no contradiction. I

have a perception (my seeing hands) that warrants my asserting that I have hands. This
perception entails a presupposition, to which I’m epistemically aware, that I’m in no
way to know whether or not it’s true: ‘I’m not a BIV only seemingly to believe that he
has hands’. No problem. Since I rejected closure, on the basis of intransmissibillity of
reasons and, thus, impenetrability of epistemic operators, I can conclude that I know
that I have hands without knowing whether or not I’m a bodiless brain in a vat.
It’s a half-won victory. Still, much better that a total defeat. I gain knowledge of
something quite ordinary, (my having hands!), although at the expense of not knowing
something (maybe only seemingly) even more basic (my having a body!). Keith
DeRose highlights the cost of this half victory. While this account, he says, “does quite
well on the relevant particular intuition regarding what is and isn’t known, it yields an
intuitively bizarre result on the comparative judgement the first premise [of the

14
skeptical argument] embodies”18. As a result, anyone disposed to reject closure seems
to find himself embracing such abominable conjunction. Why abominable? At best,
they sound paradoxical, and at worst, absurd.
Now, these abominable conjunctions are reminiscence of what is known as the
Moore’s paradox. Consider the following conjunction:

2. p, but I don’t know that p.

At first, (2) seems self-contradictory (p ∩ ∼p). But that formalization would be

extremely wrong. (2) it’s a consistent conjunction, for the conjuncts do not refer to the
same thing: on the one hand, we have the fact that p; on the other, my cognitive relation
toward this fact. P can be true without my knowing it. You can notice this by changing
the first person subject into a third person subject.

3. p, but S does not know that p.

Therefore, why the apparently incorrectness of 2 isn’t 3’s? Consider this

example: a theist, a scientist and an epistemologist are discussing whether or not God
exists. The theist claims that:

g: God exists.

On the contrary, the scientist asserts that:

∼g: God does not exist.

Parallel to the discussion, yet not in the discussion, the epistemologist denounces:

k: Neither knows whether (g ∪ ∼g).

Would either the theist or the scientist defend himself by saying that he was not
asserting knowledge? Neither g nor ∼g refers the agent’s cognitive relation explicitly.
Nor they have to. They do so implicitly. The rules of the discussion, rules to which we
are subsumed the moment we participate in it, demands that assertions of the like must
be justified. To the audience and participants, asserting g implies that the theist knows
that g. Contrariwise, asserting ∼g implies that the scientist knows that ∼g. To this matter,
knowledge warrants assertion. That is why the epistemologist can stress that neither the
theist nor the scientist knows that g or ∼g.
Such idea follows Timothy Williamson’s fundamental rule of assertion:

(Rule of Assertion): One must: assert that p only if one knows that p.19

So when Dretske is saying that he knows that he has hands, but he does not
know that he’s not a BIV, we can assume that something similar is happening. This is
why Hawthorne claims that, if were anyone considering asserting something like (1), he

18 DeRose, Keith (1995), Solving the Skeptical Problem, In: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 104, No. 1,
pp. 1-52, p. 30.
19 Williamson, Timothy (2000), Knowledge and its Limits, Oxford University Press, p. 243.

15
would fall into the ridiculous20. Dretske must admit that even if we gain the right to
assert knowledge of ordinary truths, rejecting closure diminishes the rigorosity of the
assertion in the first place.

3.2.2. Closure and the Distribution Principle

Denying closure does not only problematize assumed conversational rules, it

also entails the rejection of another epistemic principle: distribution.
Hawthorne invites us to consider the Equivalence principle21:

(Equivalence Principle) If S knows a priori (with certinty) that (p ≡ q) and knows

p, and competently deduces q from p while retaining
knowledge of p, S knows q.

