No Knowledge from Falsehood but from Reflective Knowledge in advance

Some philosophers have claimed that there is knowledge from falsehood (KFF, in short), i.e., inferential knowledge that involves a relevant false premise. The main thesis of this paper is that there are no standard cases of KFF. By ‘standard cases’ we mean cases in which the subject employs a measurement procedure in order to determine the value of some quantity, such as the time or the number of people present in a room. If knowledge is attained at all, it is attained by inference not from a false premise but, instead, from two pieces of reflective knowledge. A brief look at putative non-standard cases of KFF reveals that they can be explained away in a different way, albeit a way that shares a common pattern with standard cases.

Authors

Publication Details

Journal
Thought A Journal of Philosophy
Published
2025-01-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5840/tht2025102853
Primary Topic
Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

No Knowledge from Falsehood but from Reflective Knowledge in advance

Frank Hofmann, Yannick Kohl
Thought A Journal of Philosophy
Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
article

No Knowledge from Falsehood but from Reflective Knowledge in advance

Frank Hofmann, Yannick Kohl
article en

Abstract

Some philosophers have claimed that there is knowledge from falsehood (KFF, in short), i.e., inferential knowledge that involves a relevant false premise. The main thesis of this paper is that there are no standard cases of KFF. By ‘standard cases’ we mean cases in which the subject employs a measurement procedure in order to determine the value of some quantity, such as the time or the number of people present in a room. If knowledge is attained at all, it is attained by inference not from a false premise but, instead, from two pieces of reflective knowledge. A brief look at putative non-standard cases of KFF reveals that they can be explained away in a different way, albeit a way that shares a common pattern with standard cases.

Thought A Journal of Philosophy
Openalex Percentile: Top 70%
Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
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