On Ninan’s Puzzle of Easy Foreknowledge

Abstract The puzzle discussed in this paper, due to Ninan, is a short story that suggests an apparent asymmetry between assertions about the future and assertions about the past. I consider three competing hypotheses about knowledge that might account for the linguistic data highlighted by the story, and I argue that—contrary to Ninan’s diagnosis—the best explanation does not require treating knowledge of the future as significantly different from knowledge of the past.