We’ve seen in the last section that to Dretske, knowing that p means having
good reasons to believe that p. We’ve also seen that having such good reasons means
that, given any piece of evidence (E) that would support a belief that p is the case, E
would not constitute a reason (R) to believe that p, were p not the case. As Dretske’s
conception of knowledge is sensitive, his whole idea of rejecting closure passes on
accepting that even if (p ⊃ q) is true, R may be sensitive to p and still not to q. For
example, the reasons to believe that the animals in the pen are zebras are not reasons to
believe that they are not cleverly painted mules. Therefore, even if one’s truth implies
the other’s, my reasons to believe the former are not to believe the latter.
But, were p and q equivalent, Dretske could not deny that R is sensitive to both.
It would be contradictory to say that S knows that (p ≡ q) and yet, that (R) is sensitive to
p and still not to q.
Hawthorne compromises Dretske’s proposal even more when contemplating the
Distribution principle22:

(Distribution Principle) If S knows that (p ∩ q), then as long as S is able to deduce p, S

is in a position to know that p (and as long one is able to
deduce q, one is in a position to know q).

As Hawthorne says, denying distribution seems counterintuitive. And yet

Dretske is committed to deny the principle. Hawthorne uses Dretske’s own example:
suppose you know for such and such reason that z is a zebra. The proposition that z is a
zebra is a priori equivalent to the proposition:

z is a zebra and ∼z is a cleverly painted mule to look like a zebra.

By equivalence one knows that conjunction. And supposing distribution one is in a

position to know:

20 Cfr. Hawthorne, John (2005), The case for Closure, In Matthias Steup & Ernest Sosa (eds.),
Contemporary Debates in Epistemology. Blackwell, p. 32.
21 Ibid. P. 31.
22 Ibid.

16
 ∼z is a cleverly painted mule to look like a zebra.

But wasn’t Dretske’s motive to deny closure that we cannot know this type of
propositions? As Hawthorne himself points out, this is not a definitive proof that
Dretske’s proposal is wrong. But it does show that, were we to measure the ratio of
costs and benefits of the strategy, we’d see that we might lose more than we may gain.
“And it must surely be reckoned a significant cost of Dretske’s view that he must
eschew distribution”23.

3.2.3. Manifestly Heavyweight Propositions

So far, rejecting closure entails, 1) losing credibility on the assertion of the

knowledge we just gain, and 2) dumping another equally compelling principle,
distribution.
Finally, one interesting aspects that can be criticised of Dretske’s proposal is the
very definition of heavyweight propositions. Recall: a heavyweight proposition is a
proposition which truth is implied by p and that it has to be true for p to be true, but that
we have no available way to come to know that it is true. Dretske says what a
heavyweight proposition is; Hawthorne, otherwise, explains how a proposition comes to
be manifestly heavyweight. A proposition shows to be manifestly heavyweight if it
generates immediate epistemic doubt24. Unlike Dretske, Hawthorne doesn’t say that we
have no available way to come to know them true or not; he is defending that a
propositions that makes us immediately doubt about its true is manifestly heavyweight.
So, what does it mean that a proposition generates immediate epistemic doubt?
Imagine you are a senseless person regarding temperatures, and that the only way in
which you can know your house’s, is by using a thermostat. According to the thermostat
the temperature is 25º degrees. On this basis you believe that the temperature in your
house is 25º degrees. As you cannot sense temperatures, if you were to start doubting
whether the temperature really is 25º degrees, you’d have to previously questioned the
device’s well functioning. Your suspicion about whether the temperature is actually the
one marked by the thermostat derives from your epistemically previous reservation
regarding its well functioning. Parallel, something similar happens with your belief that
you have hands. You don’t originally doubt of your having hands; you doubt of your
possibly being a BIV. Whether you have hands or not comes after, epistemically
speaking.
Considering Jim Pryor’s formulation of antecedently justification and
antecedently knowledge, we can define antecedent epistemic doubt as follows:

(Antecedent Doubt) Your doubt of whether or not q is antecedent to your doubt of whether or
not p, just in case the reasons you have to question q do not presuppose or
rest on your reasons to question p.

Consequently, we can define derivative epistemic doubt as:

23 Ibid. P. 32.
24 Ibid. P. 33.

17
(Derivative doubt) Given two propositions, p and q, your doubt of whether or not q is
epistemically derivative of your doubt of whether or not p, just in
case, your reasons to question q comes from your having
antecedently questioned p.

With these two definitions, we can deduce that an immediate epistemic doubt is:

(Immediate Doubt) Given a specific topic T, p is an immediate doubt regarding T only

if, 1) p is antecedent to question qn about T; and, 2) qn derives
from p.

Given this definition of immediate epistemic doubt, we can try to undercut our
apparently impossible to know heavyweight propositions. By seeing which conditions
are sufficient for the emergence of manifestly heavyweight propositions, we can look
whether the questions that give them place are justified in the first place. I’ve reserved
the last section of this paper to solve this quarrel.

18
4. Reimagining the Road –knowing without seeing (that you see)

Alongside Hawthorne, I don’t want to give up closure either. In fact, I believe

it’s a mistake. Recall the schema:

e) If an agent S knows that p, and S knows that necessarily (p ⊃ q), then S has all
that it takes, evidentially speaking, to know q.

Dretske rejects this principle on the basis that reasons for believing p fail to
count (do not transmit) as reasons for believing q when q is a heavyweight proposition
of p. The idea seems undeniably true. Of course, I may have reasons for believing that:

a. Tomorrow I will get a raise.

b. I forgot to brush my teeth last night.

c. I have Goosebumps every time it’s cold.

But none of the reasons for believing said propositions are good reasons for believing
that:

a*. The world won’t end tonight.

b*. The world didn’t come into existence when I was allegedly asleep.

c*. I’m not a bodiless entity wrongly believing to have a body.

But, why choose abandoning closure? Why choose rejecting the best explanation that
deduction from known premises is a way of extending one’s knowledge? Peter D. Klein
has put forward a clever argument in defence of closure called Modus Ponens
Fallibilism25. According to Klein,

“The truth of [closure] does not depend upon whether the evidence which confirms
the antecedent in an entailment for S also confirms the consequent in the entailment
for S, but, rather, upon whether whenever there is evidence which confirms the
consequent. [Closure] does not require that the evidence which confirms the
consequent must be the very same evidence which confirms the antecedent.”26

My idea, and Klein’s, is that when (p ⊃ q), and we know that p and that (p ⊃ q),
knowledge of p is a reason for believing q. This is not to say that the evidence I have for
believing p works as evidence for believing q, but that knowledge of p itself is an
evidence for believing q! And this seems even more plausible considering that q is p’s
heavyweight implication. If we are willing to consider that ∼q may be the case, since ∼q
implies ∼p, we neutralize knowledge of p in the first place. Remember Dretske’s zebra
case (Section 3.1.). Dretske is willing to assert knowledge of the animals being zebras,

25 Cohen, Stewart (1999), Contextualism, Skepticism, and the Structure of Reason, In Philosophical
Perspective, 13, Epistemology, pp. 57-89. P. 64.
26 Klein, Peter D. (1981), Certainty, a refutation of Skepticism, University of Minnesota Press, p. 32.

19
while refusing to allow that they’re not cleverly painted mules. But, as Klein shows,
that’s contradictory. Accepting that the animals in the pen may be cleverly painted
mules challenges the knowledge of they being zebras to begin with, especially if one
knows that the latter entails the former. Also, the evidence Dretske has to believe it gets
questioned too. Therefore, if the support for knowing p has been nullified, then anything
evidentially dependent upon that support gets invalidated as well. If knowledge of p
could not be used to confirm q, when q is a heavyweight proposition implied by p,
implication of which we are aware, that’s because p itself has been undermined!
Instead of rejecting closure, we take that knowledge of p warrants one to know
q. First, it’s a fact that if p entails q, if ∼q then ∼p. That’s modus tollens right there.
Second, granting that knowledge is factive, if one knows that p, and one knows that (p ⊃
q), one knows that ∼q cannot be the case. Otherwise, p wouldn’t be the case and one
wouldn’t know p.
Yet, how do you know that you know that p? Klein says that, when one has
better reasons for believing p than for believing its contradictory (∼p), then p provides
us with a better reason for believing q rather than ∼q27. This argument presupposes
Klein’s idea of plausibility:

“A proposition is plausible if and only if it is epistemically more reasonable to believe

it rather than its negative. Consequently, a proposition would have shown to be
implausible if a sound argument had been produced which demonstrate that it is more
reasonably to believe the negative of the proposition than to believe it.”28

So, what determines what is epistemically reasonably? Recall the thermostat

example given in the last section. Imagine a person S who is senseless regarding
temperatures. S can only know the temperature in his house by using a thermostat. So,
when the device marks ‘25º’ in the screen, S knows that the temperature is 25 degrees. I
believe this example captures our own cognitive relation toward the world. Just like S,
we are very limited when knowing the facts, and just like S we can only ‘know’ them in
a unique fashionable way that cannot tell us by itself whether or not it’s epistemically
effective. But the thermostat example also brings us a direct insight of what I believe
undermines the skeptic’s demands.
If the thermostat were the only way S can know the temperature in the house,
under which circumstances would she start questioning its well functioning? Imagine
that the temperature marked in the thermostat (25º) were not the one that actually is
(30º). And imagine that the temperature outside the house is 10º. While walking around
the house, S sees that the window’s crystals are fogged. Plus, when a friend comes to
visit her, he sweats a lot. Only after witnessing these signs, S is justified in questioning
if the thermostat is malfunctioning.
Does the skeptic do the same? Is his question grounded on any evidence? The
skeptic would reply that giving such evidence is impossible. Being in an epistemic bad
scenario is perceptually and introspectively indistinguishable from being in a good
scenario. But this inability to prove that one is in an epistemic bad scenario doesn’t rule
out the possibility on being in one. This possibility is the justification needed for raising
the question. Again, S’s doubt makes sense provided the signs that indicate a credible
mismatch between the facts and the fact as represented to be by S’s cognitive device.
The skeptic seems to have none of these.

27 Ibid. P. 213.
28 Ibid. P. 211.

20
 The skeptic can still ask how do you know you know the facts? It’s a difficult
question. Arguing that one knows that knows p requires,

1) Evidence that justifies knowing that p.

2) Evidence that justifies the claim that one has evidence for knowing that p.

According to Klein, “only those who have examined the arguments for scepticism and
found them to be inadequate know that they know that p”29.
In section 2.2, I said that one’s justification for believing p is antecedent to one’s
justification for believing q in case one’s reasons for believing p do not presuppose or
rest on one’s reasons for believing q. Consequently, “a warrant is immediate when it’s
not constituted by warrants to believe or doxastically accept other things”30. If we grant
that our sense experiences are an immediate warrant for some perceptual beliefs, as
Pryor does, then we can assume that we are reasonable justified that those beliefs are
true. When the skeptic asks us, ‘how do you know you’re not a BIV?’ the
immediateness of these experiences get nullified. Is this question which makes appears
manifestly heavyweight propositions. But the skeptic demands for a kind of justification
we cannot give, a warrant that would be even more immediate that the immediateness of
our experience. But on what basis the skeptic does this? The immediateness of our
experience is phenomenologically based. But the skeptic lacks immediate justification
for his assertion. His warrants is his assertion.
As the skeptic cannot assert his question justifiably, I take that the
immediateness of my experience warrants me in believing I have hands. If my having
hands presupposes that I’m not a BIV, then my knowing that I have hands, and my
knowing that if I have hands then I’m not a BIV, warrants me in believing I’m not a
BIV. I might not see that I see. But I know it.

29 Ibid. P. 216.
30 Pryor, Jim (2012), When Warrants transmit.

21
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22